Open Source, Open Vision: The MakerPro Network and the Broadening of Participation in Setting Taiwan’s IT Vision Agenda

Abstract

HCI recognizes the importance of visions as both a design and futuring approach and a problem-solving technique. One challenge of visioning work is who can propose and shape IT visions and how they can achieve the widespread buy-in needed to make them efficacious. In this paper, we focus on the potential of making, open design, and open manufacturing for contributing toward, if not fully achieving, the broadening of participation in IT envisioning. We use Taiwan’s MakerPro, a manufacturers and IT R&D community as a case to unpack what collective IT visioning looks like, how it shapes IT agendas concretely, and the implications for open design/open manufacturing research agenda in HCI. Our findings reveal how MakerPro members constructed and developed visions for open design and open manufacturing in Taiwan, obstacles to such visions, and how these obstacles can be collaboratively overcome through a participative and even democratic process. We also show that the collective purposiveness not only defines a regional vision agenda but also embraces an entire nation’s future.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under award 1513604, the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation, and the Faculty Research Support Program (FRSP) at Indiana University.

Notes on contributors

Guo Freeman

Guo Freeman ([email protected]) is an HCI and social computing researcher. Her research focuses on social dynamics forged surrounding technological objects and collaborative systems, including computer-mediated interpersonal relationships, team dynamics, and collective innovation; she is an assistant professor in the School of Computing at Clemson University.

Jeffrey Bardzell

Jeffrey Bardzell ([email protected]) is an HCI and interaction design researcher. His research foci include research through design, user experience and aesthetics, and digital creativity, with particular emphases on critical design and design criticism; he is a professor in the Department of Informatics at Indiana University School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering.

Shaowen Bardzell

Shaowen Bardzell ([email protected]) is an HCI and interaction design researcher. A common thread throughout her work is the exploration of the contributions of feminism, design, and social science to support technology’s role in social change; she is a professor in the Department of Informatics at Indiana University School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering.