MNT Reform
Basic information
Project Title
Full project title
Category
Project Description
MNT Reform is a modular high-quality open hardware laptop — designed and assembled in Europe. Usability, security, and sustainability are our primary goals. A mechanical keyboard and an elaborate industrial design provide for professional ergonomics. MNT Reform supports the Right to Repair: Obsolete parts can be easily replaced without special tools. To reduce the attack surface, MNT Reform has no built-in recording devices. We believe in the Open Source community and encourage to contribute!
Project Region
EU Programme or fund
Which funds
Other Funds
We recieved a funding of 2000,00 Euro by the European Commission's Next Generation Internet programme, under the aegis of DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology. NGI Zero has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 825310 and 825322.
Description of the project
Summary
MNT Reform is a modular high-quality open hardware laptop — a fully working system, designed and assembled in Europe.
The project has the highest ambitions in terms of security and user experience with a clean industrial design. Modular and transparent design principles make MNT Reform more extensible, improve sustainability, and support the Right to Repair. Custom designed, innovative yet proven input devices provide for best-in-class ergonomics. MNT Reform runs a free and Open Source software stack from the ground up, refined for professional tasks like knowledge work, web programming, or journalism. We believe in the Open Source Hardware (OSHW) community and encourage third parties to contribute to the development of new add-ons. MNT Reform is designed to be more secure and useful for way longer than mainstream laptops.
A Crowd Supply campaign for the first production batch of MNT Reform raised over 300% of its goal. More than 400 devices will be built in the MNT workshop in Berlin, Germany, in 2021.
Key objectives for sustainability
Mobile personal computers become increasingly opaque, vendor controlled, and hard to repair. Current systems have glued in parts and have to be disposed completely when obsolete. MNT Reform goes the opposite way. Its modularity is way more sustainable and guarantees the user's Right to Repair. Parts can easily be customized or replaced. New and up-to-date modules will be continuously developed and manufactured in our small-scale microelectronics PCB production. MNT Reform will remain a state of the art system for a very long time with continuous development of new CPU modules - with lowest possible waste.
MNT Reform is powered by cobalt-free LiFePO4 battery cells in a standard 18650 form factor for easy replacement. In the future MNT Research will cooperate with Fairtronics who analyze microelectronics for environmental and ethical impact.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
We were inspired by the possibilites of additive manufacturing, the early open hardware movement and minimalistic design.
The black-anodized and sand-blasted aluminum case designed by industrial designer Ana Dantas is one of the aspects of MNT Reform we’re the most proud of. We made one more iteration to improve haptics and assembly ergonomics/speed and ended up with 5 CNC milled parts, including a bottom lid that is milled from clear acrylic.
Another special feature is the MNT Reform's trackball and keyboard. Both are custom designed and fully published. The trackball is unique in today's laptop world and a comfortable citation from 90s computing. As well is our mechanical keyboard, designed with two different sorts of keycaps, only. They provide for highest comfort in professional use.
The carefully layouted Operator Handbook with a cover design by Hundred Rabbits covers everything from Linux basics to mechanical parts and electronics schematics. It is designed to make MNT Reform approachable, understandable, but also discussible.
Key objectives for inclusion
At MNT Research, we try to be aware of inclusion and diversity. At the moment, 50% of our permanent personnell is female and/or has migrant background. The same applies for our freelancers. We are aware of the challenges that running an emerging start-up can bear for every individual committed to our shared objective. A non-toxic working environment is very important for us and we encourage employees to discuss any issues the way it feels suitable.
As a part of our NGI Zero funding we had the opportunity to participate in an audit with the NLnet diversity and inclusion department. We try to reflect on diversity and inclusion on levels of leadership, communication and technology.
As for our product MNT Reform, we are interested into making our product as accessible as possible and we aim to offer an inclusive product for all users with various requirements in the future. With our Operator Handbook we make MNT Reform approachable by providing basics and knowledge to understand the system. We want to give the user a companion when taking MNT Reform apart, learning to use the machine and making it their own.
Results in relation to category
Despite its low threshold, MNT Reform is not going for the average consumer. We are testing the limits of an open-source, open-hardware design that focusses earnestly on privacy and repairability. We want to push the computing industry toward these - still considered utopian - standards: everything open, documented, private, and easy to repair. We stand in opposition to companies like Apple that continue to make hardware repairs increasingly difficult for consumers to carry out on their own.
How Citizens benefit
Privacy and security are a crucial point in a world with antidemocratic movements. Malware and spyware can be implemented in mainstream laptops so journalists and NGO workers do not notice when the camera and microphone are put into operation. MNT Reform uses RISC-based processors and has neither built-in GPS, Bluetooth nor any surveillance technology. We left out a built in camera, microphones, and black-box hardware to give the user full control and reduce the attack surface.
Data carriers in MNT Reform are interchangeable and can be encrypted so third parties have no way of accessing data, thanks to the common LUKS technology of Linux systems. To allow MNT Reform to be used for video conferencing, especially in educational contexts, we currently develop a new camera add-on.
Innovative character
MNT Reform is the proof of work that the principles of open source, security, sustainability and independent microelectronics can be successfully developed to marketability. MNT Reform is the spiritual successor to the Novena open laptop. But we go further by offering a complete high-quality DIY Open Source Hardware System made in european local serial production. All schematics are available free online but also on the machine itself. The Operator Handbook can be bought in print but is also available online. Our business model consists of developing and distributing up-to-date modules for MNT Reform and providing primely support for at least ten years.
