Smári McCarthy

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= Digital Fabrication advocate, working in Iceland

URL = http://www.smarimccarthy.com/


Bio

Executive Director at Internaitonal modern Media Institute (IMMI), a co-founder of the Icelandic Digital Freedoms Society, founder of the Shadow Parliament Project, an attempt to crowdsource democracy, co-founder of the Constitutional Analysis Support Project (CAST). He has worked on developing and spreading digital fabrication technology through Fab Labs and Hacker Spaces. Long:

"I live both in Reykjavík and Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland. I work as a project manager for the Icelandic Innovation Center in Vestmannaeyjar, and during my free time I am a board member of the Icelandic Society for Digital Freedoms (FSFÍ)" [1]

Smari's interests:

"Digital fabrication is the art of using computers to describe physical objects and using genetics, robotics and nanotechnology (GNR) to create them. Most of the work these days is going into the robotic wing of the digital fabrication field, making machines that can make almost anything. The possibilities are limitless, the future is nigh. Twenty years from now we’ll have a primitive version of the Star Trek replicator. This is one of my interests.

Sustainable technology is the field of making technology that doesn’t pollute, create waste, or cause strife. It’s about making human oriented technology for a human-oriented future. This includes finding cleaner energy sources, making more efficient devices, and finding cheaper and better ways of doing things that humanity has been doing for centuries. This is one of my interests.

Small Scale Democracy is about moving the power to the people. It is grounded on the observation that republics don’t work, because they dither the power by gobbing too many opinions together and granting certain people power to represent those bastardized opinions. By studying the dynamics in social networks and applying to them the common sense in anarchist philosophy, more freedom can be gained for more people in a far more optimal way. This is one of my interests." (http://smari.yaxic.org/blag/about)


Discussion

By Franz Nahrada:

"Smari McCarthy describes himself as "Technologist, digital fabrication enthusiast, essayist, author, anarchist, math dude. As of May 2008, working on digital fabrication and peer-to-peer education on a remote island in the north Atlantic ocean"

In fact the island is a group of islands south of iceland, the biggest island being Heimaey, and there is a city with the same name with 4000 inhabitants.

The place is famous because in 1973 a new Volcano emerged from the seas and the city had to be evacuated. The whole city was covered with meters of black ashes but was mostly dug out again - no human being was harmed, but since then its also called the Pompeji of the North...

Its about 4 hours by boat and bus from Reykjavik.

Smari is Manager of the FabLab which is run by Nsköpunarmistö Íslands, the Icelandic Innovation Center. The FabLab is not a remote and closed place but intentionally open to the locals!! This is one of the finest examples of application of Global Village principles around the world. They are just starting to run a 12 unit course in Digital Fabrication at the local gymnasium (16-20 year olds in secondary schooling). So the young people can make use of hot stuff! High Tech to keep people locally based.

See: http://www.fablab.is/w/index.php/Iceland

The fablab is well equipped: http://www.fablab.is/w/index.php/Main_Page"

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