Date and Time: 02.10.2018, 20:30
Place: EPFL, Room MED3 2215, 1015 Lausanne
Present Members (TODO):
- Samir Sulaimanov (President)
- Raffael Tschui (Vice-President)
- Quentin Cabrol (Treasurer)
- Ana Roldan
- Franziska Meinherz
- Johannes Wüthrich
- Beat Geissmann
- Florian Patiny ?
- Guillaume Thivolet
- Jeroen Buitendijk
- Thomas Querro
- ...
__Represented Members:
- Luc Patiny (procuration to Raffael Tschui)
- ...
Excused:
Chair: Samir Sulaimanov (President)
Minutes: Raffael Tschui (Vice-President)
Guests: Marc Laperrouza (by video conference)
Agenda:
- Welcome
- Approval of the minutes of the last ordinary general assembly of October 19th, 2017
- Approval of the agenda
- Financial result and balance of 2017/18
- Activity report & Thank You
- Octanis’ mandate in the Space Alliance
- Discharge of the 2017/18 committee
- Election of the new committee
- Election of the statutory auditors
- Updating of the list of active members
- Miscellaneous
The minutes from the last general assembly are approved by all present members.
The agenda is approved by all present members.
The presentation slides of this general assembly can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1hiAYATGNNdIjH6b63RtERxNWIFv0b9V9L9s3hADYHQQ/edit?usp=sharing
Quentin, the treasurer, summarizes the accounting of the financial year of the association: 1.10.2017 - 30.9.2018. The association's accounting has closed with a net benefit of 483 CHF and now has financial liquid means of total 3917.51 CHF (cash and bank). As well on the active side stand a rent deposit for the object at Chemin du Croset 9c (1000 CHF), a due amount of 7900 CHF of one of our partners for services provided in this past accounting year, as well as 238 CHF due by members for project bench rentals.
On the passive side stand the association's total reserves of the past of CHF 2072.51 and the above mentioned net benefit of 483 CHF. A reserve for ongoing minigrant projects of 5000 CHF is foreseen, as well as a reserve to cover the operation costs of Microverse as long as spendings are still above incomes. Another reserve of 1500 CHF is allocated to the Nestbox project, which is still ongoing. The total transaction volume was 41'368.08 CHF on the revenue side versus 41'851.08 CHF on the spending side.
The last years budget was fairly in accordance with the actual spendings, except for the positive influx due to the collaboration with our partner for the Nestbox project, which allowed Octanis to invest in crucial tools like the laser cutter and to move forward with the creation of Microverse.
A detailed spendings and revenues chart according to each project is presented, which can be found in the slides of the general assembly (link above).
Franziska raises the question if workshops should be put together with goods and services. Quentin answers that Goods and Services are external to the association and therefore are counted differently to internal events like workshops.
The 2017/18 DAF sponsoring is mostly dedicated to Minigrants, which have not been used much so far, as fewer applications applied than expected.
The Balance is equilibrated and therefore in order.
The budget proposal for next year counts for a substantial sponsoring amount from DAF and IKEA Foundation Switzerland, aiming to keep the project space of Octanis running. Details are again provided in the slides.
Jeroen asked if the minigrants expenses is realistic, as so far not much of it has been used so far. Raffael answers that many projects are still in the starting phase and have not yet needed to spend money for hardware purchases. But this is expected to change in the coming weeks.
The budget proposal for 2018/19 was accepted by all present members.
Beat Geissmann and Jeroen Buitendijk in their function as statutory auditors have previously confirmed and signed that the association's accounting was carried out correctly.
Sam presents the activity report of the last year. As an association, we are both operating at EPFL campus and outside of it with external partners.
The list of events and projects include:
- DAF Support for Minigrants
- 2 EPFL semester/Bachelor projects hosted under the Nestbox project
- Hosted 2 students from UCL innovation program (who gained practical work experience with the Rover project)
- Hosted over 10 Open Night Presentations at MED3 2215
- Speech on Rover Project at EPFL Alumni Gala. At this event, the organisers had the aim to "make the alumni dream again", which was why Sam in his role as Octanis president was invited to present. The speech was made inspirational for those who start to be dissatisfied with their engineering job.
- Tool and technical expertise provider at Museomix!
- Participation at 2 repair cafés in collaboration with Unipoly
- Presented at Maxon Motors @ EPFL Innovation Park Inauguration --> if anyone ever needs free motors, let the committee know!
- Booth at STIL (March 2018)
- Booth at Semaine des Associations
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The Discovery Learning Labs are our main partner at EPFL, providing us with a shared space to hold presentations like this one (MED3 2215).
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This led to the invitation to participate inside a "Groupe de travail sur la formation", led by Martin Olivier.
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Another Invitation directly from the EFPL president was to present at a Conseil Fédéral Visit that eventually got cancelled.
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Upcoming will be the EPFL Digital Days (on October 25) to which Octanis was also invited to participate with a booth.
The focus will now be to promote and provide simple open source hardware workshops. Why?
- to get started with making
- to promote openness in science, and make it clear through documentation how researchers got to the results they publish in scientific journals.
As a side note, the Rack@MED was refreshed too and is again available to all EPFL students free of charge (except 3D printing).
- Donation & Repair of a Scanning Electron Microscope
- Nestbox Prototype Tests and Finalization (Sponsored by Vogelwarte Sempach)
- Over 10 workshops held
- Makerfaire Bodensee --> with 2 "Maker of Merit" awards!
- Member events during Summer (e.g. Stargazing at Les Pléades, Biking tour, ...). It is planned to do more of these!
- LemanMake, Renens (similar to makerfaire)
- Univercité, Renens: This is the place we were born (within Hackarium)! The place changed due to interest of renting out to startups! Therefore Hackuarium will move out and potentially search a common place with Octanis.
- Invitation to round table led by ETHZ professor in Brussels (at the Swiss embassy to the EU). Franziska and Raffael will be attending the roundtable to represent Octanis and the interests of independent research and development communities like Octanis.
- GOSH (Gathering for Open Science Hardware), Shenzhen, China. Sam will represent Octanis at this conference with 127 attendees. All members are encouraged to bring in content they want to share.
- Scheduled 4 workshops in October already.
- Octanis partnered up with the “Beyond Waste” Incubation Program (led by Sustainable Living Lab at Impact Hub Lausanne)
Raffael specifies that the list of projects is especially to inform the members what our network is composed of and which partners they could use for their own projects.
Sam continues with the main novelty of the last year: Microverse ("60 m^2 of pure fun"). Since March, Octanis has worked to use the space as effectively as possible. Introduction and guidance can be done starting at 17h on tuesdays at MED3 2215 for the EPFL community and during Makers Nights for the general public.
It is also possible to order a key for 24/7 access or use the key stored in the MED rack.
Tools are now secured with a check-in system which charges the tool usage by the hour.
Everything that members pay to the association is automatically transferred into tool usage credit (both the membership fee and project bench rental).
The rack at MED remains free (except 3D printing).
The dream is that many more tools at EPFL get recorded into the system and that it would be possible to use them for registered people.
A feedback from DLL was that it is difficult for them to pay an association for a for-profit service or product. Therefore, and in order to sell e.g. open science hardware kits, Racks, and other products & services, it is time to externalise these for-profit activities in a separate legal entity (for now code-named Octanis Enterprise).
The company is still in the making and interested members are welcome to contribute.
A big thank you to all the members for their efforts they put into keeping this association alive and as dynamic as it is!
A group of Hackuarium & Octanis members as well as startups is looking to create a new common space (office + makerspace + bio/chemistry lab), code-named "Space Alliance". Providing a mix of many disciplines, a student interested in working at a startup could easily work there and gain professional experience.
A formal vote of the general assembly aims at giving the board the mandate to move forward and be able to decide upon moving to the new space.
Jeroen asks the quesion: WHat happens if everyone else just leaves? Sam answers that a new legal entity (a cooperative) will take care of setting the obligations for subtenants. What speaks for the fact that all partners will stay on board is that they all are getting kicked out of their current space or have a too small/too expensive space.
The vote on the mentioned mandate has been accepted by all present members.
Sam states that this is the most ambitious project so far! Any help by the members is highly appreciated.
Finally, the general assembly was asked to discharge the committee of the past activity year. All present members voted yes, with one board member abstaining from the vote.
Requirements for new board members:
- Student member of EPFL or UNIL
- Member of Octanis for >1 year
- Participation in 30 min meeting every Tuesday
- Attendance and animation of makers nights (2h weekly)
- Choose a role on: https://sheepdog.octanis.org/index.php/roles
Two of the current board members, Johannes Wüthrich and Ana Roldan, are leaving the board as they moved to ETH Zürich this year. They will remain active as regular members of Octanis and have been thanked for their valuable services to the association.
No new members have presented themselves to the board and therefore the remaining 4 board members will be voted for as a block.
The following members have been elected to the board by all present members, with one board member abstaining from the vote:
- Samir Sulaimanov (President)
- Raffael Tschui (Vice-President)
- Quentin Cabrol (Treasurer)
- Franziska Meinherz
Johannes Wüthrich and Jeroen Buitendijk have been elected into the function as statutory auditors for the accounting year of 2018/19 by all present members except for one voice against the vote.
The full list of active members is available in the slides of the GA and comprises: 37 currently active members, automatically renewed, as well as 7 already signed up members for the starting academic year, i.e. a total of 44 members.
The creation of an advisory board is planned, in order to bring in an external point of view. Marc Laperrouza, who attended the general assembly by video call would be the first candidate of choice to include in this board. The implication of the advisory board would be a 1 hour meeting with the executive board every month.
Marc Laperrouza is creator and pedagogical leader of the China Hardware Innovation Camp, an interdisciplinary student program principally based at EPFL under the lead of the Collège des Humanités. The board estimates a mutually beneficial relationship with Marc by sharing knowhow, connections and resources. He presented himself briefly to the General Assembly.
The General Assembly is closed at 21:55.
EPFL, Lausanne, October 2nd, 2018.