Global Innovation Gathering (GIG)
is a vibrant, diverse community of innovation hubs, makerspaces, hackerspaces and other grassroots innovation communities alongside individual innovators, makers, technologists and changemakers.
GIG is pursuing a new vision for global cooperation based on equality, openness and sharing with solid roots in the global south. We aim to enable more diversity in technology production and global innovation processes and support open and sustainable solutions developed by grassroots innovators.
GIG provides a platform for meaningful connections and exchange by fostering knowledge exchange and collaboration between its members, positively impacting the policies and frameworks for grassroots innovation.
We support research in innovation and development, digital rights and technology ecosystem questions carried out by local experts and international teams.
What we do
Open Innovation
GIG believes in harnessing the powers of grassroots innovation for societal change. In particular, we believe in involving the people affected in policymaking and technology design processes. Through our Open Innovation projects, we bring together different actors and perspectives to work on open solutions for social and economic development.
Citizen Social Science
Citizen Social Science combines equal collaboration between citizen groups (co-researchers) that share a social concern and academic researchers. Such an approach enables robust research methods to address pressing social issues embedded in their social contexts from the bottom up. In GIG, we aim to co-create socially rich knowledge.
Global Gatherings
As a global community, GIG knows the power of convening like-minded innovators worldwide to work on digital innovation and digital rights-based policy topics. As Wau Holland, the founder of the Chaos Computer Club, once said about their annual congress, “Some digital things are best done in person”.
Open Health
One goal of digitization should be to make medical care more participatory and involve patients in developing solutions. New technologies open up new possibilities to apply to the user or the patient and new innovative actors, not only in data collection. GIG works toward open health systems through our supported projects.
Latest news
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Heritage Crafts and Sustainable Futures: Great learnings from the Community Call
The recent community call convened by Global Innovation Gathering as part of the make-a-thek project examined the relationship between heritage crafts, sustainability, and circularity across diverse contexts. The…
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Community Call: the LibreWater Prototype Replication in Iraq
The Global Innovation Gathering (GIG) convened a community call to examine the outcomes of the LibreWater prototype replication in Basra, Iraq, supported by the Roddenberry Fund. The session…
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Reflections from the Makerspace at re:publica 25: Radical Creativity, Shared Futures
This year’s Makerspace at re:publica was a vibrant explosion of creativity, collaboration, and community, and one thing became immediately apparent: when communities come together, they can move mountains.…
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Building Sustainable Futures: Outcomes from LibreWater’s Solar Desalination Efforts
The LibreWater project has recently achieved significant results, particularly in deploying small-scale solar desalination prototypes in Basra, Iraq. Rooted in open-source methodologies and collaborative global innovation, the project…
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Insights from the Make-a-thek Community Call on Inclusive Fashion and Assistive Technology
The Make-a-thek Community Call on May 14, 2025, brought together experts and practitioners to discuss inclusive fashion and assistive technology. The session featured presentations from Sema Gedik, founder…
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From Hands-on Creativity to Global Connection: Inside Maker Faire Cairo 2025
April was a special month for makers in Egypt — and for some from around the globe, especially within our GIG community. It was the month of Maker…
