Dominic Muren

Blogger, Change Agent, Consultant, Designer, Educator/Teacher, Engineer, Idea generator, Inventor, Journalist, Writer/Editor

Dominic Muren is a forward-thinking professional dedicated to revolutionizing manufacturing processes towards more sustainable and community-focused practices. As the founder of The Humblefactory, based in Seattle, he leads projects that explore decentralized manufacturing, eco-engaged making, and alternative fabrication methods. Dominic's expertise spans open hardware development, material selection, and design for manufacture, enabling small communities to produce practical objects while considering environmental impacts. Through initiatives like Humblefacture, he advocates for ethical design practices and develops technologies for a decentralized, post-industrial civilization. Dominic Muren's work not only encompasses writing projects challenging traditional industry norms but also includes keynote talks and consulting services aimed at educating audiences on the future of manufacturing with a focus on environmental and social considerations.

I want to understand the consequences of the way we make our material world Then I want to change the way we make objects so that these consequences align with our collective desires.

Consumer electronics benefit from over 100 years of manufacturing advancement. Yet they are frustratingly un-customizable, sport laughably short lifetimes, and become toxic waste when they die. These problems come, not from the devices themselves, but with flaws in the way that manufacturing creates the illusion of choice through overproduction, and low cost through reduced durability. Â The Skin-Skeleton-Guts (SSG) Open Framework offers an alternative model for product creation which addresses these problems. By combining modular design with open, shareable design specifications, and using flexible, low cost machines for fabrication, SSG gives local manufacturing control back to users of products, while enabling faster innovation and lower overall costs.Â

Biodesign, Materials, Open Innovation, Product Design & Development, Sustainable & Eco-Friendly Design, Technology & Automation

I'm at TED as a fellow, hoping to spark just enough interest in real, useful open products to nudge the juggernaut that is manufacturing onto tracks that lead to a more open, flexible, useful marketplace of products. I think TED is the perfect place for this to happen, because I don't need to convince everyone that open products are the future. I only need to convince enough people to form a niche within the market -- once there is a bloc of users willing to pay to keep the value they have invested in electronic products (or any object) then large-scale manufacturers will be lead by their bottom lines to join the party. I'm hoping that TED represents a group of people imaginative enough to see past the early, kludgy, ENIAC-sized present of open devices to a future which is almost unimaginably awesome. Whether this makes sense or not, I'd love to hear what you think -- come find me.

Rock collecting. Growing up in the Willamette Valley in Oregon, a place with a low population, but a rich geologic history, there wasn't much else for me to do but drive around digging up agates.