Andrew Jawitz

I am a Co-Captain of Code for Maine, the Code for America Brigade in southern Maine. I am the founder of CarFree Maine, and organization dedicated to finding alternatives to auto-dependency in rural regions/small cities. I have also learned a great deal from working with the vibrant African immigrant community in Maine, advising in the formation of the African Diaspora Institute. My background is not in technology, but rather in archival recording, ethnographic fieldwork and oral history documentary. This background helped me appreciate the importance of qualitative over quantitative data in rural regions and other communities where place and culture plays a significant role. I became interested in open source technology, and open hardware in particular, as having great potential to leverage place-based assets instead of erasing them.