Making an Artisanal Hardware Industry in Indonesia

We often hear that while electronics prototyping is vastly easier than it used to be, mass production remains a challenge. But is there a useful middle ground? An innovative experiment in Indonesia is trying to build a cottage hardware industry to empower small water utilities with operational data.

What inspired you to begin investigating your topic or inspired you to make your project?:
I was working with a USAID project in Indonesia that builds the capacity of water utilities to sustainably provide water to communities around the country. These utilities could operate more efficiently and effectively with live data about their distribution networks, but they represent too small a market to attract affordable mass-manufactured products to do this. But by connecting this market to Indonesia's robust maker community, we may be able to meet the need with small-scale fabrication.