3

Innovation Camp

FEATURE

Ideas need a little coaxing sometimes....

A

t Chateau Millemont, a 16th-

century castle near Paris, over 100

makers, engineers, and designers,

gathered to tackle ‘destructive

consumer culture’ by making open

source, sustainable products the

new norm. They aimed to produce a proof concept

highlighting that citizen pioneers can build a fossil-free,

resource-efficient society. As a result, POC21 emerged

as a five-week innovator ́s residency that blended

strategic design, prototyping, co-making, and co-living.

The event was organised by Open State and Oui

Share, two design collectives that joined forces to

support and raise awareness of open source

sustainability solutions during the 21st U.N. Climate

Below

A stunning aerial view

of Chateau Millemont

before POC21

kicked off

Change Summit, COP21 in 2015. POC21 participants

developed 12 open source sustainable projects, paving

the way towards a fossil-free, zero waste society.

Camp participant, Tristan Copley Smith, described his

surprise when he arrived to find Chateau Millemont filled

with beds, sofas, bean bags, 3D printers, and CNC-

fabricated plywood tables. The castle gardens,

surrounded by a vast 100-hectare forest, were covered

with 30 large canvas tents, solar panels, and fairy lights

to guide the way of exhausted participants at night.

Even the old stables were fitted with a woodshop, metal

welders, and a treasure trove of high-tech digital

fabrication tools to realise almost any project.

Without assigned ‘leaders’ and structures of

accountability, it was not uncommon for people to defy

their perceived roles. For example, a photographer

emptying a compost toilet or a computer hacker

pitching a tent was commonplace. New arrivals often

required a few days to adjust to this informal structure

and governance.

Perhaps most importantly, all POC21 participants

were united in the belief that open source, sustainable

products have the potential to scale into the

mainstream and become the new normal, as traditional

barriers to building your products continue to dissolve.

Dominik Wind, Open State co-founder and POC21

organiser, described how solutions to the ongoing

climate and resource catastrophe must include

changing the behaviour of hundreds of millions of

people, and how what we consume is produced. He

believes that changing behaviour is easier when

communities band together to take action.

Let’s take a look at three of the most successful

projects that came out of POC21.

Cameron Norris

Cameron is a
technology and
communications
specialist, passionate
about the use of open
source hardware for
social innovation

@cameronsnorris

Camp