I know one person who has a company doing open source software for hardware and as far as he's concerned a CS degree doesn't give you the kind of skills that are important. When choosing whether to hire someone he looks at the code that the person actually wrote for real projects to evaluate the skill level of the person.

I'd like to find some partners for this project but it doesn't seem convincing yet.

How much time do you spent in hackerspaces where you would find the kind of people with both the interest and the skills to do such a project with you?

Convincing people isn't only about your domain knowledge it's also about your communication skills. I heard people saying that Linus Torvald became as influential as he was because of good writing skills.

Bre Pettis is a great public speaker and not so much a person with great CS knowledge. He got his degree in Education. He leads MakerBot industries and is responsible for Thingiverse. He might be the person with the most influence in the Maker scene.