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    Stemnode - Let's talk in Systems

    by Raymond RedCorn 06/03/2019 12:18 PM BST

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          Crowdsourcing the Circular Economy with a Systems Mapping Platform

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          Description

          Start with our video introducing Stemnode

          It is easy to agree that we need to move away from linear systems, but difficult to decide on the circular systems that we will move toward.  For example, it is technically feasible to convert food waste into biodegradable plastics, where mixed food waste and bioplastics from restaurants are an input to make more bioplastics. However, developing this system requires knowledge in fermentation, and material science as well as buy-in from restaurants.  It will take a global village to build the circular economy, and we need a platform where stakeholders can come together to contribute both vision and knowledge to make these systems a reality. This is why we are developing Stemnode: a visual database of all industrial systems.  Stemnode will break down scientific complexity, bring together expertise, and build consensus on what the circular economy will look like.

          In Stemnode, each industrial system is represented by a node with inputs, outputs, and subsystems.  Whether it is an organism, factory, or one of many of the ideas of this Unite Ideas competition, it can be represented visually as a node(s).  Once a system node is created, users can connect outputs to inputs of other nodes, and build up subsystems to show more detail. A knowledge base (wiki) for starting up and running systems is linked to each node. By presenting all systems the same way, people all speak the same visual language and can more easily share expertise between disciplines and cultures.  Users can view the big picture of a system or zoom in to view subsystems and get more detail. For example, as seen in the linked video, a user can view the processes of fermenting food waste to make bioplastics, or zoom into to see how bacteria convert the sugars provided by food waste into lactic acid, which is the primary chemical used to make PLA bioplastic.  Scientists and entrepreneurs can connect each other’s nodes to design circular systems while the entire life cycle of the product becomes transparent to the final consumer. In the future, we envision partnering with others to display realtime data, like the data generated by the Dynamic Waste Management team (see their prototype in the Unite Ideas Competition).

          A prototype web app has been developed and launched at diagrams.stemnode.org and a video is available with instructions on how to use the prototype. We envision improving this prototype by making it easier to build diagrams, replacing nodes with images of systems, and adding features for discussion and voting.

          There is potential to launch this protoype through partnerships with academia and NGOs. Currently in the United States alone, 684,000 graduate students in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) write literature reviews that exceed the word count of English Wikipedia every other year and typically receive little acknowledgement for their work (1).  Worldwide, literature reviews are being written that represent a potential starting point to gather knowledge on the industrial and ecological systems that will need to be connected in the circular economy.  Publishing this knowledge could reduce the barriers of paywalls on academic literature.  We envision each node in Stemnode being linked to a living literature review with the most up to date knowledge on that process. With an open and free knowledge base, we can begin to connect nodes virtually.  These virtual connections are the design for real connections which can help us realize the circular economy faster, and with greater inclusiveness.

          Footnote 1. This calculation assumes 6000 words per year per grad student; Wikipedia 2018; NSF 2016

           References:
          Made of Willyard, Cassandra. “Literature Reviews Made Easy” (2012) APA https://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2012/03/literature

          Wikipedia English Statistics Data (2018). https://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm

          Table 1. Graduate students in science, engineering, and health in all institutions, by field: 1975–2016, National Science Foundation Data Set, (2016); https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/gradpostdoc/2016/html/GSS2016_DST_01.html

          Co-authors to your solution

          Mikhail Lepilov, Daniel Bampoh

          Link to your concept design and documentation

          Instructions on using the prototype: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2aFnPihzao

          Link to an online working solution or prototype (Required field. If your prototype is not yet online, enter a temporary link and update it before the final day of this phase.)

          diagrams.stemnode.org

          Link to a video or screencast of your solution or prototype

          https://youtu.be/fNvHf-Q37Q0

          Link to source code of your solution or prototype above (Required field. If your code is not yet online, enter a temporary link and update it before the final day of this phase.)

          https://github.com/studieredcorn/STEMiO/

          open-source,interdiciplinary, crowdsourcing,SDG12

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