Helen Leigh chats with Alicia Gibb, hardware hacker and open source hardware advocate at OSHWA, and Javier Serrano, who leads a team of electronics designers and Linux kernel developers at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics. Join them as they discuss open hardware best practices, open source hardware movements around the world, and the importance of open hardware for open science and indeed, science and engineering generally.
The conversation ranges widely, from the philosophical (what is openness?) to nuts and bolts for developers (e.g., open source tools for FPGA development). They ruminate on what defines open hardware and what role it plays in open science, and the larger movement towards openness. They also take a look at open source hardware tooling, open source FPGA development, and the history of OSHWA.
About Alicia Gibb
Alicia Gibb is an advocate for open hardware, researcher, and a hardware hacker. She is the founder and CEO of Lunchbox Electronics, a company that creates innovative new products with imagination and a passion for open source hardware. She is a member of NYCResistor, where she has curated two international art shows. Her electronics work has appeared in Wired magazine, IEEE Spectrum, Hackaday, and the New York Times. When Alicia is not researching at the crossroads of open technology and innovation, she is prototyping work that twitches, blinks, and might even be tasty to eat.
About Javier Serrano
Javier Serrano leads a team of electronics designers and Linux kernel developers at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics. He is the initiator of the Open Hardware Repository, a co-author of the CERN Open Hardware License and the coordinator of CERN’s contribution to the development of KiCad. At work, he specializes in very precise synchronization solutions for distributed controls and data acquisition systems, such as White Rabbit. Javier is also very keen on education and advocacy. He enjoys taking groups of students around CERN, teaching them Physics through hands-on experiments and telling them about Open (Science | Data | Access | Software | Hardware). A native of Castellón, Spain, Javier holds degrees in Physics and Electronics Engineering.