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I, like many of you,

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am one of the two billion people[br]on Earth who live in cities.

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And there are days --[br]I don't know about the rest of you --

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but there are days when I palpably feel

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how much I rely on other people

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for pretty much everything in my life.

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And some days, that can even[br]be a little scary.

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But what I'm here[br]to talk to you about today

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is how that same interdependence

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is actually an extremely[br]powerful social infrastructure

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that we can actually harness

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to help heal some[br]of our deepest civic issues,

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if we apply open-source collaboration.

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A couple of years ago,

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I read an article by New York Times[br]writer Michael Pollan,

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in which he argued that growing[br]even some of our own food

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is one of the best things[br]that we can do for the environment.

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Now at the time that I was reading this,

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it was the middle of the winter

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and I definitely did not have room[br]for a lot of dirt

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in my New York City apartment.

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So I was basically just willing to settle

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for just reading the next Wired magazine

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and finding out how the experts[br]were going to figure out

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how to solve all these problems[br]for us in the future.

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But that was actually exactly the point

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that Michael Pollan[br]was making in this article --

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it's precisely when we hand over

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the responsibility[br]for all these things to specialists

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that we cause the kind of messes[br]that we see with the food system.

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I happen to know[br]a little bit from my own work

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about how NASA has been using hydroponics

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to explore growing food in space.

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And I started to learn

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that you can actually[br]get optimal nutritional yield

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by running a kind of high-quality[br]liquid soil over plants' root systems.

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Now to a vegetable plant,

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my apartment has got to be[br]about as foreign as outer space.

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But I can offer some natural light

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and year-round climate control.

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Fast-forward two years later:

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we now have window farms,

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which are vertical, hydroponic platforms

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for food-growing indoors.

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And the way it works[br]is that there's a pump at the bottom,

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which periodically sends this liquid[br]nutrient solution up to the top,

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which then trickles down[br]through plants' root systems

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that are suspended in clay pellets --

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so there's no dirt involved.

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Now light and temperature vary[br]with each window's microclimate,

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so a window farm requires a farmer,

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and she must decide

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what kind of crops she is going[br]to put in her window farm,

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and whether she is going[br]to feed her food organically.

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Back at the time,

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a window farm was no more[br]than a technically complex idea

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that was going to require[br]a lot of testing.

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And I really wanted it[br]to be an open project,

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because hydroponics

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is one of the fastest[br]growing areas of patenting

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in the United States right now,

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and could possibly become[br]another area like Monsanto,

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where we have a lot of corporate[br]intellectual property

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in the way of people's food.

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So I decided that,[br]instead of creating a product,

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what I was going to do

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was open this up[br]to a whole bunch of codevelopers.

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The first few systems that we created,[br]they kind of worked.

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We were actually able to grow[br]about a salad a week

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in a typical New York City[br]apartment window.

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And we were able to grow cherry tomatoes

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and cucumbers, all kinds of stuff.

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But the first few systems

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were these leaky, loud power-guzzlers

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that Martha Stewart[br]would definitely never have approved.

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(Laughter)

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So to bring on more codevelopers,

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what we did was we created[br]a social media site

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on which we published the designs,

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we explained how they worked,

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and we even went so far

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as to point out everything[br]that was wrong with these systems.

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And then we invited people[br]all over the world

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to build them and experiment with us.

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So actually now on this website,

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we have 18,000 people.

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And we have window farms[br]all over the world.

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What we're doing[br]is what NASA or a large corporation

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would call R&D,[br]or research and development.

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But what we call it is R&D-I-Y,

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or "research and develop it yourself."

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So, for example, Jackson came along

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and suggested that we use air pumps[br]instead of water pumps.

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It took building a whole bunch[br]of systems to get it right,

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but once we did, we were able to cut[br]our carbon footprint nearly in half.

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Tony in Chicago has been taking on[br]growing experiments,

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like lots of other window farmers,

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and he's been able to get[br]his strawberries to fruit

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for nine months of the year[br]in low-light conditions

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by simply changing out[br]the organic nutrients.

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And window farmers in Finland[br]have been customizing their window farms

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for the dark days of the Finnish winters

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by outfitting them with LED grow lights

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that they're now making[br]open source and part of the project.

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So window farms have been evolving

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through a rapid versioning process[br]similar to software.

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And with every open source project,

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the real benefit is the interplay

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between the specific concerns[br]of people customizing their systems

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and the universal concerns.

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So my core team and I

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are able to concentrate[br]on the improvements

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that really benefit everyone.

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And we're able to look out[br]for the needs of newcomers.

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So for do-it-yourselfers,

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we provide free,[br]very well-tested instructions

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so that anyone, anywhere around the world,

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can build one of these systems for free.

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And there's a patent pending[br]on these systems as well

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that's held by the community.

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And to fund the project,

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we partner to create products

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that we then sell[br]to schools and to individuals

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who don't have time[br]to build their own systems.

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Now within our community,[br]a certain culture has appeared.

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In our culture,[br]it is better to be a tester

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who supports someone else's idea

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than it is to be just the idea guy.

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What we get out of this project[br]is support for our own work,

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as well as an experience[br]of actually contributing

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to the environmental movement

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in a way other than just[br]screwing in new light bulbs.

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But I think that Eleen expresses best

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what we really get out of this,

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which is the actual joy of collaboration.

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So she expresses here what it's like

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to see someone halfway across the world

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having taken your idea, built upon it

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and then acknowledging[br]you for contributing.

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If we really want to see[br]the kind of wide consumer behavior change

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that we're all talking about[br]as environmentalists and food people,

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maybe we just need[br]to ditch the term "consumer"

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and get behind the people[br]who are doing stuff.

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Open source projects[br]tend to have a momentum of their own.

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And what we're seeing is that R&D-I-Y

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has moved beyond[br]just window farms and LEDs

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into solar panels and aquaponic systems.

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And we're building upon innovations[br]of generations who went before us.

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And we're looking ahead at generations

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who really need us[br]to retool our lives now.

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So we ask that you join us

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in rediscovering the value[br]of citizens united,

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and to declare[br]that we are all still pioneers.

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(Applause)