Hi bricos,

An email similar to this one will have reached some of you who were
following more closely my PhD research for one reason or another. Still,
I felt like writing to this nowadays very quiet mailing list to share
some accomplishments and updates, and perhaps open another conversation
or two.

First of all, I finished the PhD (Northumbria University / Mozilla
Foundation) a couple of months ago. I'm adding more and more
documentation about it to the research wiki (https://wiki.reuse.city
<https://wiki.reuse.city/>). The thesis will be soon online from
Northumbria's repository and I'll add it to the wiki when it's up. I
also wrote a short(er) summary, hit me up in pvt if you want to read it.

Right now I'm still defining what comes next. I've been working for a
couple of years with Bernardo Schepop and other partners on semente, a
toolkit for community initiatives. It's very much a work in progress,
perhaps at this point more interesting to trigger discussions than
anything more practical. We're happy to test and pilot it in projects,
if anyone sees fit. I wrote a bit about semente here:
https://is.efeefe.me/stuff/seeds-digital-reforestation
<https://is.efeefe.me/stuff/seeds-digital-reforestation>

Another path I'm also starting to experiment with is connected to my
research: creating better ways to collect, organise and access data to
help reuse, repair, upcycle and redistribute goods and materials. I'm
particularly interested in helping hands-on takes on second hand and
broken things, as usual. I know there are some initiatives combining IoT
and open databases for circular economy, but think that there's nothing
yet with a clear emphasis on reuse and structurally designed to
challenge the manufacturers' perspectives.

Finally (not really), I'm interested in how the whole topic of openness
can (can it?) be relevant again as we face the combined trouble of
climate change, mass migration, platformised precarious labour, fake
news and rise of far-right, not to mention LLMs and the like. I'm trying
to write something about it and will be happy to get feedback from the
bricoland folk when I have something to share.

Other than that, I'm still living in Berlin and have a high chance of
remaining here for the foreseeable future. Always glad to host people in
Friedrichshain, or have a coffee/beer with friends in town. Let me know
if you have plans of visiting.

I think that's it for now. Abraços from the summer, and share your news too!

efe