In this episode of the Teardown Sessions, Crowd Supply’s Helen Leigh chats with Lukas F. Hartmann, CEO of MNT Research and lead designer of the open source hardware laptop, MNT Reform. Listen in as they discuss DIY computers, beautiful documentation, the FOSS community in Berlin, and how to deliver a large, complex crowdfunding campaign.

Also in this episode, Helen and Lukas discuss user experience, designing for open hardware, user-testing, and how to go from a project to a product. Plus lots of sneak previews of upcoming modules and a cameo from Tina the Dog (and Ball).

About MNT Reform

Mobile personal computers are becoming more and more opaque, vendor controlled, and hard to repair. Modern laptops have secret schematics, glued-in batteries, and components not under user control, like the Intel Management Engine or the Apple T2 security chip. Many people decide to tape over the built-in cameras of their laptops because they don’t know if they can trust the device or the software running on it.

Reform goes in the opposite direction. It is designed to be as open and transparent as possible, and to support a free and open source software stack from the ground up. It invites you to take a look under the hood, customize the documented electronics, and even repair it yourself if you like. The Reform laptop has no built-in surveillance technologies, cameras, or microphones, so you can be confident it will never spy on you.