Kyle Wiens: Scaling the Repair Movement: Going Mainstream
This was mostly a slideshow and show-and-tell! He talked about the dynamic policy context in the US and all of the good work Nathan Proctor and US Pirg have done in the US, including getting the FTC to investigate warranty-voiding stickers.There were a few good ‘facts to remember’, including:
You would need to use a new notebook for around 88 years to compensate for all its environmental impact!
@philip will be happy to know that he got another big mention in the talk for his contributions to iFixit, many of which originated on Restarters Wiki.
Also, Kyle mentioned that iFixit is setting aside €50,000 to equip community repair groups with new tools — beyond the kits they already provide. This was very thin on the detail but they encouraged community groups to contact them about these ‘Tool Grants’ at: community@ifixit.com
From @philip: Yay! (It’s gotta be a coincidence that my rep seems to suddenly get a boost in the run-up to Fixfest!!) Q: Is the slide deck online or a recording coming?
From @Restart A: Yes, slide decks and videos will be uploaded soon.
Find the slides for this talk Kyle share the tale of a shop in Japan called the Return of the Dead where clients can buy broken items at a discount and repair them for use. The cheapest items to buy were the most difficult to repair. It is an unique selling proposition that seems to attract interest.
Kyle shared that more and more organisations are organising repair events including Patagonia. Ifixit is also collaborating with organisations such as Motorola to develop repair guide that are made available to users. Individuals across the world are also participating in the translation of the repair guide so that anyone regardless of their language capability can engage.
Kyle asked if they were anyone in the room who were a professional repairer. No one raised their hand. We had a representative of the professional repairers association of Germany who came along to represent them. The prompt raised in me the question (@Marie_Lefebvre) on what is the ability/capacity as well as the barriers of the repair movement to build bridges with professional repairers.
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