New book publication on “Global collaboration, local production”

Fab City as a model for the circular economy and sustainable development

This open access book provides current, interdisciplinary research insights into the Fab City concept, which promotes global collaboration and local, decentralised production with the help of open source technologies (open source software and hardware).

The aim is to create the most sustainable production and value creation possible:

Ecologically sustainable by avoiding long transport routes and closing local material cycles on the basis of recycling principles.

Economically sustainable by avoiding restrictions on competition through open-source technologies and dependencies through federated approaches.

Socially sustainable through a participatory value creation system in which access to knowledge, expertise and means of production is unrestricted.

The bilingual work contains contributions on:

» Citizen & Collaborative Innovation and Design,
» Circular Design & Economy,
» Open-Source Software Tools for Open Source Hardware Development,
» Digital Product Passport, Federated (Open-Source) Systems,
» Open Source Hardware Dissemination,
» Technical Literacy, and Economic Governance.

Experts such as Prof. Neil Gershenfeld (Director, The Center for Bits and Atoms MIT) and Tomas Diez (Founding partner and executive director of the Fab City Foundation) emphasise the importance and opportunities of these technologies for sustainable production.