Designing Reality ─ How to Survive and Thrive in the Third Digital Revolution

What if anyone could make (almost) anything? That's the promise, and peril, of the third digital revolution.

Two digital revolutions-in computing and communication-have radically transformed our economy and lives. A third digital revolution is upon us, in fabrication. Today's 3D printers are only the start of a trend, accelerating exponentially, to turn data into objects: the future holds community "fab labs" to personal fabrication to a universal replicator straight out of Star Trek. While digital fabrication promises us self-sufficient cities and the ability to make (almost) anything, it could also lead to massive inequality. The first two digital revolutions caught most of the world flat-footed; thanks to Designing Reality that won't be true this time.

Neil Gershenfeld has been called the intellectual father of the maker movement. He leads MIT's pioneering Center for Bits and Atoms and is the founder of the global network of community fab labs that's approaching 1,000 sites. His earlier books When Things Start to Think and Fab presented what became known as the Internet of Things and the maker movement long before those became familiar. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Alan Gershenfeld is a pioneer in harnessing the power of digital media for learning and social impact. As a former studio head at Activision, former chairman of Games for Change and cofounder/president of ELine Media, he has helped to bring the power of games and media to engage, educate, and empower millions of youth and young adults. Alan is currently working with the Center for Bits and Atoms and the Fab Foundation on an ambitious DARPA funded game to fire the imagination of a generation around the future of digital fabrication. He lives in Tempe, Arizona.

Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld is a world leader in workplace transformation and institutional change, with a client list ranging from Ford and UAW to the nation of Australia. He is professor in the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University and serves as editor of the Negotiation Journal, published by the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. Joel led the first stakeholder alignment map across the US fab lab network and cofounded the Champaign Urbana Community Fab Lab. He lives in Waltham, Massachusetts.