With the growing access to cheap electronics (such as the Raspberry Pi Zero introduced at the end of 2015 at $5 a pop), the proliferation of IoT (Internet of Things) devices is inevitable and they will have increasingly sophisticated chips and shorter life span. This will potentially lead to a rapid increase of e-waste, which still ends up mostly in China but also increasingly in Africa. As Gartner predicted, over 50% of the 20 billions of these objects will come from startups founded in the next three years, which gives makers a prime position to help in shaping the ecosystem.

Following an initiative launched last year in Shenzen, David Li and his partners are promoting open-source hardware as a solution to both curb the e-waste by making the circuits reusable and promote the growth of IoT economy and opportunities. The use of open hardware has already been a big part of the electronics production in Shenzhen and it has proven to be viable to both promote business and reduce the e-waste, as explained in this 2014 article.

David will focus on presenting how the unique open ecosystem works in Shenzhen, how it can be expanded and applied in other parts of the world and how it can bring opportunities for IoT and e-waste.

This masterclass is made possible with the help of swissnex China.