Open Hardware Makers program has three central roles, Mentees, who work to on their projects to implement open hardware best practices, Mentors supporting the mentee’s journey and Experts, sharing deep knowledge on specific topics. Here we share more details on the experts role, their importance to the program and their hard work during expert review week!
OHM Experts have different work and perspectives towards open hardware, some have business experience, some have a policy making background, some are researchers in academia. Most importantly they are available upon request throughout the program when mentors and mentees decide a project can make use of an expert consultation. These punctual meetings can really leap forward areas of a project and support mentees getting out of a sticking point.
Experts also support mentees by actively reviewing projects during the review week. During this week, which takes place 2-3 weeks before the end of each cohort, experts receive a “review package” from 2-3 projects. These packages, prepared by the mentees, contain project information and links showing progress made, and how its documentation is published online. The comments and review from experts helps mentees improve their projects just before the last cohort call. This call is also a public demo, where mentees have the opportunity to pitch their projects, get contributors and have recorded material to showcase their projects later.
A crucial part of the community making Open Hardware Makers thrive, experts have our biggest appreciation! Here is a list of past and current experts:
Dennis Yaskevich, based in Belarus, knows about schematic design, electronics repair, SPICE simulation, and GitHub open source apps.
Vicky Wenzelmann, based in Germany, works as a Systemic Organizational Consultant and Agile Coach, and has written and evaluated plenty of proposals and project descriptions. She has been a mentor in “#ASKnet” in Uganda and South Sudan since 2016. She is a member of the Global Innovation Gathering (GIG).
Thomas Euler is a professor at the University of Tuebingen, Germany, with experience in systems neuroscience, visual system, signal processing in the retina, two-photon microscopy, open hardware for neuroscience, and micropython.
Saulo Jacques, raised in Sao Paulo, Brazil and based in Barcelona, Spain, is a Ph.D. in Ecology. Since 2016 he has been working on free-open source projects focused on smart devices for environmental monitoring, hardware design, offline/online data management, and data sovereignty.
Sarah Kiden is a Public Interest Technologist and Researcher exploring policy frameworks that support technology design, adoption, and use for diverse communities. She currently works at Northumbria University (UK) and Mozilla.
Ricardo Ruiz is a Brazilian researcher, lecturer and consultant on the intersection of innovation and sociopolitical inclusion. He holds 20 years of experience in developing projects on the intersection of digital tools and human rights.
Kerrianne Harrington is a researcher at the University of Bath that works with optical fibers, with a focus on hollow core optical fibers.
Julian Stirling, based in the UK, has spent the last decade or so designing and modifying all manner of scientific instruments. He is passionate about good complete documentation; he has written GitBuilding, a hardware documentation tool.
Joshua Pearce, based in Canada, works with solar photovoltaic technology, open hardware, and distributed recycling and additive manufacturing (DRAM) using RepRap 3-D printing. He is also interested in policy and economics.
Joel Murphy, based in the USA, is an artist and embedded systems engineer with expertise in biosensing, digital signal processing, Arduino (C, C++), Open Source Business Startup & Strategy.
Jim Brenner, also in the USA, teaches a class at Florida Institute of Technology called “The Basics of Making” and has expertise in chemical, biomedical, and materials engineering; nanotechnology and making materials characterization equipment.
Besides reviewing the project’s documentation and providing useful feedback, the experts also answer specific questions from the mentees., and in a number of different languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Russian, Kiswahili and Malayalam. What would you like to ask them?
Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash