Marcin Jakubowski is one of the premier pioneers of open source appropriate technology and agricultural innovation. Guided by Gandhi’s principles of swadeshi, Marcin has made great strides in moving towards community-based development and local autonomy. One of his first great innovations is an open source compressed earth block press, which he discusses at length in this podcast.

Listen to this podcast to learn about his ideas and innovations, and visit his blog to follow developments on his farm as they occur.

This is part two of the Appropedia Roundtable with Lonny Grafman and Curt Beckmann. In this podcast, we discuss Open Source AT (OSAT) in a historical context, and look at some of the tensions and areas where Appropedia must improve if it is to truly have a lasting impact. Thanks for listening.

There’s a lot of synergy going in the open source appropriate technology (OSAT) world, and this podcast is a perfect example of that. On the same day that Agroinnovations posted a call for collaborators on the appropedia website, I spoke with Lonny Grafman and Curt Beckmann, founder and system administrator, respectively, of this premier open source AT wiki and online community. If you’re interested in OSAT, then THIS is the podcast to listen to. If you’ve never heard of OSAT, then listen and learn.

Stay tuned for part two, and also an upcoming podcast on ferrocement in Spanish.

The Full Belly Project has spent the last several years designing and deploying a simple and cost effective peanut sheller for use in developing countries. They are one of the first organizations to explicitly endorse and apply an Open Source model to appropriate technology.

In this interview, Jeff Rose tells us the history of the project, how it functions, and the service based model that is now emerging from applying Open Source to AT. I also read some listener’s comments. So listen and enjoy.

In this episode, we speak with Professor Anil Gupta of the Honey Bee Network. Professor Gupta is a true visionary in the field of appropriate technology and he has dedicated his life to furthering the cause of rural innovators and their inventions.

According to Dr. Gupta, rural innovators are solving problems at such a low cost, that we can no longer afford to ignore their hard work and creativity. His approach presents us with a new model of rural and market development that must be implemented if we are to overcome the obstacles that now face our civilization.