In this episode of Open Hardware Talks, the founder of the RepRap Project, Dr Adrian Bowyer MBE, sits down to explain how it all came to be. Beginning with a childhood dream and ending with an uplifting perspective on human progress, Dr Bowyer takes us from the past to the present, and onwards to the future, handing out golden nuggets on Darwinism, AI and open source along the way.

Few things have been as groundbreaking for hardware manufacturing as the introduction of open source 3D printing. Nearly two decades after the RepRap project released 3D printing to the world, biologists are experimenting with printed human tissue as a way to solve the global transplant shortage; architects are envisioning what 3D-printed houses on the Moon might look like; and countless authors on HardwareX are using the technology to develop new designs for crisis response, research, healthcare and beyond.

HardwareX is a peer-reviewed scientific journal about open-source hardware. For more info, visit HardwareX.