Laetitia Thomas

Composition of the Jury

Abstract

To preserve their business model, companies have long protected their innovation processes with patents. Open source hardware, on the other hand, is a collaborative product development process where design plans and manufacturing "secrets" are accessible to everyone. The barrier between designers and consumers is blurring, thanks to digital manufacturing tools such as 3D printers and laser cutters, accessible through Fab Labs or Maker Spaces, allowing citizens to create and test products much more easily. Starting from an isolated phenomenon, there are now 1,200 Fab Labs in 100 different countries organized into a network, "the Fab City Network," whose goal is to help cities produce 50% of the resources they consume within forty years. In this context, building a drone to clean up the oceans, a connected beehive, or a water filter using Open Source Hardware (OSH) aims to create solutions faster, more efficiently, and at a lower cost. Furthermore, these innovations are intentionally kept free of copyright restrictions. They constitute a "digital commons," a repository of knowledge available on the internet via digital platforms. According to Elinor Ostrom, who received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2009, "the challenge for the current generation is to keep the pathways to knowledge open." While not reaching the success of Open Source initiatives in the software sector, these initiatives have continued to spread. However, how can we develop a sustainable economic model with innovations that have been co-created and are shareable by everyone? Our research questions are as follows: 1) How can we monetize the value created through open source? 2) How can we extend this value creation to a range of stakeholders? 3) In the context of open source, what factors contribute to the adoption of these economic models? Open source is not a phenomenon specific to a single sector, company, or region, but a much broader transformation. To understand the conditions necessary for the survival and growth of this phenomenon, we conducted a multi-level qualitative study that allowed us to examine the community, corporate, and territorial ecosystem levels simultaneously. Data collection took place in three successive stages. First, qualitative interviews were conducted with twenty-three initiatives from the "Open Source Hardware Observatory." These initiatives had to meet our research criteria, namely the development of complex mechatronic or textile products labeled as open by their community. Next, we conducted a case study of four players in the automotive sector to examine their reaction to open source hardware (OSH) emerging from innovation communities. The final stage consisted of conducting an empirical study of the actors within the OSH innovation ecosystem of the city of Barcelona, ​​chosen for its pivotal role in the "Fab Cities" network. Our results show that these initiatives are strongly focused on democratic values ​​aimed at putting technology at the service of humanity. This unusual set of values ​​is a powerful driver for uniting stakeholders, whereas success is mixed within companies that do not subscribe to these values ​​and are more risk-averse. Finally, we identified a variety of possible and configurable revenue streams depending on an organization's strategic needs: 1) external funding; 2) a combination of products and services; 3) the organization's strategic skills; 4) the platform model; and 5) the distributed enterprise. Together, these allow an OSH initiative to progressively refine its business model, increase its value, and expand its reach.
 

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