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.
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