A Smarter Smartphone

When Dave Hakkens' camera broke during a vacation in 2012, the Dutch design student took it apart to see what had gone wrong.

The lens motor had died. Contacting the manufacturer, he learned that he couldn't replace that single element. "I realised that that's how it always goes with electronics," he said. "When something is broken you can't fix it anymore; you just have to buy a new one. I felt like I'd like to find something to change that."

For his graduation project he decided to upgrade another ubiquitous piece of electronics, the smartphone. His concept was a modular telephone that would allow people to replace individual components separately. He called the idea "Phonebloks" and posted a video explaining the idea in 2013.

Within 24 hours, the video had gone viral. In less than two months, Hakkens engaged 800,000 people in a Thunderclap campaign to promote the idea to millions more. His phone and email were buzzing with offers.

Then Google called; its developers had been secretly working on a similar modular smartphone. Google offered him a job, he said. But he turned it down, and instead made a deal that Google would open up their product development to the public and allow him and his community of modular phone backers to become part of the process.

"I guess my mind works more from what's the best for the world, and not what makes you the most profit," he said. "The idea right now is to keep things open and free, because that way everybody gets smarter and everybody wins."

For more information
Website:https://phonebloks.com/en
Video:http://www.sparknews.com/fr/video/phonebloks-one-year-already