A Success Story: The Promise of Real Change That You Make Yourself!

So you say that you've never heard of Marcin Jakubowski! Well you may want to find out about him quick, because this is a guy going places. He was recently granted a TED fellowship for his project to remake the world. He's all about putting people back to work making the stuff they need, locally. Jakubowski is a young guy with a PHD in physics and a boatload of constructive energy and it looks like he just may be succeeding.

Open Source Ecology (OSE) is the name of his game. And building Resilient Communities with a Global Village Construction Set is his goal. What it all boils down to is this: With the right tools and some modern computer assisted technologies, he says, we can take control of our lives back from impersonal, multi-national organizations. 

Making the dream real, Jakubowski is well on his way to creating the tools that make up what he calls the Global Village Construction Set. He's building prototypes for machines like small tractors made from used car parts and salvaged steel. He's building machines that crank out compacted soil building blocks, shop tools for building better machines and much, much more.

Jakubowski builds all his farming and community building equipment from common, easily sourced parts. And his plans are being made available free to anyone. That's what open source ecology is all about, helping people use tools and technology to make their lives manageable down at the community level once again.

Jakubowski and his cohorts want to see more people powering their homes and farms from electricity made on site or in the local community. He wants people to be able to tell the regional mega-utility to take their behemoth coal-fired power plant and shove it. And why not, with a solar micro-turbine in your backyard, that you built yourself, you'll be producing all the environmentally friendly energy you need.

Marcin Jakubowski wants you to imagine not having to buy stuff that was produced on the other side of the world, because somebody in your community or region is producing high quality products locally at affordable prices. 

Resilient communities, he believes,  make the conditions right for jobs, prosperity, environmental healing, social well-being and personal freedom. He says that all we need are good tools, open source sharing of ideas and a can-do spirit to reach these goals.

There is way more to this movement than I can tell you in a short message, but from what I have seen I can say that this could be the beginning of something that it is extremely exciting and full of good potential. I urge people to get familiar with the open source ecology movement and then to spread the word.

There is a chance right now to help shift this project into overdrive. Make Magazine is holding a Green Project Contest to find a great, green, do-it-yourself, idea to promote. Vote now for Marcin Jakubowski's Global Village Construction Set.



New! Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) in 2 Minutes - 2 min video