What if everyone had free access to a repair manual for everything they owned? How much longer would our things last? Kyle Wiens started iFixit with the goal of providing people the knowledge and encouragement they need to make their things work as long as possible. He believes that making repair accessible to everyone is the best shot we’ve got at reducing e-waste and starting to make our high-tech lives sustainable. We can’t keep throwing away cell phones every 18 months! We need to get every last bit of functionality from the things we own before we safely recycle them.

Kyle will be delving deeper into this issue in his keynote address at Sustainable Oregon 2015 (June 3-5 in Bend). In this keynote address Kyle will explore the waste hierarchy and the potential for environmental improvement as well as profit opportunities from fixing and reusing things. He'll also examine how we can better promote reduce/reuse/repair philosophies and discuss the successful evolution of iFixit. In addition, Kyle will share some recent legislative wins such as cell phone unlocking and the new Right to Repair campaign.

iFixit is an international, open-source, online repair manual for everything. Their mission is to provide people with the knowledge to make their things work for as long as possible because they believe that repair saves money, fosters independence, and protects the planet. The iFixit community is diverse—and rapidly growing. In 2013, they taught repair to over 40 million people from almost every country in the world. People all over the world are providing a continuous stream of information. They are writing step-by-step repair manuals, participating in forums, and telling their repair stories. And since this platform is strongly collaborative, there are thousands of crowd-sourced repair guides with new ones published every single day. This massive, free resource has helped people fix everything from cellphones to game consoles, toys to musical instruments—because fixers, hackers, and makers everywhere finally have a global platform to share their knowledge.

Kyle's presentation is not to be missed. Register for Sustainable Oregon 2015 today!