Assa will be participating in a salon discussion at Future Human: Wednesday August 10, 2011 at The Book Club

read some below… here is a link http://www.futurehuman.co.uk/shop/product_info.php?cPath=3&products_id=17 please come…

Our next Future Human event is on August 10, subtitled Micro Manufacturing. Over the past 10 years the Internet has ripped power from governments, companies and other institutions and put it into the hands of normal people, turning passive consumers into socially networked producers. Over the next 10 years, we’re going to see digital economics upturn industrial production and the physical world of ‘things’, as emerging printing technologies and the distribution efficiencies of the Internet give individuals the power to challenge the giants of the manufacturing sector. Some might argue we’re already there, and that ‘making money from making’ has never been so straightforward. Pioneering websites like Etsy, Threadless, and Ponoko help designers turn their intellectual property into locally produced products that can be sold to a global community of consumers online. Yet up until recently, these websites focused on two-dimensionally printed or lasercut products like T-shirts, plates or flat pack furniture.

The advent of affordable 3D printers is having a profound effect on these business models, however, and offering would-be designers the scope to produce a panoply of products: plastic toys, furniture fixtures, electronic components – even finely crafted chocolates. All of these can be reproduced right now, using 3D design files supplied from anywhere in the world, with printing projects like RepRap and Makerbot lowering the economic barriers every year. Which companies and people are pioneering this shift, and how can ordinary people get involved? And will the Micro Manufacturing movement challenge and supplement the behemoths of global trade, or will it only ever be a niche concern?

Discussing these questions, as well as your own, will be three pioneering UK product designers.