Openvillage Residency in Morocco- Preparation

Workspaces OpenVillage Workspace
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We are approaching the beginning of our new Adventure as an online community in Morocco, more specifically in a small village near Sidi kaouki. Basically we are going to co-live and co-work together in one beautiful space near the beach. This is kinda prototype for the wider openvillage network of houses.

In order to have a more productive and enjoyable time, here is a Summary of whats happening so we can coordinate and move ahead to realize the projects and live in the openvillage.

Projects

1. Opensource Coffee sorter

We are developing a small-scale, cheap optical sorter for green coffee beans. It would use image classifiers (“artificial intelligence”) and work on a Raspberry Pi 3 computer or similar.

check this write up by @matthias to know more about the project and the technical planning for it.

Project task list : here in Progress

Project timeline : the project is going to last the full 3.5 months in order to develop a prototype by the end of the Residency.

Project Team :

2. Opensource Furniture [ BitCut ]

Bitcut – Bitcut is a design lab for open furniture, … Bitcut was their solution for the qualification and overpricing and shallow design in the Egyptian Furniture market

check this write up by @m_tantawy to know more about the project.

Project Plan : here in progress

Project timeline :TBD

Project Team :

3. OpenInsulin workshop / Biohacking

Still In Development… Mainly Experimenting with mushrooms to be used in urban farming + other biohacking activities
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Project Plan

Project Timeline : 10 -25 February ( To be confirmed )

Project Team :

4. Surf Boards making

I insist on doing things ethically for the futur of our Amazigh coast, eco designed and easy to repair. Behind this idea is to educate tourist on how to respect our environment and create the best experience for travelers and for us amazigh surfers (but also berberes, europeens, and all arab tourists of all nations.

check the whole post by @Maatoug here
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Project Plan This project and the BitCut project requires working with a local carpenter in the village

Project Timeline : Estimated 1.5 month starting mid January ?

Project Team :

5. Storytelling / Documenting

The storytelling issue is mentioned more than once in the community discussions, Read the discussion on @anique.yael 's post on the dilemma of storytelling or @baderdean 's post on the risks of a too beautiful storytelling. so during our stay in the village we can experiment with documenting our process, and the stories of the local community.

Project Plan

Project Timeline : the whole stay

Project Team

6. Independent Radio / Mesh Network

Project still in planning,but is quite connected with the previous project. The idea was mentioned in several topics and during the last community call, the discussion grew from storytelling to creating media platforms and came to finalize as a mesh network to build radio and other media on.
still quoting @gregoiremarty:

I see it more efficient if it’s small and local, at the beginning. That’s the best way to avoid issues, but also to let the project itself and the (local) community in the best conditions to conduct it the best way for THEM (wich is more important than for anybody in particular).

Read the full write up here

Project Plan in progress

Project Timeline : initially starting mid February ( To be confirmed )

Project Team :

7. Wudu’ water cycle [ Not Confirmed ]

Read about the project here and leave your comment if you are interested.

Other potential project is to reduce our impact, not necessarily reaching zero waste, but at least reducing our waste, depending on local resources and not to over consume anything. this we can coordinate in between ourselves as the normal house rules, this could develop to calculate our impact and waste and document it, This might be interesting to someone like @MonicaZacharia or Mamoun Ghallab

People

We have already some applicants for the academy and Residency, Besides the above mentioned people. Plus we need to be flexible on site if we needed to host local people ( coming from a nearby town in Morocco for example ) for some workshop or any pop-up activity.

so we need to coordinate this where people can stay for a while then others come and work on the project.

I will follow this post with a timeline/ Calendar where we can divide the whole process into phases. and everyone can fill in the spot that he/she feels that they can fill.

any suggestion with a shared calendar that we can use instead of Google calendars ?

Activities

Let’s not forget that we will be living together so, we can have lots of fun doing morning activities/sports/rituals :smiley: and nights as well. Besides the fun of cleaning/ cooking …and other essential stuff.

We are also going to have lots of interaction with the local community with the above projects and maybe some other pop up projects/activities to be organized with the local community there such as language exchange.

so As default we can open up the working processes to the interested people who wants to get involved. by having a weekly or bi-weekly open day, movie screenings,…etc

As for the internal projects development, weekly peer to peer consultations sessions would be nice as well.

from the projects and skills in hand we can already provide

  • raspberry pi workshops
  • Open Source hardware principles
  • prototyping workshop
  • video editing
  • how to set up a local radio
  • furniture design
  • water quality testing ?
  • Intro to AI and machine learning
  • Intro to Blockchain
  • webdesign
  • Art workshops for kids ?

Still needed

  • an opensource business model consultation/ workshop

Materials needed

To be filled with materials needed depending on the work plan of the different projects.

For bitcut and the surfboards projects as mentioned we need to work with a local carpenter.

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Great great post, Thank you for detailing everything and connecting the dots!

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Hi @hazem,

Looks like this is going to be a really amazing project opportunity.
I’m really interested in the idea that you mention in the ‘activities’ section about rituals. One of my areas of artistic interest and development is around rituals and ritualised behaviours.
I’d love to see some documentation that comes out of the residency that looks at how these develop over the time there. It’s a really interesting insight into the culture of a community to look at how these rituals grow and where they come from.

Perhaps you have a small space for me to come visit at some point to see in person? Would this be possible?

Alex

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@alex_levene sure you there will be a place for you for some time. Hopefully in the coming days we will have a better look on the occupation of the house with time. will update a Calendar so interested people can start planning to fill in the empty spaces :smiley:

I am also interested to see how this activities evolve/change by time specially the people in house are going to be very diverse. Also if you have any ideas on how to document that in an amusing way please propose :smiley:

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Brilliant! I will wait to see the calendar plan. I’m looking at March dates that may work for me.

I will also think about how we could document the changes in activities as different people come and go.

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Looking forward to join! really i am excited!

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Hey @hazem,

I’m interested. This is Bakr, a recent TU Berlin Master graduate. I worked with AI applications for image detection during my bachelor’s and worked with small arduino & raspberry pi applications as well as different digital fabrication tools during my time at Fab Lab Berlin. I am interested in prototyping in general, project-wise, I’m interested in working on the coffee sorter as well as the wudu’ water cycle (if confirmed later).

Perhaps I could be helpful within these areas :slight_smile:, if there would be a place for me to join of course

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Hey @Bakr welcome to edgeryders :smiley:

Nice to have you in the openvillage. I guess we are going to have a nice AI track in house with @matthias , @imake and you
Have a look on the technical planning document written by Matthias to have a practical understanding of the project ( in case you haven’t already)

Also when are you available ?

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Thanks a lot for the quick reply, Hazem :slight_smile: and thanks for the document as well it’s indeed very interesting. I am available in February, and I am available for any meetings online or physically in Berlin anytime.

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+1 for the storytelling.
I already told @Matthias to sign me up for this and related tasks, but I would rather come later to plug in directly with an ongoing project.
Personally, I’ve seen the storytelling issue bring brought up on edgeryders a lot in the past years and always a bit generic. I would rather put myself in service for this based on the needs of a project on site rather than cook up a distinct project (and more expensive/ labor intensive). Test it, then evaluate and then scale or borrow from the techniques, if needed.

That said, having a dedicated storytelling team in the house doing ground research seems solid… Great work!!

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I will be more than happy to make a workshop with the community there.

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Hello @hazem. Just making a pre-reservation (what is the word for saying I want to come?) I need to discuss longer with Nadia, but right now my plan is to show up some time around Jan 25th, and stay until around the 18th of February.

I will spend most of my time hammering at my thesis. But I would like to contribute about 1 half a day every other day (25%) to @matthias’s optical sorter. I am not a skilled programmer, but happy to take on low level tasks, like code documentation or bringing people coffee.

If someone makes a small edu program, I can offer a simple introduction to social network analysis. But people need to be cool with broken French with all math terms being in English!

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This Yahoo travel article listing “11 Must See Travel Spots for 2018” includes Essaouira.

“Travelers who prefer the slow pace of a coastal town over a bustling and dense city will be entranced by Essaouira. Known as a port and resort center, Africa’s windy city is as popular for windsurfing and kitesurfing as it is for pure relaxation. Walk along its beaches and through the vibrant medina, browse the boutiques, check out the catch of the day at the fish port, and more. And if you’re looking for a little more hustle, Marrakech is only a bus ride away.”

I also saw Essaouira listed in a similar article in Newsweek.

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