Guerilla Fab

"identify either a hope or a fear for nanotechnology and develop it into a 'what if...?' scenario." [brief]

Residents of sun-rich countries that are otherwise cash-poor are tired of multinational energy corporations constraining the progress of ultra-cheap solar power, and so start making and using it themselves.

Activists in Brazil start the ball rolling in 2015, inspired by the precedent set by the stand-off over HIV drug patents in 2005, and building on their heritage of open source cultural projects and OpenFab labs. They are closely followed by comrades in India and Ghana. By 2020 more than 120 groups are known to be active world-wide.

Their techniques are surprisingly low-tech. Using adapted ink-jet technology - simple mechanisms taken from cheap, everyday printers - they print flexible photovoltaic cells onto plastic film.