A bi-weekly talk show by The Restart Project, plus a monthly documentary series produced by brilliant podcaster Dave Pickering, based on fixing triumphs, heartbreaks and wisdom shared at our community repair events – called Restart Parties – here in London. We go into real depth about good and bad design, obstacles to repair of electronics, emotional aspects of ownership, environmentally irresponsible business models, and the “end of life” of our gadgets. This podcast is for you if you'd like to fix your relationship with electronics. Let’s rethink, restart.
https://therestartproject.org/podcast/
Restart Podcast Ep 3: Searching for the roots of grassroots innovation
In this episode, we go in search of some of the historical roots of grassroots innovation in design, tech and resource management at a local level in the UK (and beyond).
Podcaster Dave Pickering interviews Adrian Smith, University of Sussex Professor of Technology and Society, who can help us put our fixing into broader perspective. We learn that community repair is embedded in a larger context of bottom-up responses to economic, ecological and technological change.
Smith describes the Lucas Plan of the late 1970s (check out this documentary for more) and early tech networks formed in London (early 1980s), as well as how recycling started not as a top-down government or corporate sector, but as a community-driven attempt to prevent waste and promote resource efficiency.
We hear from participants at a Restart Party at the Abbey Community Centre in Kilburn (hosted by Transition Kensal to Kilburn) how Restart Parties link with other current community initiatives and reconnect us to objects of personal historical significance.
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