Prototype Fund Hardware

Stuck housings, no spare parts, planned obsolescence as well as an unfair distribution of knowledge and infrastructure: technology has always been a question of power and has a major impact on our environment. In recent decades, production has become increasingly global. Consumers hardly get any information about the devices they purchase and use on a daily basis. This gives rise to dependencies and the question of who really owns the smartphone or car. Supporting pioneers and civil society communities that are creating counter-models should be a central task of our time. After all, it is at the interface with hardware that many central questions arise about the realignment of value creation, business models and international cooperation. Technical development appears as an activity of social networks. The Prototype Fund Hardware pilot project has taken on this task. Six projects were selected from 50 applications and supported for eight months. The pilot was part of the MoFab research project, which was funded by the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany, the University of Potsdam, the Science Shop Potsdam and the AWO Brandenburg South. One goal of the project was to develop a framework to fund and promote Open Hardware in the long term. A further research question was, which potentials are in hardware developed by and for civil society.