About me
I am Dr. Felipe Schmidt Fonseca, an experienced Berlin-based Brazilian advocate for social-environmental innovation and free/open-source technologies turned researcher. I am the founder of Reuse City studio and a co-creator of semente, a toolkit for community projects; as well as the co-founder and lead articulator of the Tropixel network; and an active member of organisations such as GIG and Circular Berlin.
Between 2019 and 2022, I was a Marie Curie Early Stage Research Fellow (University of Dundee / Northumbria University / Mozilla Foundation). I have recently engaged in collaborations such as ID21, fonte.wiki, ALGO-BR, and CODE.
I have a PhD in Design from Northumbria University (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK). The title of my thesis successfully defended in September 2023 is "Generous cities – weaving commons-oriented systems for the reuse of excess materials in urban contexts". Before that, I got an MA in Scientific and Cultural Dissemination from Labjor at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil, acquired with a dissertation about networked experimental labs.
Bio
Background
I co-founded and led diverse initiatives dedicated to critical thinking (and making) at the intersections between culture, science, technology, and society. Some examples are MetaReciclagem, CulturaDigital.BR, Bricolabs, Rede//Labs, Lixo Eletrônico, Ciência Aberta Ubatuba, UbaLab. I was the user community manager of the Subutai Platform and occasional lecturer/panelist/workshop facilitator/teacher/instructor/ on diverse topics.
Portfolio
Here are some samples of my work (projects, talks, writings).
Check also my academic profiles on ORCID, Academia, and ResearchGate.
Work
Current activity
I am the founder of Reuse City, a studio dedicated to applied research, service design and technology development in the fields of circular economy, right to repair, and zero waste policy. I'm also a co-founder and lead articulator of the Tropixel network.
Writing
Some recent highlights are texts about open source in government, and the semente toolkit for community-based initiatives. A summary of my PhD research is available here and further documentation about it are in this research wiki.
Consulting
I have developed and advised on projects with diverse organisations. For example the University of Bristol, FTHub, GIG, Itaú Cultural, the Brazilian Ministry of Culture, UNDP, as well as numerous municipalities and nonprofits. I am also a member and mentor of the Distributed Design Platform.