Events | MAKE-IT

The MAKE-IT project studies how 10 different maker initiatives use “collective awareness platforms” – a range of digital services and applications to enhance many forms of awareness. We want to understand how the makers organize themselves, collaborate together and how they create value. Both societal value and value enabling the maker initiatives themselves to be sustainable.

On December 1st, we will present some of our ‘hot off the press’ findings and discuss together what the implications are. We also want to collect input, identify new trends and hot topics. So expect the workshop to be interactive; we want your input!

Anyone interested in the Maker Movement is welcome: makers, DIY fans, researchers, communicators, students, etc. The workshop is free of charge.

Please register at: [email protected]

Date: December 1st 2016, 13:00 – 17:00h

Location: Universität für Angewandte Kunst Wien, Vordere Zollamtstrasse 3, 1030 Vienna, Seminarraum 21 a/b

The Maker Movement comes in many shapes and sizes: Insights into Europe’s Maker Scene

On 15th September in Dortmund/Germany, I introduced the MAKE-IT project at Dortmund’s “innovative citizen” festival (http://www.innovative-citizen.de/). Within my input I described the broad variety of different types of Maker spaces through Europe as identified in MAKE-IT‘s case studies and contributed to a scenario for the use of open workshops in Germany in 2030.

Dortmund’s “innovative citizen” festival (“festival for democratic use of technology”, http://www.innovative-citizen.de/) for the fourth time attracted Makers, social innovators, urban gardeners, urban gamers, activists for an insect based nutrition, civil servants and many other activists at the border of democracy, technology and sustainability. It hosts workshops, discussions, presentations, urban games, a festival cinema and room for exchange and community building.

Together with MAKE-IT case study partner Jürgen Bertling from Dortmund’s Maker space Dezentrale (https://www.facebook.com/DezentraleDortmund ) I discussed in a workshop on “potentials of open workshops and fab labs for a sustainable society”. Jürgen Bertling introduced three scenarios for the spread of open workshops and Fab Labs in Germany – projecting actual numbers and concepts of open workshops to the year 2030. I introduced recent findings from MAKEI-T’s running empirical work:

“We found a broad variety of organizational, paedagogical or technical concepts of Fab Labs in Europe […] And we think that Maker spaces could be understand by looking at their organization and governance, peer and collaborative behaviors and value creation and impact”.

I also pointed out that Maker spaces do not act in an empty space, but should position themselves to existing spaces such as libraries, open workshops, museums or cultural centres. The workshop participants agreed that spread and impact of the DIY and sustainability movement is strongly connected to their connectedness to other communities and actors.

The participants represented various stakeholders such a universities, research organisations, municipalities, libraries, for-profit and not-for-profit Fab Labs and grassroots organisations from all over Germany.

Tag: Events

A MAKE-IT workshop in Vienna

MAKE-IT research discussed at Innovative Citizen Festival, Dortmund