Digital DIY for Self-Sustainability of Rural Areas

* Digital DIY for self-sustainability of rural areas. By Marco Fioretti, Wouter Tebbens. LIUC Papers n. 297, Digital Do It Yourself, 1, giugno 2016

URL = http://www.biblio.liuc.it/liucpapersita.asp?codice=343

Abstract

"Digital Do-It-Yourself techniques, from 3D printing to micro-sensors, allow people to construct and reproduce complex objects, from drones to milking machines, with reduced costs and skills. Digital DIY can contribute to feasible, practical solutions for economic and social sustainability of rural areas. Digital DIY can help making agriculture and farming economically and environmentally sustainable, thanks to machinery and crop/livestock monitoring systems that greatly reduce both the costs of equipment, and the time and skills required to build and manage them. Digital DIY can also be applied to provide crucial services for rural areas, from Internet connectivity to telemedicine. At both levels, Digital DIY solutions can be reused, and completely adapted to the actual local needs of each community, at the smallest possible costs. In this paper we will first define Digital DIY, Open Source Hardware and their impacts and challenges in agriculture. Next, we will look into how Digital DIY enables people to build civic and social services bottom-up, also in rural areas. We argue that solutions based on Open Source Hardware and Digital DIY can and should be applied in rural areas, thus contributing to a sustainable society, from an environmental, social and economic point of view."