Hello,
Registration is now open for the February meeting. Details below.
Cheers,
Andrew
//
Event #38 — Energy (Exploring "open" in energy, Electricity from
Woodchips, OpenTRV)
19 February 2015, 17:30 - 20:00 at BCS London, 1st Floor, The Davidson
Building, 5 Southampton Street, London, WC2E 7HA.
Registration: http://oshug.org/event/38
The thirty-eighth meeting will take a look open source technologies in
support of the generation and efficient use of energy.
— Exploring "Open" in Energy
Arcola Energy builds energy systems using fuel cells powered by
hydrogen. Fuel cells are one of those great ideas that has yet to gain
much traction in real markets. They put men on the moon, but since
then commercial progress has been slow. One way of opening up uses of
fuel cells is to involve a much wider developer community. To explore
this Arcola has developed a fuel cell developer kit and started on the
road to working with open source groups. This talk will look at our
journey, the success to far and the challenges ahead.
Richard Kemp-Harper is a former research scientist who spent several
years managing web development, including open source systems at
Oxfam. He then moved into technology and innovation, working at
Innovate UK running innovation programmes in intelligent mobility,
rail and energy. He specialises in not being a specialist.
— Electricity from Woodchips — An Edwardian Idea — Tamed with 21st
Century Microelectronics
First studied in the 1820s, gasification is the process of converting
a hydrocarbon solid fuel, such as coal or wood, into a low calorific
value gas suitable for running an internal combustion engine. Used for
vehicle transportation during World War 2 — gasification has enjoyed a
renaissance at the start of the 21st Century. Low cost, open source
microelectronics are used to tame this technology, from a labour
intensive manual process, to a fully automated turnkey system.
In January 2012, Ken Boak quit his UK electronic design job and
travelled to Berkeley, California, to work on a new biomass energy
project — an open source, microcontroller based control system for a
wood chip fired CHP system.
The company — an East Bay area start-up — "All Power Labs", had a
compact, self-contained biomass gasification system, close to
commercialisation.
In the 6 month contract, Ken productionised the open source, control
and automation system, using standard, globally available components
and rationalised the wiring loom so that low cost, modular assembly
was practical.
Ken started his career at BBC Research Department in 1986 working on
digital signal processing systems for HDTV - and subsequently over 30
years, a mix of 10 other technology companies, both UK and US based,
in the fields of instrumentation, automation, telemetry and telecomms.
Ken tries to live a low impact lifestyle in a modest Edwardian house
in Surrey, with a little help from modern electronics.
— Scratching the itch: saving the planet
When BigCo and .gov are not sorting your problem then open everything
makes it easier for you to scratch your own itch, especially with the
very positive innovation support around right now, possibly the best
for 30 years. And when you can save the planet, be your own boss, and
meet and work with lots of fabulous interesting people, what’s holding
you back?
Damon Hart-Davis is lead on the OpenTRV open source project created
following his 2012 presentation to DECC's smart heating workshop. He
has freelanced in technology for over 30 years, delivering
mission-critical products from design to BAU in the City for more than
20 of those, and has founded and been involved in several start-ups
over that time with his creations seen on TV, the Web, and his
pioneering Internet Service Provider helping crack open that market
more than 20 years ago. A previous virtual/on-line credit-card company
start-up that he co-founded as CTO, Ixaris, turns over ~£10m.
Mark Hill spent 15 years in the City after a solid grounding in IT at
the chip level at the microprocessor manufacturer Inmos, designing and
delivering highly complex systems. Project management, direction and
governance are all part of his toolkit. He now speaks regularly about
innovation, collaboration and IoT. Recently he founded a mobile phone
software start-up and is now OpenTRV Ltd's co-founder.
Note: Please aim to arrive by 18:15 as the first talk will start at
18:30 prompt.
//
Registration is now open for the first meeting of 2015, which will be
hosted at Sheffield Hallam University and in conjunction with the BCS
OSSG. Details and a link to registration can be found below.
In February we will return to hosting meetings at the BCS offices in
Covent Garden.
Regards,
Andrew
//
Event #37 — Open Source in Business
22nd January 2015, 17:30 - 20:30 at Owen Lecture Theatre, 1028 Owen
Building, Sheffield Hallam University, Howard Street, Sheffield, S1
1WB.
Registration: http://oshug.org/event/37
An evening of talks exploring different commercial aspects of open
source — hardware and software — including crowdfunding an open
hardware microenterprise, navigating licensing issues, trade
associations, and building a business on free software.
Hosted in conjunction with the BCS Open Source Specialist Group.
— Open Source Consortium - an introduction
OSC is a trade association which represents companies and individuals
delivering solutions and advice based on Open Standards and Free &
Open Source Software.
As a trade association, OSC gives its members greater influence than
they could achieve alone by providing a collective voice, and by
supporting initiatives such as the implementation of open standards in
public sector IT, the inclusion of open standards in school curricula
and levelling the gender balance in the industry. At the core of its
vision, OSC campaigns for the use of Open Standards in all aspects of
public and commercial life, promoting the unique advantages of Free &
Open Source Software and the independent expertise offered by members.
Irenie White has been Chair of the Open Source Consortium since 2013
after working with the organisation for 3 years. This year she was
appointed as MD of credativ, a free software consulting and services
company, after running operations there for 6 years. As a STEMNET
Ambassador and through her work with Advancing Women in IT, Irenie is
committed to supporting bottom-up growth in the wider technology
industry. Outside of work her family comes first, music a close
second.
— Notes from the first three months of an Open Source Microenterprise
* How I learned to stop worrying and love the Kickstarter
Starting an Open Source Hardware business is lot of work, even if
you've spent 11 years running a different one. There are all sorts of
things you've forgotten about and there are a whole host of new
challenges as you try to do things the right way from the start. None
of it is easy, but all of it beats having a 9-5.
Benjamin Gray is a proponent of Open Hardware, founder of MeArm, an
open source robot arm manufacturer and phenoptix a recently retired
maker business. Ben graduated from the University of Exeter with a
chemistry degree and a fledgling phenoptix before moving to Nottingham
to complete a PhD in theoretical physical chemistry. With 11 years of
Maker business experience under his belt he's set out on a new
adventure manufacturing the MeArm, a pocket sized robot arm.
— But I didn't mean *that*
Accidents and incidents exploring relationships between corporations
and the licenses they use to share, from Creative Commons to GPL.
Paul Beech used his graphic and web design skills to co-found
Pimoroni, a maker company that does Raspberry Pi and Arduino stuff.
Code: open source. Hardware: less so.
— Giving it away: Free Software as a business strategy
Bytemark Hosting has been involved in building, fixing and publishing
Free Software since its foundation in 2002. Back then, free Software
was seen as an unquestionable part of a winning business strategy for
big firms, but within years firms that bet too much on it were brought
down to earth. Matthew Bloch, Bytemark's MD, narrates his own
company's successes, profitability and changes in strategy around this
important social movement.
Matthew Bloch is MD and co-founder of Bytemark Hosting, one of the
UK's oldest and best-respected hosting and cloud providers, with its
own data centre in York and staff of 23. Previous to Bytemark Matthew
worked as a programmer on several Java virtual machines, and the PC
emulator for Acorn computers.
Compered by:
Gareth Halfacree is a freelance technology journalist and the
co-author of the Raspberry Pi User Guide, alongside project co-founder
Eben Upton. He also writes the maker-centric Hobby Tech column for
Custom PC Magazine, as well as numerous features in magazines
including PC Pro, Linux User & Developer, Micro Mart, Computeractive
and others.
Formerly a system administrator working in the education sector,
Gareth's passion for open source projects has followed him from one
career to another and he can often be seen reviewing, documenting or
even contributing to projects including GNU/Linux, LibreOffice,
Fritzing and Arduino. He is also the creator of the Sleepduino and
Burnduino open hardware projects and numerous small software tools,
all released under permissive licences.
Note: Please aim to arrive by 17:45 as the first talk will start at
18:00 prompt.
