Right to repair, International Repair Day & the UK declaration - with Ugo (Cinema Room)

When & where?

:clock1130: 11:30-12:15
:compass: Cinema room

Why you should come to this session

  • Join us if you want to help connect the activities we do in our communities with the issues affecting us all: the throw-away economy and planned obsolescence.
  • How can we collaborate to contribute to the push for more repairable products?
  • It’s going to be an interactive session, with participants working together in small groups

Session outline

We’ll use this session to:

  • share a quick update on the Right to Repair movement and the opportunities we have to push for more repairable products in the next 3 months
  • learn more about each other and the range of motivations driving different groups;
  • present the upcoming #RepairDay on Saturday 20 October, and how you all can get involved
  • prepare a declaration of priorities for community repair groups in the UK

About the facilitator(s)

I’m @Ugo, a co-founder of The Restart Project, and I think I have attended at least 100 Restart Parties over the last 6 years :slight_smile:
From the beginning I’ve been driven by the “power of doing”, mixed with a desire to contribute to making future electronic products more repairable. Among other things, I follow policy development at EU level and try to connect the dots between the Right to Repair movement in the US and Europe.

Please help document this session!

This is a wiki post, meaning anyone can edit it by clicking on the ‘Edit’ button at the bottom of this post: Edit%20button . Feel free to make edits and add your own notes :wink:

Draft declaration: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i_UnOF1hzt6GHwp-bwyJDpEQai0mnF8onOslaVGSBu4/edit

Initial notes/learning for action:

  • for the majority of groups, small electrical and electronic products are the most commonly experienced ones
  • we see common barriers: products impossible to open/disassemble; access to spare parts ; software obsolescence
  • let’s not reinvent the wheel, we need to work together as a united group, learning more
  • how do we change behaviour and expectations? We’re so used to products being unrepairable, that at times we expect they all are

Follow ups :

  • let’s start a coordinating group between all community repair groups, so we can learn from each other and achieve more together
  • let’s explore how to work better with universities: not just to run repair events, but also to influence/inspire design students (example of Gloucestershire, where Malvern Hills Repair Café managed to collaborate with university design students /lecturers looking at design of devices returned to local supermarket, no longer fit for resale)
  • more positive communication, for instance sharing repairs with #joyoffixing, starting with Repair Day
  • how to influence important actors? Community leaders (procurement?) + retailers (what repairable products we want them to sell) , plus easier ways to contact MPs with relevant materials
  • get repair businesses on our side, collaborate with them

You’re also welcome to leave comments below to help us document the session, e.g.:

  • what happened in the session?
  • what did you learn or find interesting?
  • who did you talk to and did any actions come out of the conversation?

Some of my notes:

Examples of limiting of access to R2R

  • Audience member: “Counterfeit” screens – Apple
  • Jan from Malvern Hills: Printer obsolescence – the model around ink, and killchips
  • Jane from Sugru: We don’t even look for support / spare parts from manufacturers – story Brabantia bins
  • @Stuart_Ward: Software obsolescence programmable IC – computer on a chip within an appliance, miniaturisation, lack of access to software. One to watch: Project Apollo by Cory Doctorow – challenge the Digital Millennium Copyright Act – John Deere tractors, cryptographic “lock” on software. Same thing is happening with cars.
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