Social Innovation, Democracy and Makerspaces

Smith, Adrian

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2986245

Cited by 42 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…This research raises the prospect that engagement with the Maker movement can help to cultivate the mindset of the frugal innovator, particularly in regions where there is not a strong cultural legacy of frugal innovation. Also considering Smith's (2017) proposition that makerspaces can help to anticipate new material cultures, managers might consider how their employees could engage with new fabrication spaces and emerging maker practices and in order to develop the skills for resource‐constrained innovation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Frugal innovation in a crisis: the digital fabrication maker response to COVID‐19

Corsini¹,

Dammicco²,

Moultrie³

2020

R & D Management

100

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The rapid spread of COVID‐19 has led to a global shortfall in essential items, turning many countries into resource‐constrained environments. In response, an unprecedented number of do‐it‐yourself hobbyists (i.e. makers) have started to use digital fabrication tools to produce critical items. These bottom‐up communities are mobilising as part of a global movement to produce innovative solutions to much‐needed items, such as face masks, face shields and ventilators. As these individuals tackle widespread resource constraints, the conceptual lens of frugal innovation becomes highly relevant to study how these solutions developed. Frugal innovation is a type of resource‐constrained innovation that refers to the practice of doing more with less, for more people. In this study, we present two instrumental case studies of maker projects that use digital fabrication to tackle COVID‐19. The first case study is from Italy (a High Income Country) and the second is from India (a Lower Middle Income Country). We analyse the frugality of these cases and highlight their similar approaches. In doing so, we suggest that current theories of frugal innovation can be expanded to new geographical and technological contexts. We put forward that frugal innovation is an important strategy in crisis response beyond emerging markets and that digital fabrication can be considered as an important frugal innovation enabler, both in its ability to produce frugal solutions and to support distributed networks of innovation actors. This study advances knowledge on how frugal innovation unfolds in the Maker movement. It is among one of the first studies to connect the domains of makers and frugal innovation, and the paper concludes by identifying several promising areas for further research.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Frugal innovation in a crisis: the digital fabrication maker response to COVID‐19

Corsini¹,

Dammicco²,

Moultrie³

2020

R & D Management

100

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…The volunteer-driven, self-organized activities of the maker community have significantly contributed to the response phase of the COVID-19 pandemic and also drew attention to the latent innovation potential of the general public ( Corsini et al, 2020 ). Since the rapid emerging of local makerspaces, hackerspaces, fablabs and the calling out of a global maker movement ( Dougherty, 2012 ) experts have assigned this new culture of local manufacturing certain social transformation power ( Diez, 2012 ; Smith, 2017 ; Millard et al, 2018 ; Bosse et al, 2019 ; Unterfrauner et al, 2020 ). The technological innovations advancing the manufacturing capacities of digital fabrication tools have offered a wide range of possibilities for social and community action.…”

Section: Social and Transformative Innovation Theory And Societal Implications Of Diy Open Healthcarementioning

confidence: 99%

Covid-19 Response From Global Makers: The Careables Cases of Global Design and Local Production

et al. 2021

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Makerspaces—informal shared spaces that offer access to technologies, resources and a community of peer learners for making—across the globe initiated a rapid response to the lack of medical hardware supplies during the global pandemic outbreak in early 2020 caused by the Corona virus (COVID-19). As our health systems faced unexperienced pressure, being close to collapsing in some countries, and global supply chains failing to react immediately, makers started to prototype, locally produce and globally share designs of Open Source healthcare products, such as face shields and other medical supplies. Local collaboration with hospitals and healthcare professionals were established. These bottom-up initiatives from maker networks across the globe are showing us how responsible innovation is happening outside the constraints of profit-driven large industries. In this qualitative study we present five cases from a global network of makers that contributed to the production of personal protective equipment (PPE) and healthcare-related products. We draw our cases from the experiences made in Careables, a mixed community of people and organizations committed to the co-design and making of open, personalized healthcare for everyone. With the presented cases we reflect on the potential implications for post-pandemic local production of healthcare products and analyze them from a social innovation perspective. These global experiences are valuable indications of transformative innovations that can reduce dependencies from international supply chains and mainstream mass production.

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“…On the one hand, the case of BI advocacy is thus displaying the usual resistance of TSI initiatives against dominant governmentalities and ways of knowing (e.g. Scott-Cato and Hillier, 2010;Smith. 2017).…”

Section: Conclusion: Competing Claims To Expertise In Transformative mentioning

confidence: 99%

Realizing the Basic Income

Pel

Backhaus

2020

S&TS

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Current social innovation initiatives towards societal transformations bring forward new ways of doing and organizing, but new ways of knowing as well. Their efforts towards realizing those are important sites for the investigation of contemporary tensions of expertise. The promotion of new, transformative ways of knowing typically involves a large bandwidth of claims to expertise. The attendant contestation is unfolded through the exemplar case of the Basic Income, in which the historically evolved forms of academic political advocacy are increasingly accompanied by a new wave of activism. Crowd-funding initiatives, internet activists, citizen labs, petitions and referenda seek to realize the BI through different claims to expertise than previous attempts. Observing both the tensions between diverse claims to expertise and the overall co-production process through which the Basic Income is realized, this contribution concludes with reflections on the politics of expertise involved in transformative social innovation.

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Social Innovation, Democracy and Makerspaces

Cited by 42 publications

References 35 publications

Frugal innovation in a crisis: the digital fabrication maker response to COVID‐19

Frugal innovation in a crisis: the digital fabrication maker response to COVID‐19

Covid-19 Response From Global Makers: The Careables Cases of Global Design and Local Production

Realizing the Basic Income

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