Legal Structure

ffem is a nonprofit (section 8) company based in Bangalore, Karnataka, India.

Philosophy

ffem works on issues that have an impact on the lives of millions, but are overlooked by market forces. All the work ffem does is open source (including hardware, where developed in house). Currently, ffem’s approach is to develop products designed for easy use to help address these issues.

Areas of work

ffem currently works on water and soil.

People

ffem is comprised of a team of researchers, product developers, and software developers.

History

An early version of the product later called Caddisfly was demonstrated at a Water Hackathon in 2011. In 2012, Ternup Research Labs, LLP, was started with the goal of developing and commercializing this product as a low cost, open source, and easy to use water quality monitoring kit. In 2014, the team merged with Akvo, a Netherlands based non profit. In 2017, ffem was spun off as an independent entity. The product continues to be open source, though there are different roadmaps with both organizations. The name Caddisfly has been licensed to ffem, while the product is jointly maintained.

Intellectual Property Policy

Any project or product initiated or owned by ffem is open source. However while collaborating, partners’ intellectual property will be respected.