Welcome to our session on bringing hardware to the masses.

I'll just say hi real quick and prep you on what's about to happen. So we'll have a brief introduction from our guest, Federico Musto, the CEO of Arduino, who will explain a little bit about the background of himself and the Arduino and a little history

so we all know what this is all about. And right after that, we'll dive into a discussion with Juliette, who's also here from Kenya. Some of you have probably already seen her around on understanding what we can do and could do to make use of open source hardware projects to make hardware more available to the masses

and talk about the pitfalls that come with it maybe. So without further ado, let's give a hand for Federico Musto of Arduino. Hello, okay. Well, good evening, everybody. First of all, let me say thanks for this opportunity.

I understood that this is the last session today, so I'm sure you guys are pretty tired. It will be super fast. I just prepared a couple slides to explain a little bit about what is Arduino today. I'm sure that many of you, they know what is Arduino

as an open source project, but I would love to share a little bit more about the company that is behind Arduino, what we are doing from hardware, from the software, and last but not least, the Arduino Foundation that we just announced six months ago. So, okay, what is Arduino? I'm sure that you guys are pretty familiar about the open source project of Arduino.

Everything started with a board from a student of the Interaction Design Institute of Ivrea, Orlando Barragan, that he built this wiring board, and he was really the mentor about all the Arduino movement, and then after that, the professor of Orlando, Massimo Banci,

took the idea to improve the project and build what right now we know as Arduino as an open source project. Today, so 10 years later, the company started in 2005. 10 years later, now we have products that run from the very small microcontroller board.

Probably you guys know the Arduino Uno. We have a product with Linux with radio frequency, starter kit, and so on. So, right now, Arduino is still a very small company. The company has in total 89 employees. We have offices in Europe, we have Switzerland. Well, the good news that we have an office now in Berlin

and we have the first Arduino store here in Berlin. We have, of course, the main offices are in the factory, are in Italy, Spain, we're going to open in Oslo, in US, we are in Boston, San Jose, and in Asia. We are in Taiwan and Shanghai.

Little bit about the people about Arduino. So, basically, we produce more than 85% of our product in Italy, still in Italy. This basically is our Italian team. You can see picture about our factories and this is our Chinese team mix from Taipei and China.

Let me tell you about a little bit about the art that we're doing. So, everybody know the Arduino Uno, probably is one of our, still our best selling product. We produce this board in a small factory in Strambino that is a very small town in Piedmont in Italy. We build product like also Arduino Mega

that was basically the inspiration of many 3D printers that probably you know about that. The Arduino Zero and Pro and just a couple of weeks ago, we announced the Arduino Uno Wi-Fi that is a combination between the Arduino Uno and a very well-known ESP8266 that is a Wi-Fi module.

I take this as a sample as Arduino try really to combine technology in open source, open hardware and try to combine all together and to offer something to the user and makers to build interesting project but also to make an evolution of what we do because as you know,

Arduino is an open source and open hardware platform so it does mean that we release not only the code of the software but also the schematics and the layout that allow the people if they want to take this inspiration and build other product based on the Arduino technology. Couple of weeks ago and you probably know,

I'm not a co-founder of Arduino. I took, basically I start to work with Arduino three years ago when I was working to a very interesting project with two co-founder of Arduino, one was Massimo Banzi and later on Gianluca Martino to the Arduino Uno. Arduino Uno was the first product where we was able to combine the Linux technology

and the microcontroller in just one board. I was not very romantic, was very difficult. The chip that we was using here was basically based only for mass production for over the five million pieces so we spent a lot of effort to try to convince Qualcomm materials to give us the chip

and finally we was able to build the product that now is one of our best selling product that is again is able to combine the Linux and the microcontroller all together in just one board. Then we made other product like Arduino Uno meaning that has just different form factor and then recently, just two months ago,

we announced the evolution of Arduino Uno that is the Arduino TN that is a product that is able to combine the 2.4, the five gigahertz Wi-Fi and the Bluetooth in just one single PCB. This is just, I'm trying to go very quickly so I don't want to waste your time with too much information about the marketing

but just to give you an overlook about what you have done in the past six months. Interesting about the Arduino TN that we was trying to really build the platform with very, very low power consumption allow to have the board up and running with just the coin's batteries and that is a very easy structure about what we build between the Linux part

and the microcontroller. Basically, with the microcontroller, we are able to shut down the Wi-Fi technology and then the power consumption of the Cortex M0 plus is very low and then we can have the board up and running with just a couple of batteries.

Well, that is a new stream revenue for us so how we can help the makers that they start to build prototypes using our product and then later on, they said, okay, but now we want to have some small production like 100 pieces, 1,000 pieces and they tried to avoid to go to a hardware design team

that asked them, of course, to invest some money to redesign basically one of our board for some special form factor or for some specific need. Well, eight months ago, we decided to start to build some small modules that basically allow you to use

exactly the same technology that you have in one of our products, in that case, this is the Arduino Yun in a very, very small form factor with a Wi-Fi antenna built in and that's allow you basically to have exactly the same user experience, the same technology that you was using the Yun in a very, very small form factor.

We started to work with company that use this module for a microwave, dishwasher so it's our first product that tried to approach the IoT market in a very, very easy way and we started to produce and sell this product six months ago as an evolution of the Arduino Yun.

Last time, young boys asked, okay, but you guys need to produce robotic stuff so we understand how to use electronics but we want robotics, especially because we need to switch on and switch off my goodnight light. So I was in Beijing nine months ago

and we took an inspiration from this small boy and we built these brushes, basically our first robotics as a kit and again, our goal is to teach robotics and try to help small kids to learn to build robotic stuff like this and then control over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth

and this is another interesting example that come from basically user that approach us and then we took inspiration to build a product for them. Of course, we have a shield that is, as you know, the board with the shield that allow us to offer the interconnection with sensors and other components that allow us

to interact with the humidity, temperature and so on. That is something that we built a couple of months ago. The idea come from the nest, I don't know if it's a popper in Germany but in US

it's pretty popular, the next thermostat. So the idea was to build something open source that allow us to interact with a very, very well known product but in the Arduino way, so open source and open hardware. So that is the shield that we built a couple of months ago that basically has all the technology that you can find in the next but open source,

open hardware. Last but not least, a very famous starter kit where basically we put all the exercise, all the components that they have and that allow student mainly to learn technology in a completely different way. So one of the interesting point that Arduino is bringing is that we are trying to teach technologies

not from an engineer point of view but more from an artistic point of view. So design and color materials is a very important point for us and this is one of our best product that we use to teach electronics. Interesting that we start to teach electronics

using this kit also here in Germany and of course in Italy, Spain and we have a translation for several countries. So I'm pretty proud that this is basically was a combination of several project that was coming from the community and we just put all together. Well, everybody know probably Arduino

as a hardware companies. Let me spend just a few words on the software. Recently, of course, we start the evolution of Arduino IDE so we don't have the JavaScript version but now we have also the JavaScript version that allow us to have the same environment over the cloud.

We build a new library that we call Chao. The reason why we call this library Chao is of course the Italian way to say hello but also because in Chinese, Chao mean bridge so we use the way to connect the sketch that is our way how we write code to the Linux part.

So we build a library that allow us to use the microcontroller and export basically the functionality of the microcontroller in very easy way. So with this technology, we can use a very, very easy way to control the sensor, basically the ADC, PWM

on the microcontroller and export the result directly on the Linux part. I just create a couple of slide here that explain how this works. So this is the Linux part. We can basically create some connector. This is a very simple example about how it should work. So basically with this very easy command

that we can interact with a Twitter server. This on the Linux part side, we have basically a way to set up a connector, to enable the connector and then basically write the application. I don't know if you guys are technical so I don't want again to bother you too much

but it's just a very easy command that in this case we use a JSON form factor. We enable, we prepare the XMP connector. We enable the XMP connector and basically we use the XMP connector in this way to talk with an XMP server on the Linux part.

And this is the child library that we build a couple months ago. Some reference that you can see where if you all want to have more information about what you've done with this library. But for us, that was just the beginning.

Another thing that we build was a small Linux operating system that we call Lineno. As you probably know in the Arduino community, everything has to be Eno like small as a part of our language. So we call Lineno the small operating system that is up and running on the Linux part and basically just an evolution of the OpenWRT.

But we also build another interesting operating system that we call Lineno.io. That basically is a small operating system that is up and running on the microcontroller and expose all the functionality of the microcontroller directly on the Linux file system. What does mean that you don't need to write code on the microcontroller anymore but you can just use the features of the microcontroller

directly on the Linux part. So for example, ADC, GPIO, PWM are exposed directly on the Linux file system. Just to give you an example, if you want to power on and power off a GPIO, the only thing that you have to do is echo one in the file where the GPIO is connected.

Everything come of course in open source. There's a collaboration with a couple of university in Europe and we built this six months ago and it was our way to try to enable the power of the microcontroller in some very, very easy and friendly way to people that don't want

to spend too much time to learn code on the microcontroller. And of course this is very interesting. This works on the wireless, sorry, on the wired, so basically on the UNO, the TEN, but most important on the wireless. So it does mean that you can have a sensor all around your space, your labs, your rooms, your home,

and thus will transfer this signals directly wireless to a gate. That is the Lightning IOP. And here you can see some links about the project and where you can find more information. And that's the last things.

Many users said, okay, but we need also something even more easy to use. So we announced it two months ago, the Arduino S. Arduino S is just the evolution of the Google Chrome. I don't know if it's very popular here in Germany. It basically is a JavaScript operating system. So Arduino S allow us to expose the same functionality

that you should have a desktop system in just your browser. So we have video games and everything will be exposed in HTML5. And that is a new project that we announced just last month and basically is compatible right now with the TEN, with the UNO,

all the product has Linux capability built in. Last but not least, this is really my last slide, is about the foundation. Six months ago, we was trying to find a way to say thanks to the community. When I say community, I'm talking about, of course, the software developer, but even more important,

the teacher that use Arduino to teach electronics, the user that just buy Arduino to enjoy and build projects. So we announced the Arduino Foundation. Arduino Foundation is a no-profit organization that want to help the Arduino community mainly in three directions.

Engineer that want to write code using Arduino technology. So we help them with some kind of scholarship. We help the electronic engineer that they want to build hardware using Arduino technology, some shield on the Arduino, and we help them with some facility, but also we sponsor them with some money.

And very important for us is the teachers. So we help the teacher that want to teach Arduino sending free material to them, will make sponsorship with the school. And right now, we made a pretty good deal. Well, we're working here in Germany with a couple of university.

We're in Italy, we're in Spain, France, Russia, United States, and in China. That is the university that agreed to be part of this network. If you are interested to have even more information by the Arduino Foundation, of course, I will be more than happy to follow up with you. That is the quick introduction that I did on Arduino.

I don't know if it was too technical, but I'm more than happy to answer your question if you have some question. Thanks. Thank you very much. I think you can probably stay on the stage and sit down, and I would also invite Juliet to join us.

And I'll go over here so you can actually see me. So before we dive into the discussion, I think there was a lot of stuff that we can now talk about. I would like to invite Juliet to maybe share a little background about herself as well, because she has also been involved

in a lot of very interesting work. So welcome to the panel, and feel free to share a little bit about yourself. Sure, thank you, Simon, and thank you for the presentation on Arduino. My name is Juliet Waniri. I am from Kenya, and my background is in engineering and in hardware.

I have previously been involved with the Fab Lab in Nairobi and a lot more with the iHub and the Gearbox, and I currently run Fundy Workshops, which is a maker kind of platform that looks to expand the capacity and the technical skill

through design and engineering training. So we do use a lot of Arduino products. And another side of that is that we work with and talk to a lot of innovators and hardware entrepreneurs in Eastern Africa and trying to spread that outside the Eastern African region

to see how we can all just get more products that address local needs and champion a lot of the things that people are passionate about. All right, thank you very much, Juliet. So before we dive into this, I was wondering who is sitting in this audience? Are we talking to engineers only

or to non-engineers only or something in between? So just to get an understanding, who of you is involved in some kind or way or shape or form of building hardware projects? Feel free to show your hands. Oh, that's quite a lot. Okay, so a lot of the explanation on this

is actually preaching to the choir, which is good. So another thing I just wanted to put out, we thought that it would be more interesting instead of us talking and then opening it up to you in the end to have this an open panel

from the beginning on. So please feel very welcome and free to jump in at any point that you think. You have a point to add, a question, just something that you would like to share with the others. So I think there's microphones around. The only thing that we have to take into account is that everyone can hear you,

but feel free, please, to jump in at any point that you have a question or something that you want to share with everyone else. All right, so maybe to start off, something that I was wondering with the topic bringing hardware to the masses is how everyone is, so there's this big word,

hardware is hard, and I remember Brady Forrest of Highway 1 saying there is no China button, all referring to the point that it's one thing to actually build and design a hardware product and come up with a prototype, but it's a completely different story

to actually go into production and to actually go into scaling. And I was just wondering, probably you have a lot to share with that. Could you maybe come up with some typical challenges that you guys were facing when actually going into scaling? You mentioned your offices in China and in Taiwan.

Is there something that you would say is characteristic when taking the step from a prototype to a product? Well, let me say it's a really completely different movie. When I say movie, it's make a prototype, it's a lot of fun, and I love to make prototypes.

Make mass production is a completely different story and is not fun at all in the way that you're facing with procurement, financial, quality control, and so on. So it's, let me say it that way, it's like you make your home pizza at home

versus to start to make an industry that make pizza for 10,000, 100,000 people every month. So that's exactly the same thing. Saying that is basically two different teams. So we have R&D teams and then we have mass production teams. Sometimes they hate each other,

sometimes they love each other, but I will say 95% is just more enterprise business. And the point is open source, open hardware doesn't change a bit. I mean, your guys are facing with a bunch of problems that are typical for a company that want to produce more than 100 or so pieces.

It's more enterprise, so you must have some good skill to make the prototypes, but you want to also have some good skills for mass production. That is one of the key point when a company move from startup to enterprise. So you must have the right skill to run a startups,

but to move from a startups to enterprise is definitely is not only about venture capital or money, is really to other people that know how to do it or they did before, and that's what helped to fix a lot of problem that usually you have on your way if you don't hire the right people,

and that is our experience that we've done so far. So I wonder, me coming myself from a design background, I'm very much thrilled to think in very iterative ways, say, build a prototype, see what doesn't work, build another prototype, see it still doesn't work, build another one.

That's an approach that's probably very hard when it comes to talking to partners and when it comes to talking big, big numbers. There's the actual cost of failing and of something not working out is exponentially higher than actually crashing your prototype, and I was wondering, is there something that you could recommend or suggest for people

that are approaching this step? Because I know there's accelerator programs out there, but there's also communities out there that might be a good address to join forces when sharing experiences to this. Is there something, because you just mentioned it's not just about the VC money,

is there something that you could say what you would suggest doing when approaching this step? Well, yeah, it's not very romantic, but if you're running a company and an enterprise, your goal is the breakeven, right? So from an enterprise point of view, I will say the first thing that you want to be sure

that your product will be sold in the right way, so you have a customer that want to buy your product, because sometime happen that you build your product for yourself and you love your product so much, and when people don't want to buy your product, they say, hey, guys, what is wrong with you? I made a beautiful pizza.

Well, you don't like my stuff. So I'm trying to answer your question in different way. Of course, when you go in much production, you're facing problem like just to buy the chip. Right now, you did something with a beautiful chip, and then when you go and you want to buy more than 1,000 pieces, well, lead times, six years,

I say, no, no, no, I need it for six weeks. So the second point is the price. Of course, you buy 1,000 pieces, not the same price that when you buy 100,000 pieces. Unfortunately, a lot of component now are available only in China. When I say unfortunately, it's just because

the reason why we have a factory in Italy and a factory in China is for the same reason why your phone come probably from Shenzhen, because that is where basically the chip and the components are built, and the knowledge about radio frequency is probably one of the best in term of time availability.

Probably in term of quality, I will say. Of course, Germany is still one of the best country where you can find expertise in this field, but in term of time to market, well, sometimes you don't have a choice. So enterprise is a bit different. It's definitely less romantics than just to build your own prototype,

and I would love it just to come back and build my own prototypes, but when you grow, sometimes you need to make some decision, and you're here. All right. Yeah, that's very interesting, especially, I think, when taking the context into account. You just mentioned, well, maybe Germany has a specific context when it comes to quality, but also when it comes to time to market.

I wonder, how does this relate to the context of Eastern Africa? I mean, that's a completely different story, probably, but I was wondering, is there, from what we just heard, I figure there are probably quite a few points that you can relate to from your work

on the ground as well, especially when it comes to giving people access to the actual tools, giving people access to the training and to the actual tools to build the prototypes. So is there anything in particular that you would say is necessary or needed when it comes to allowing, say, aspiring entrepreneurs

in the realm of hardware makers, maybe not even with a big goal of building a start brand mind, but just with the idea of building a product that is physical? Is there something that you would say is crucial on that end, even before we talk about, I don't know, going to China to scale it? What should come earlier?

I think I would sum it up in terms of access. And so I think that's something you mentioned. So I think the first stage is access to the platforms to prototype with. And Aduna is a really popular platform for this, with most people using it. But it was only until recently, at least in Kenya,

where you could order it online. And the fact that you had to go to maybe a handful of stores in the city to get it means that the process you go through to prototype, it just becomes a lot slower. So that's like the first level. And then the other one is access to information. And I think that that is coupled

with the trainings and the hackathons on this. So it's slowly growing. But when you look at most hubs across Africa, most of the training and the workshops and the hackathons are around software. So that, I would say, is sort of internationally at the same level.

But I think with hardware, there hasn't been that much focus on it. And so you find that you have on the grassroots a lot of people who have some basic knowledge. And then you have a spread of people who are pro makers, but very isolated. So you have small clusters of really good information,

but not accessible to everyone. And I think that's because there hasn't been that focus or incentive for people to put their stuff out there for simple reasons that if I'm a hardware startup in Kenya, it would be really hard, or in East Africa or anywhere around the continent, it would be really hard for me to get access

to accelerator funding or support because most of the support goes into social enterprises. So it might be maybe 10 times easier for me to get funding for our social enterprise around water, sanitation. But if I'm building a device for, let's say, our home automation system,

people kind of overlook that, oh, that's not what people want to fund in emerging markets. And I genuinely think they miss out on such a, a huge group of geniuses that way. Because a lot of the things, a lot of the buzzwords are like, who's gonna be the next Steve Jobs or Zukabag of Africa?

But Steve Jobs, and he sort of was not a social entrepreneur. I mean, he really was just out there to disrupt things. So I think we need to have more people focusing on disruptors and then creating that access to make these people come up and be seen

and have their products sold everywhere. The same way, Arduino could start in Italy and just be a word use anywhere. And people are like, oh yeah, I have an Arduino. So I think when we create that access to both to the skills, the resources, to the manufacturing and make it an international standard

that we don't have biases for different regions. I think that that would be a way of increasing the access. Absolutely. I think it's a question that everyone kind of runs into sooner or later. It's like, how do you not only identify these clusters of information, as you called them,

like these champions of bringing a project forward, but also how do you connect them among each other? And I think it's like, on that level, it doesn't matter if you're looking at Kenya or Italy. I figure that's something, especially when it comes to leveraging the potential of the Arduino community,

you guys have done in a very, very great way because there's lots of these clusters all over the globe. But I wonder, is there something that any of you would say is crucial when it comes to identifying these clusters that push forward collaboration

and when it comes to interconnecting them? Is there maybe a common goal or a common platform or, I don't know, a certain mindset when talking to them? Sure, well, let me say, first of all, that Arduino really is about you.

So we did a very, very small thing. I mean, the people that are using Arduino are basically the value of Arduino. And the company is a very small company, but the value of Arduino is really the people that work with Arduino. Definitely, the key point was open source

and open hardware. That is, and the Chinese understood this pretty well. So they copy Arduino product a lot. They copy also the trademark. That should be something that you don't need to copy. But the goal is really to have a platform completely open, not only on the software, but also on the hardware.

I will say was the key about the story about Arduino. So how we can connect? Well, intranet is definitely a way that the different community and the software developer, hardware developer, they connect each other. So we don't have, we are working, but I think Arduino Foundation should be the right place.

But we don't have right now a single point center that take everybody connected or inspire them. We have some activities. We are going to announce the first Arduino developer day in a few months. So we are trying now to have a kind of,

not really direction, but more a place where everybody can share idea and eventually take some inspiration. And it was interesting, basically also, have the opportunity eventually to sponsor this idea. Okay, we are not Intel, we're not a big company, we're a very small company. Again, the goal is really

to have a break-even every years. But we saw that the very key point is to be in touch with Arduino users or makers or developer. Because you know, makers are really, we say makers are engineer in the morning and makers in the evening, they say that usually are people that have a job but they work, and then in the evening, finally they can do something they like to do

and spend time on what really they love to do. So we're working to make the first Arduino store, physical store that we have here in Berlin, is a kind of answer to really the, you know, the goals to have a place

where the people can start to share idea, talk with each other, and eventually receive some help to build the next product. I know everybody are talking about Steve Jobs, so we definitely are not Steve Jobs, but we're trying to do the best, you know, with what we have right now. I'd just like to add that to get the people to stop work,

to get this amazing people stop working in silos, I think you need to add value to what they're doing or like be giving them some form of value. And I think one of them is definitely a community where they feel that they have, I think like part of why we're here at Republica is you know, you're gonna find people

who are like-minded and have as big ideas. So just finding a place where there's that sense of trust and the sense that you get, that you'll improve yourself in different ways. And that could be either online or offline, I think there's value on both sides. But the second thing is that I find that in, at least in East Africa,

finding a place where you can come in and build and grow your idea in a sort of independent way. I know there's a big wave of having hubs and maker spaces and that's fine, but I do get the sense that most of these people work as a one-man or two-man team. So they might not necessarily be looking for a big group,

but just find a place where they can continually work on their project and build it up and kind of see themselves progressing and growing over time. So that could be through partnerships with say, Arduino. I think it'd be very interesting to see what the, kind of like the MakerBot would be,

you know, like how MakerBot has built up on your platform. So I think there's room to add value in different stages for beginners, intermediate users, and advanced users along the way. I think that's very interesting when it comes to building these places. Obviously you mentioned there's more and more hubs

and spaces coming up, not just across Africa, but all over the world, obviously. But when it comes to adding value to these, to the teams that are actually working there, I think it's an interesting question to discuss, like what is the actual added value there?

Is it just the space or is it just the community or is it, when it comes to actually building a product, is it more of the access to say, tools, like a fab lab or to prototyping tools? Is there something that you would say, this thing is crucial? I mean, very often you hear, well, it's all about the community.

As soon as, as long as you have the right people and champions in place, everything else will fall into its place. Do you think that's true or do you think, well, community and motivation and people is great, but at the end of the day, you also need infrastructure, you need the actual tools, you need maybe the funds to build something. Would you say one of these is more important or?

I don't think they should like work in isolation, but I like the idea of having like a community where the people like you there and then, but the most important thing I think is the infrastructure and that open access to infrastructure and actually I think the best person to answer that question would be Michael

because he's come, like he built his project partly in a hackathon and now it's a company. So he's actually just like going through that whole trajectory. So I'd love to hear what Michael from Cloudlight would say about that. If you want to, you are very welcome to share

how you actually did that. I think there's a microphone coming up. So I think what I can say about maybe our startup is on, so we started a wearable technology company in Kenya and we are reducing, we are using the wearable technology

to help reduce motorcycle accidents. So when we started in 2013, we started actually with Arduino and it was easy starting off, I think we completed our first prototype within like two weeks. But it has been very challenging because after that, now we needed a product, the final product.

And what I've been seeing a lot on maker spaces and also here is that people are building projects for fun, but back home there we are trying to actually solve real problems. And it has taken us two years to actually come up with the complete product.

So it took us a lot of time and getting access to components as she was saying has been a challenge. There was only one store that time and we tried to order some components from China and it would take like two weeks just to get like some few mortars or you know.

So it was a lot and actually the final product, we had to fly to Holland and actually do the final product now. So I think there's a need, a challenge there on also maybe on Arduino where we need support or also maybe also a community that's able to help us

come up with the final product. Because once you're done with the prototyping, you need the product and that's when now the real hustle starts. And it has been tough, yeah. Yeah, well it's interesting. What we're trying to do as a company and again trying to say thanks to your support

is a couple of idea. Okay, the first one is the idea to build these Arduino stores that are physical stores and be sure that we have some shield, some space for makers that are building stuff. So allow the engineer that they build some product

to have some space where they can sell the products. Of course, 10 years ago when we started, we started with 100 boards. Now we have a distribution all around the world. So the question is still the same. How we can say thanks to you? So the idea was okay, let's share not only the schematics

and only the open source code, but also, I'm sorry, to share the logistics that we have and then try to have some engineers, some entrepreneur that they build something and allow them, if they want of course, to share part of our logistic center to sell basically what they build

using the same channel that we use every day to sell our products. And this is a physical store like the Arduino store that I mentioned to you or just to allow to have your products in our website and then push your product on the website.

Saying that, of course, we have all the complexity about the certification, all the complexity about it to be sure that all the product has some requirement because when we sell product all around the world, as you can imagine, there is several regulations, several rules, stuff like that. So this is what we are trying to do and I would be more than happy to follow up with you

and see, we're done already. I mean, there is some interesting project that meeting like that, they approach us and say, well, super cool, let's do it especially in Japan, a couple of in US and was very nice. I mean, it was very nice collaboration. It was basically a way to come back where we build a prototype together

and share time and fun. So this is what we're trying to do to say thanks to the community that are using Arduino all the time. So that actually sounds like very, it sounds like there's more to it

from these two years that you said. So it sounds like it was a very, very hard way. You went a very hard way to actually take it from a prototype to a product there. I can just imagine like taking first two weeks to get to the first prototype and then just another two years for the next step.

That's very impressive. So I don't know if there's something, someone else in the audience who has made a similar path and there is. I think it would be interesting probably for all of us to learn how you went about it.

Actually, just to follow up with what Michael said about going to mass production. I'm from Singapore and we see projects similar to what Michael was describing. You do a prototype with Arduino and it's really good because the microcontroller is very accessible

and the challenge is when you want to turn that into a product and build that scale. I mean it's exponentially harder if you're not in Singapore because it's very well connected. So maybe you can speak a little bit more about what you would recommend somebody like Michael can do

in going to production with a prototype because we have a lot of options. Singapore has a lot of options. We've got these little Arduino compatible, shall we say, devices that we can choose from a manufacturer who's willing to do a small scale production. Seed Studios is brilliant at doing that.

Maybe from the Arduino side, if you can suggest like a best practice or recommendation of how to go from prototype to mass production. Yeah, well, let me give you the first answer that is not very romantic but maybe will help you a little bit is be sure that you are going to sell your idea.

That is the key point. You want to be sure that your idea, your prototypes, and even more important, that will become a mass production. When I say mass production, let me say something bigger that 100 pieces is something that you are not keeping on your garage but you will be able to sell.

So what we are trying to do and what Arduino trying to do to help the makers that make prototypes using Arduino technology is basically offer them also some modules. I show you right now one

but there's some material we're going to show another one. So we are trying to make something that you can also use in mass production if you want and that will allow you to don't spend too much time building and rebuilding and rebuilding again something that we did. The shape is different because this is another point

but basically the technology the same. We want to be sure that you can also find at a very, very interesting price a module that basically bring the same technology that you have on the prototype on your mass production. Of course, we are also trying to open something that we call Arduino Professional Services

that basically is offer you the same expertise that we have in our R&D centers to help you to redesign whatever product you have that will be able to match whatever idea that you have. And we are going to offer that for free as Arduino Foundation.

So it's Arduino Foundation offer this kind of services. Again, we are not Intel, so we cannot offer thousand and thousand of engineer capability for free but we are trying to address the best project. Sometime the best project is just something that together we love, we want to do it, something completely different.

And the last thing is a production. Of course, right now we just help some prototypes, some entrepreneur to make production in a very easy way using basically the four facility that we have, one in Taipei and the three in Italy. I know there is a lot of hardware accelerator, a lot, yeah, I would say four or five hardware accelerator

in Shenzhen, some few probably in Germany. I heard that someone is building some companies that help but the problem is still the same. I mean, we need to face with the time and the cost to focus in the project

and then pay salary because it's all about that. We want to be sure that we have a breakeven and we want to be sure that we do something that allow us at least to target the breakeven and to be sure that we are not losing money. So again, I'm saying, because before, of course, the joint Arduino, I was working in Red Hat, it's a Linux company

and I was really one of the very early, well, not employee, we was friend, but whatever. And we was really thinking to change the world. Everything must be open source, Microsoft, well, whatever. We was focusing just open source.

Well, we made an unbelievable IPO that, of course, changed everything. But this was just an idea. The truth is that then Red Hat is right now a big enterprise company with more than 5,000 employees. So it's really, it changed completely your idea

and also your goal to make a prototype to go in mass production. And maybe you just love to make prototypes. So there is some of the company that are focused not in quantity but just in quality. They make just few, few pieces and they are selling what they do like some unique products. That should be also another approach.

Usually in electronics, it doesn't work too much because, of course, you want to scale your capabilities to sell more product and have more revenue that allow you to make more R&D, more products. There is not a secret way. Unfortunately, there is only one hard way. And again, my suggestion is be sure

that it's not only you that love what you're doing, but you have also some other people that would be happy to buy your products. That's my suggestion. Yeah, thank you very much. I'm looking over there. I think we have a little more time to take one more question in a little more detail.

So if there's anyone up there, I can't really see all of you, but please feel free to, yeah, and we have one. Yeah, thank you. I'm Martin from Colombia. You talked about the Arduino stores and I understand that maybe on that stores

you find more than a product. You find maybe technical support or some advice to build a product. And in the same way, there is a boom about making spaces and innovation spaces. There are around 3,000 spaces around the world that in maybe different levels use Arduino for that.

And how to maybe think to use that platform in the world, that 3,000 spaces in the world, to make some kind of partnership with these spaces? For example, in terms of professional services,

in terms of bringing some support, and maybe in terms of seller doing a product on that space. It's a question for me, right? I don't want to take all the space. I would love for you to share. Okay, first of all, we are going to announce

this Arduino Professional Services at the summit that is a makerspace maker event in California in a couple of weeks. Basically, we are trying to achieve two goals. Number one, to come back when we was doing prototype

and have fun with other friends, because it's all about that. It's really to do something together and maybe help, because we have already infrastructure, we have already the way to buy the components, because now we make 100,000 of board every month.

So for us, it's much better to buy the components versus maybe you, the first time that you want to buy something. So I hope it will be a successful project. To be honest, I heard that other hardware innovator, other company are trying to help,

but they didn't succeed too much. I heard that a lot of company that was trying to engage some business with them, then unfortunately, for whatever reason, they decide to stop the production, don't do it. So I'm not sure, and again, I don't have a clear line about this new project

that we are going to announce about the professional service. The only thing that I know that Arduino Foundation is going to fund with some money, so we'll have R&D people from our team, we'll have software people from our team, but even more important, thanks to the Arduino Foundation, we'll have also engineer and the software developer

that is coming from the leader chip vendor. So company like Atmel, ST, Nordic, they will help us to be in touch with the makers that want to try to move from a prototype to kind of mass production.

I hope, I really hope we'll be able to help because that will allow us to be in touch not only with the entrepreneur, but even more important with the company making the chips and the company make the ST lines and then we can help on the logistic point of view

and then we can help on the sales because of course we have already all our distribution network. So we will have a clear presentation about San Mateo, so I'll just make a quick introduction here today just to explain a little bit how we would like to help and how we would like really to say thanks

to the community because again, one more time, Arduino definitely does not belong to us, it belongs to you guys. So I'm trying to find a way that help in some way to be even more successful because if we make some product based on Arduino, in some way Arduino technology, of course the Arduino community will increase. And everybody know that Arduino is not

the only open source, well, open hardware. Let's say there is other board that are pretty successful as well. Maybe they are not 100% open hardware, fine, but they are very, very successful. They receive a lot of help from the local government and I'm talking of course about a beautiful Raspberry Pi that everybody knows. I mean, they make an incredible good job

and they have a lot of support from the local government. So we are trying to learn from our mistake. We are trying also to engage even more business with the people that users are doing every day and you'll be able to find more information soon on their website. Okay, thank you.

I think as we are about to close, maybe just like one final question from my end, maybe on a more general note because my understanding was we were talking a lot about how to come up with hardware projects in the first place and a bit prototypes and all that.

And it seems like going the open source way there seems very promising. Now that you mentioned the MakerBot project earlier and the struggles that we had to go from prototype to product, I was wondering what is your, what do you think? Is it like advisable to leave the openness behind

when you go for really scaling and you actually really go for production or would you say especially being an open source company in a context that maybe makes it a bit more harder opens you up for more ways for other people to join forces and to actually back you on the journey.

So my question is you being involved with building maker communities, do you think that open source has its limits when it comes to actually scaling or do you think that it might actually be an extra asset when it comes to building products in specific contexts?

I think it could be either and I'll just give two examples. So we do work with innovators in Nairobi and so one of them has built an educational device that is built upon the Scratch platform from MIT. So it has on one side of the board it has light sensors, touch sensors on that part

and then they've added a touch screen on the other one so the entire platform is open source and for them we find that it works better for people to access their educational platform because it's open source and they can find all this media online

but the other side there is a company that's built a drone and I don't think there would be, it could be open source but I don't think that would make their product more acceptable. I think you can have a successful business that's open source if open source is sort of a driver for it

but on the other side that having something that has copyright because that makes your products more unique and stand out more could work to your benefit. I do have one question though before we close. We've talked a lot about how to make it, how to make different products,

how to go through like the whole prototyping journey but I think assuming all factors work well once you do have those 1,000 pieces to start with, I think it'd be great to be addressed to know how to put that out there so that you're not only known by your friends and the people who work at your hub and maybe like your small circles.

How do you get your product out there? How has that been for Arduino starting from Italy and now being all over the world and what would it take for other companies that are in Singapore and Kenya and anywhere else to be as accessible while still staying small?

I don't think all companies want to go full out but how do you make sure that you can be a small company that has their products accessible to many people? Oh, to yourself, to the audience, whoever wants to kind of help answer that.

Maybe someone would do, based on some experience, want to answer. Okay. I think we need a mic one last time. I'll add on the open source now to like, so ours is now proprietary

and we have a patent pending actually on our technology. So I think the journey of being rich in where we are is we've spent so much money and our time and resources and there's this tendency where people try and copy your businesses just like that in Africa. If it's something that's going to sell and people see an opportunity there,

they copy your business. So we had to move from open source and now have it patented. But I think if we had more support, like when we started on resources and maybe having a community around maker spaces helping us,

I think maybe we could have continued on with open source and maybe having people use our, like the final board that we have, maybe do add on their, they could like hack or tinker around it, maybe add GPS or integrate like apps.

We could go that line but we had to have patented. Yeah, thank you. That's actually, I think that's what I was wondering, what makes a lot of sense to me and I think also what you said, as soon as the open source or the openness

becomes part of the actual added value of the product itself, it makes a lot of sense. I think we've seen that with Arduino, we have seen that with the RepRap or the MakerBot project earlier and I think what you said earlier with like how to engage communities as soon as you can show data.

can actually add a value to the product itself. The whole thing is actually self-explanatory, why it would make sense. Whereas if there's a project, and then in addition it's also open source, it might be hard to actually make a point for it being open if you have to move in a competitive market. So I think with looking over my shoulder,

we have to close this. Obviously we can continue discussions off stage at any time, so first of all, thank you very much to both speakers, to Juliet and Federico. Thank you. Thank you guys. And thank you very much to all of you for joining in the discussion.

I hope we had the chance to shed some light on some of the questions, but I think the two of you will be around for the rest of the night. So thank you very much.