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INDIAN OPEN TECHNOLOGY ALLIANCE – FAQ

Q. How would you describe the work of Indian Open Technology Alliance (IOTA) in one sentence?

A. IOTA is a co-creation platform where anyone can propose, collaborate, build and share, a complete ecosystem for creation from concept to product.

Q. How would you describe the work of Indian Open Technology Alliance (IOTA) in one paragraph?

A. IOTA aims to develop a strong and sustainable ecosystem of innovation based on open source hardware. We understand that Indian entrepreneurs, start-ups and small industries are stifled by high cost of capital, infrastructure deficit and deteriorating calibre of fresh engineering and science graduates compared with global peers. Open Source hardware provides us a unique opportunity to innovate faster at a lower cost, address the needs of the country, and contribute to the global community. IOTA aims to hasten the innovation process and enhance India’s potential.

Q. How would you describe the practical motivation of IOTA in detail?

A. India has deep resources on many levels but is not primed and organised in way that can contribute to our national growth. We are losing competitiveness at an alarming rate and our manufacturing sector is losing sheen. We have to enhance our capabilities to remain relevant in the global stage and become self sufficient, sustainable and not import dependant. IOTA aims to be the platform to address these concerns.

Q. Do you have the metrics to justify that we are losing competitiveness on a global scale?

A. The Global Innovation Index which studies the human factor in Innovation is released every year and ranks countries based on their innovation capabilities. India was ranked 64th position in 2012 and was 66th in 2013. In the year 2014 India was ranked 76th. Our manufacturing sector’s contribution to GDP has also declined and is well documented. National Employability Report focussing on Employability of Engineering Graduates and India Skills Report reveal that standards needs to be raised as high percentage of Indian engineering graduates are not employable.

Q. Please explain how India has deep resources.

A. Nature has blessed India with good climate, vast arable land, water resources and minerals. We have a very successful, dynamic NRI (Non-Resident Indians) community that is in the cutting edge of technology. The willingness to contribute to the upliftment of India is very evident among the NRI community. We also have a successful talent pool of software.

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We also have a good institutional framework in our educational system. Indian Jugaad or frugal engineering is well known, our small industries are very dynamic, resourceful and have created more jobs and contributed to GDP growth than the corporate sector. We just need a platform to link all our resources to succeed in the open hardware revolution.

Q. What is Open Source Hardware Revolution?

A. Hardware used to be capital intensive, technology heavy with long development time and expensive distribution. Hardware is today becoming easier with lowering cost of fabrication, lean manufacturing methods and simplified distribution. New open source hardware sharing methods like programmable microcontrollers are revolutionizing electronics merging software and hardware. Similar to open source software for computers this ability to share designs has resulted in rapid reduction in costs and skyrocket innovation.

Q. Can IOTA develop India’s capability to compete with the modern industrial system?

A. To quote Jim Whitehurst, CEO of Red Hat – ‘’Open source software created new business models enabled by the linux platform, namely cheap innovation, quick scale out and mass collaboration, is directly responsible for the success of top Web 2.0 companies including Google, Facebook and Amazon”. Many have tried to replicate Silicon valley in their countries and have not succeeded because they have failed to create a vibrant open source community. IOTA believes Open Source Hardware can contribute to India’s economy and we are keen on creating a vibrant open source hardware community consisting of curious students, graduates, industrialists and more importantly people with passion, experience and knowledge in hardware and software keen to contribute for India’s development.

Q. What licensing terms are you adopting in IOTA?

A. Indian Open Technology Alliance (IOTA) and all its projects and products will be operating on the terms of CC-BY-SA 4.0 License. We do not encourage other license terms as it stifles innovation and wide adoption.

Q. Why is sustainability and agricultural equipments an important agenda of IOTA?

A. India has the highest degraded agricultural lands among Asia Pacific countries - 66 % of cultivated land. About 70% of the area under cultivation is heading in a direction where it will become incapable of supporting agriculture. India is the world’s largest user of groundwater for agriculture in the world. Increased dependence on groundwater irrigation is unsustainable due to high rates of documented depletion of groundwater. Groundwater levels are already in a critical condition in most regions. We have polluted our air, water and our urban living space is becoming contaminated. We need to embrace sustainability to survive.

Conventional plow-based farming leaves soil vulnerable to erosion and promotes agricultural runoff. Recent advances in crop production technologies like no-till agriculture now helps us to preserve soil organic content, reduce soil erosion, enhance soil fertility and water holding capacity with low labour costs. Our challenge is in addressing the high

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equipment costs, steep learning curve hindering the widespread adoption of no-till practices. Of 525 million farms worldwide, roughly 85 percent are less than five acres. The overwhelming majority of these small farms (87 percent) are located in Asia. The adoption of no-till farming in these regions, where the potential benefits are the greatest, is practically negligible. Our country needs precision agriculture equipments like no-till precision planters, precision sprayers, precision harvesters, to transform open field agriculture. Imagine a scenario where farmer do not plough their land, sowing is done precisely with GPS guidance and mechanized spraying is done by auto steered tractors and precision harvesters harvest the crop. Our challenge is in reengineering these existing technologies and making it affordable and reliable. We need affordable hydroponic fodder production systems, pivot irrigation, sugarcane harvester, farm utility vehicle and precision agricultural equipments.

Q. Can businesses run profitably using open source hardware?

A. Yes many companies like Arduino, Adafruit, Raspberry Pi, OpenROV, DIYdrones have successfully embraced open source hardware and are very profitable. Lars Zimmermann has written an interesting chapter on open hardware business in a book titled Building Open Source Hardware - edited by Alicia Gibb, the founding president of Open Source Hardware Association. The chapter is made available as free download and can be downloaded here (http://bloglz.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Business-Building-Open-Source-Hardware-Gibb-Zimmermann.pdf)

Q. Why IOTA is started in a Tier-2 city – Coimbatore?

A. Coimbatore is one of the top ten industrialized districts of India and is a major player in pumps, motors, gears, wet grinders, auto-components and has a strong culture of manufacturing based start ups. Coimbatore also has a vibrant educational and health infrastructure and is well known for its entrepreneurial spirit. The industry is currently in transition due to commoditization and needs to embrace futuristic technologies to remain relevant. IOTA believes a vibrant and thriving community is essential for the success of open source hardware and Coimbatore has all ingredients essential to start this open hardware revolution in India.

For More FAQ’s regarding Open source hardware and open source movement

Links

1. http://www.oshwa.org/faq/ 2. http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/FAQ 3. https://wiki.creativecommons.org/FAQ 4. http://freedomdefined.org/FAQ 5. http://opensource.org/faq

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Resources For Open Hardware as a Business

1. http://bloglz.de/full-business-chapter-of-the-book-building-open-source-hardware/ 2. https://openhardwarelabs.com/open-source-hardware-pricing/ 3. https://openhardwarelabs.com/calculator/ 4. http://makingsociety.com/2013/05/10-steps-for-creating-a-hardware-company/ 5. http://makingsociety.com/ 6. http://bloglz.de/category/open-source-hardware/