Become an OSHWA member today to vote on nominees!

This year, we have 4 open seats on the OSHWA board. Board members will hold a 2-year position. Once board members have been chosen by the OSHWA member community, the board will appoint a President, VP, and Secretary. As every nominee answered “Yes” to having 5-10 hours a month to give to the board, we did not include that question in each nominee’s data. Board responsibilities include fundraising, advising on goals and direction, and carrying out compliance of the organization’s purposes and bylaws. Please find details of our election process here.

The vote will be open on Oct. 15th-22nd. Members will be emailed a link to vote. Here are the nominees in no particular order:

Thea Flowers

Why do you want to be on the board?

To continue my work in building the culture of open source hardware in small and mid scale manufacturing. Small scale, distributed manufacturing has become increasingly common in our current world as supply chains and customer expectations shift, however, the process of manufacturing at small scale has not gotten easier. I’m working to build communities and projects around open source hardware that empowers this kind of manufacturing.

What qualifies you to be a board member?

During my current term on the board and time as OSHWA’s board president, I’ve helped OSHWA and the open hardware community continue to expand and grow. I’ve worked behind the scenes to assist with large undertakings such as the Open Hardware Summit and modernizing OSHWA’s web infrastructure. I have over a decade of experience in open source, community organization, and technical writing. My experience as the founder of an open source hardware company brings a personal perspective to the challenges faced by those who wish to build open source hardware in a sustainable way. I have lead and contributed to multiple high-profile open source projects. I have been named a Python Software Foundation fellow because of my work in open source.

What is your personal DEI+J (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice) statement?

I believe that open source – software and hardware – is for everyone. Knowledge and technology are capable of being incredibly empowering when used with careful intent. Each of us has a moral and ethical obligation to humanity to build a community and industry that is beneficial to us all – especially those that have historically been discriminated against. Our shared knowledge can not be kept away in universities and wealthy corporations. Our knowledge must be freely available to everyone, especially those who are marginalized.

Jinger Zeng

Why do you want to be on the board?

Continue to support OSHWA.

What qualifies you to be a board member?

Previous board member.

What is your personal DEI+J (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice) statement?

I am an active supporter of DEI-J initiatives, and strives to bring more APAC representations and cross-cultural collaborations to the community.

Jodson Graves

Why do you want to be on the board?

To network, gain experience in nonprofit leadership and support an open-source project I see as extremely valuable to the global public.

What qualifies you to be a board member?

I currently lead the board of the Network Theory Applied Research Institute, www.ntari.org.

What is your personal DEI+J (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice) statement?

I am African American, married to a European American with an adopted European American daughter living in Kentucky…I don’t seek “equity”, as in my experience this term implies scarcity. I believe in seeking mutualistic solutions wherein everyone receives lasting, novel opportunities to participate in whatever social or economic activity we engage in.

Michael Weinberg

Why do you want to be on the board?

To continue helping OSHW grow, and to support OSHWA’s community. I am excited that OSHWA has been able to position itself to start winning competitive grants, to use that support to do more for the current OSHWA community, and to use that support to continue to expand that community. OSHWA still runs on volunteers. However, growing OSHWA’s ability to pay more people to do more things (and to pay people who have been doing so many things for so long) will increase its capacity to advance its mission. There are still so many things that the community (reasonably) looks to OSHWA to be doing. I want OSHWA to be able to do more of those things!

What qualifies you to be a board member?

I am interested in open source hardware and the open source hardware community. I’ve been an OSHWA board member for a number of years, enthusiastically supporting (I hope) Thea’s Board Presidency. I helped to develop OSHWA’s Certification Program, and still serve as its lead.

What is your personal DEI+J (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice) statement?

While I try to be supportive of OSHWA’s DEI+J initiatives and welcoming to a diverse set of community members, there is no getting around the fact that I’m a straight white male living in the global north. It would be completely reasonable to not have me on the board in favor of someone who brought a more diverse set of experiences to the position.

Oluwatobi Oyinlola

Why do you want to be on the board?

I want to continue to serve on the board because I am deeply passionate about open source and its transformative impact. As someone whose research has been greatly enhanced by open hardware and open innovation, I understand the value these initiatives bring to the global community. I am excited to keep contributing in this capacity, leveraging my skills and insights to further our mission. My goal is to help expand access to open innovation and open hardware, particularly in underserved areas, by leading efforts to evangelize and spread the benefits of our mission.

What qualifies you to be a board member?

My qualifications to serve on the board are rooted in both my experience and my passion for open-source innovation. Over the past years as a board member of our association, I have actively contributed to increasing awareness and adoption of open technologies. I am particularly encouraged by the growth we’ve seen in the African region, and I am dedicated to expanding this momentum even further. My dedication, combined with my leadership experience and firsthand understanding of power of open innovation, qualifies me to continue contributing meaningfully to the board.

What is your personal DEI+J (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice) statement?

I am committed to breaking down barriers, promoting fairness, and supporting a more just and equitable society for all. I believe that everyone deserves a chance, regardless of their background, skin color, or where they live.

Kunvar Chokshi

Why do you want to be on the board?

I want to be on the board of OSHWA because I am passionate about advancing the open-source hardware movement and contributing to a community that values transparency, collaboration, and innovation. With my extensive background in embedded systems and experience working with leading technology companies, I believe I can offer valuable insights into the development and deployment of open-source hardware solutions. My goal is to help OSHWA expand its reach, foster collaborations between industry and developers, and create opportunities for learning and growth within the open-source hardware community. Serving on the board would allow me to be a part of this exciting journey, where I can contribute to shaping the future of technology in a more open and accessible way.

What qualifies you to be a board member?

My qualifications for being a board member of OSHWA stem from my extensive background in embedded systems and my hands-on experience working with major technology companies like Tesla, NVIDIA, and Apple. I’ve developed and integrated hardware and software solutions for a wide range of applications, and I deeply understand the challenges and opportunities in the open-source hardware space. In addition, I have experience leading teams, reviewing technical papers, and organizing sessions at industry conferences, which demonstrates my ability to collaborate effectively, manage projects, and communicate with diverse audiences. My expertise in embedded systems, coupled with my passion for open-source development, would allow me to bring practical insights to OSHWA’s initiatives. I am committed to promoting the values of transparency, accessibility, and innovation that are central to the open-source hardware movement.

What is your personal DEI+J (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice) statement?

My commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice (DEI+J) is rooted in the belief that diverse perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences are essential for innovation, growth, and sustainability. In both my professional and personal life, I strive to create an inclusive environment where everyone feels respected, valued, and empowered to contribute their unique ideas and skills.

I actively seek opportunities to collaborate with individuals from different cultural, racial, gender, and socioeconomic backgrounds, ensuring that diverse voices are not only heard but amplified. I believe in equitable access to resources and opportunities, and I am committed to challenging systemic biases and barriers that hinder inclusion and justice. In leadership roles, I aim to promote policies and practices that foster diversity, enable growth, and ensure that all individuals, regardless of their identity, can thrive and succeed.

Join us for a 24 hour livestream where we check in with open source creators and groups around the world to celebrate all things open! Check the schedule right here! Join the stream over here!

OSHWA is looking to up our membership. Becoming a member allows you to vote in board elections, and support our programming like the Certification, the Summit Fellowship and Open Hardware Month. If you are able to join check out our Membership page to see what level works for you!

OSHWA is looking for 4 new faces to join the board of directors for the Open Source Hardware Association. The nominee form is, as always, for self-nominations only. Please fill out the nominee form (deactivated 11:59PM ET on Oct. 8) to become a nominee or forward the link to someone you want to nominate. Do not fill out the form for someone else. The purpose of this form is to tell voting members why you want to serve on the OSHWA board. We will publish the nominees and their answers on Oct 10th. Board members hold a 2-year position. Once board members have been chosen by the membership, the board will appoint a President, VP, and Secretary. Board responsibilities include carrying out compliance with OSHWA’s purposes and bylaws, fundraising, promoting OSHWA, and advising on goals and direction. Board members must follow our Code of Conduct. See the board member agreement to get a sense of the responsibilities. Board members are expected to adhere to the board attendance policy and come prepared having read the board packet. Board members are expected to spend 5-10 hours of time per month on OSHWA. Nominees can submit questions to info@oshwa.org. Nominations will be open until 11:59PM ET on Oct. 8th.

Anyone can nominate themselves, and OSHWA is specifically short on the following talents: HR, finance, non-profit governance advisement (think someone who loves reading bylaws), and medical field advisement.

Member voting will take place Oct 15-22nd. View our election policy.

Want to vote in the election? Become a member! Please note that only individuals can vote, corporate members cannot.

We are beyond excited to share our new design for this year from Tanya Brassie of Inner Loop Press! Check out their work!

And we are going to be coming to Edinburgh on May 30th & 31st, 2025! Our call for proposals for talks, workshops, and exhibitors is currently open and we’re also building an amazing team of on-the-ground helpers and teammates, read on for more details!

Our Summit Fellowship applications are also now open and we encourage anyone marginalized people in open technology and culture to apply to receive a stipend for attendance and mentorship opportunities leading up to the event.

Get involved

Here’s what we’re looking for:

• People who can help us reach the weird, wonderful, and technical open source, Hacker, DIY, tech/art and maker community in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and all around the UK and Europe.
• People who are connected with makerspaces, hackerspaces, labs or other creative spaces that can help spread the word all around the world.
• People who are excited about reaching diverse and underrepresented populations.
• Spaces interesting in hosting workshops, parties, community gatherings and other happenings.
• Seasoned open source enthusiast and people who want to be involved in open source but aren’t sure how. No experience required.
• Be able to attend (or contribute to asynchronously) to meetings once a month, usually Wednesday mornings in US Eastern Time (UTC-4) or around 5 PM GMT (UTC+1).

Specifically, we are still looking for a venue for day 2, which can hold people in various rooms for breakout sessions and workshops.

We do not require that all presentations, organizers, or helpers be open source certified or contribute to open source projects, but only that you are enthusiastic about sharing and learning about open source work.

Here’s what you’ll get:

• Connected with some of the world’s most active open source communities. Past sponsors have included Sparkfun, Arduino, Digikey, and other key players in the hardware community.
• A free or discounted ticket to the event.
• Free opportunity to exhibit your work to over 300 people.
• A hand in forming the vision for one of the largest Open Source events in 2025.
• An unforgettable experience with cool people from around the world!
• An opportunity to connect globally with people working in your field- be it academically, recreationally, or within the industry.

If you are interested in helping out, please email us at hello@leecyb.org.

See you in Edinburgh!

OSHWA has three part-time job opportunities for postdoctoral researchers for an NSF project on open-source health hardware. 

OSHWA is creating an Open Healthware Ecosystem to bring together the emerging open-source health hardware community, and to encourage the shared development of health-related hardware designs using open hardware certification. In the first year, the project will focus on facilitating agreement on standardization for a health-related open hardware certification, developing on-ramps for the health-related hardware community to learn about open hardware, and building education campaigns and workshops around documentation needed for the new health-specific certification. In the second year, the project will focus on issues around quality assurance and shared testing protocols for the purposes of an open hardware certification, which are critical to the adoption of health hardware outside of emergency use authorization circumstances.

OSHWA is seeking to fill three roles:

Two (2) biomedical/ biomedical policy postdoctoral researchers will be focused on understanding the emerging open-source health hardware community, utilizing the workshops to gather input and findings, creating documents based on the workshops, writing case studies, and pairing the open hardware certification to health devices.

One (1) (bio)engineering/fabrication postdoctoral researcher will recreate and test open source health hardware.

The Postdoctoral Researchers will be responsible for conducting research on open source hardware within the health space, the OSHWA certification, and policies affecting healthcare; and working with the open hardware health community to come to conclusions. 

Compensation: $50,000 per year for a 50% position

Research project timeline: 2 years: September 2024 – July 2026

Location: This is a virtual role, though travel will be required

Deadline: Rolling until positions filled

Reporting: Post docs will report to the Executive Director

Specific job duties: 

• Plans and conducts day-to-day activities relating to the Open Healthware research project. 
• Synthesizes, analyzes, and summarizes workshop and interview results
• Utilizes professional concepts to contribute to the development of a health hardware certification process through creative and effective ways; 
• Produces one Journal article with findings at the end of two-year research period;
• Retains accurate records of research findings, along with analysis of results, in a detailed up-to-date notebook;
• Follows guidelines on data entry, conservation, and sharing; 
• Attends weekly meetings, NSF trainings and cohort meetings, and attend in-person workshops and conferences;

Other Responsibilities:

• Remains current on relevant health devices and industry knowledge;
• Interfaces with the community on collaborative programs, including doctors, engineers, scientists, manufacturers; 
• Assists the team with documenting and updating protocols and procedures as needed;
• Assists and collaborating with written reports;
• Applies for future sustaining grants;
• Other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• A PhD and experience in biomedical engineering, biomedical engineering policy, or similar field. Knowledgeable about manufacturing health or medical devices, or about policy and standards in that area. 
• Knowledge about open source and the functions of open source hardware
• Successful at designing and concluding studies 
• Experience assisting in building communities
• Detailed communication skills, especially in documentation writing
• Uses collaboration and listening skills to solve problems

OSHWA is an Equal Opportunity Employer. OSHWA is committed to a policy of equal treatment and opportunity in every aspect of its hiring and promotion process without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sex, pregnancy or childbirth (or related medical condition), sexual orientation, partnership status, gender and/or gender identity or expression, marital, parental or familial status, caregiver status, national origin, ethnicity, alienage or citizenship status, veteran or military status, age, disability, predisposing genetic characteristics, domestic violence victim status, unemployment status, or any other legally protected basis. Women, racial and ethnic minorities, persons of minority sexual orientation or gender identity, individuals with disabilities, and veterans are encouraged to apply for vacant positions at all levels.

To apply for this position:

1. Fill out this application form
2. Email your CV to alicia@oshwa.org

OSHWA is thrilled to announce that on August 15th, we were awarded a 2-year National Science Foundation (NSF) POSE grant to create an Open Healthware Ecosystem. The grant for the Open Healthware Ecosystem will be highly specified research looking at the intersections between health hardware and open source hardware principles including certification. As we discovered during the pandemic, open source hardware has been instrumental in enabling rapid response and preventing supply chain issues in critical moments. For example, distributed manufacturing of open source face shields assisted in PPE production during the COVID-19 pandemic which was critical in the early days when even medical workers could not obtain necessary supplies. 

The Open Healthware Ecosystem will bring together the emerging open-source health hardware community, and encourage the shared development of health-related hardware designs through coupling health hardware to the open hardware certification. In the first year, the research team will focus on facilitating agreement on standardization for a health-related open hardware certification, developing on-ramps for the health-related hardware community to learn about open hardware, and building education campaigns and workshops around documentation needed for the new health-specific certification. In the second year, OSHWA will focus on issues around quality assurance and shared testing protocols for the purposes of an open hardware certification, which are critical to the adoption of health hardware outside of emergency use authorization circumstances.

This is the first government grant the Open Source Hardware Association has received.

OSHWA is in a pickle! In the US where our not for profit is registered there is a law stating that one third of all income must be from the public, while we have been extremely lucky to have received private grants if we don’t have enough public contributions our status will be revoked.

Today we are launching a merch fundraiser with an incredible design from artist Jess Hannigan that will help us keep going. You can snag your own tee/hoodie/v-neck right here you’ll be helping us maintain our status and any additional funds raised will go right back into making cool things happen in our community!

The Open Hardware Summit 2024 was a huge success! Thank you Montréal! A giant thanks to our sponsors who make this event possible and enable us to pay our small but mighty staff. Videos are available by speaker on our YouTube channel, or you can relive the whole day here. Photos are on OSHWA’s flickr page.

If you enjoy our events, please consider donating so that we can keep putting them on!

Talks for the Open Hardware Summit are live! Watch on our YouTube channel here.  Join our Discord for online discussions during the event.

On May 3rd and 4th in Montreal, Canada the Open Source Hardware Organization (OSHWA) will be hosting the 2024 Open Hardware Summit, featuring 2 full days of workshops, talks, unconference and discussion sessions dedicated to exploring Open Source Hardware. If you can’t make it in person, we’re also holding sessions online via YouTube and Discord. 

Our branding this year was created by Enna Kim, who worked with us to create our 2024 logo as well as a series of characters. We love the playful nature of the loombot, the googly eyed integrated circuit and the tangles of wires that we think reflects what we’re trying to pull off for OHS2024. We want the Summit to be engaging, intriguing, full of surprises and chock full of radical, new ideas. 

Above all else we’re excited to be able to gather together the open source community to explore all the ways that ‘open’ exists!

Here’s the thing: we know it’s a long trip for some of ya’ll. Thankfully we offer many ways to experience the Summit, both in-person in Montreal and online with a fully hybrid conference. We are working hard to be sure that no matter how you attend you will get as much as possible out of OHS2024. With the help of livestreaming, our Discord server and lots of volunteer coordination you can participate in talks, Q&A’s with speakers, propose topics and participate in a digital unconference on Day Two! 

Even though the 3rd and 4th are our official dates we are also excited to have programming around both sides of the conference. 

On May 2nd there will be a mini reuse make-a-thon to practice your recycling skills, plus an open source perfume workshop and a Happy Hardware Hour hosted by Helen Leigh and Crowd Supply! 

The official Summit will start on May 3rd at Concordia University. 

We are excited to welcome Danielle Boyer, an Indigenous robotics expert, as the keynote speaker. Boyer will be speaking on her work creating robots to revitalize Indigenous languages, and utilizing them to address the systemic oppression of the Anishinaabe community. It’s certain to be a talk that you do not want to miss. 

This is just one of the incredible parts of OHS this year.  

We have also managed to fit in 19 other talks ranging from e-textile manufacturing to making bespoke open hardware for your loved ones to open source medical devices, the topics and quality of the speakers is truly wonderful. 

We also noticed a heavy push to discuss the environmental impacts of making with proposals this year that resulted in talks on repurposing disposable vapes, addressing pollution in hardware production, and developing sustainable biomaterials for 3D printing. 

On top of all that we also have a dedicated table hour where people can explore the very rad offerings like a diy computer repair zine, afrofuturist devices for speculative PTSD treatment, and modding gameboys.

Even though it’s such a full day we know some of ya’ll will still need to let off some steam which means we’re going to have an afterparty where you can hang out, socialize and dance until you are exhausted. 

On Day Two we will be moving to LESPACEMAKER for workshops, unconference and discussion groups. For those joining us IRL workshops range from building robots, finding wi-fi access points to making paper. Make sure you sign up for workshop offerings so you don’t miss out! 

We know that our community loves to explore ideas in-depth and we wanted to be sure there was time for folks to discuss thoughts they had come up over the course of Day One so we’ve got space for discussion groups. 

Plus all Day One both in-person and online attendees can suggest unconference topics that will be voted on in the evening to have sessions running smoothly on Day Two. Unconference topics can really be anything and will have space dedicated to be able to present to one another. 

With that we’ll come to the official close of OHS2024. 

On our unofficial Day 3 we will be gathering at CyberLoveHotel for a relaxing, sharing and zinemaking session. 

All this to say that we really can’t wait to see everyone this year. Please register for the Open Hardware Summit and join us however works for you. You can keep up with all the latest news on OHS2024 online on Twitter, Mastodon and LinkedIn.