On 24 and 25 November 2025, the OSHOP network hosted its second conference on the topic of “Open Source Hardware”. Chemnitz, the Capital of Culture 2025, was chosen as the venue. We were there with many people.
After the positive experience from 2024, we were particularly well represented on site this year by a dozen association members – partly as guests, partly as contributors, and even as part of the OSHOP organisation team.
The conference was a great platform with a lot of potential for exchange and networking and was also filled with numerous interesting inputs.
Here are a few of our highlights:
There was the Open Hardware Competition Konstruktiv, in which the participating projects, from the idea to the existing prototype, were presented. In fact, the participants knew nothing about possible prizes until the time of the vote. Participation was purely idealistic and thus appropriately emphasised the cooperative character of the open hardware scene. From the many exciting ideas, the Orcular scooter (a portmanteau of open source and circular economy), designed according to circular approaches, was chosen as the “winner” by the conference participants. The prize was a carefully assembled surprise set of electronics kits, chocolate and nice gadgets.
The Open Source Building Kit (OSBK), which had successfully passed the assessment as open source hardware according to DIN SPEC 3105 just before the conference, was presented in a lecture.
Another contribution was the fair mouse (marketplace), a project initiated by Nager-IT in ideal continuation by fair it yourself e.V., where some members of the association are currently involved. The association was represented with a stand and workshop to draw attention to the process of collaborative restructuring, the topic of transparent raw material chains and the mouse as a fair IT product. Imitation is encouraged, open source hardware can and should also be fair.
And then, as OSE Germany e.V., we organised a workshop on the topic of open source hardware certifications, specifically as a retrospective on the assessment in accordance with DIN SPEC 3105 and as an outlook for future standardisation projects. In a small, focused group, we worked out ideas on how the standardisation projects can be further developed next year based on our experience to date. We will report back with new contributions during the first half of the year.
Another moment that deserves special mention was the award ceremony from the Prototype Fund Hardware, financed by the AI Ideas Workshop. In a foreword by Dr Thorsten Kluß, he gave an insight into the relevance and innovative potential of our work with the words
“Open source hardware is the heart and soul of a […] circular economy!”,
which we would like to pass on as a message (see also interview on the relevance of OSH for the circular economy).
We look forward to a growing community and new stakeholders for OSH and look forward to a promising 2026.
A brief outlook:
- Our association will be 10 years old on 13 March, and we will take this as an opportunity to celebrate appropriately alongside the regular general meeting in Berlin
- In addition to the re:publica, GIG Summit and an Open Know How meetup with IoPA, May will also see the first ever international OSHWA – Open Hardware Summit in Berlin! It’s going to be an intense month, with lots of encounters and enriching exchanges.
Thank you to everyone for their commitment over the past year and all the years before, for small and large contributions. Everyone is an important part of shaping the sovereignty and participation of civil society together.
We wish all our readers and community members a successful transition into the new year 2026.
