Author: Theresa Fend

The month of February was a month for ‘Innovation with a cause’. Nepal Communitere in partnership with Field Ready successfully wrapped up the first-ever Humanitarian Design Challenge (HDC) where students from different disciplines formed 4 multidisciplinary teams to prepare prototypes to combat real-life challenges! 20 avid learners from different colleges and universities across Kathmandu participated in this challenge where they were trained and guided to apply skills and knowledge of different digital manufacturing tools such as 3D printing, CNC, Laser cutting and other powerful 3D design software. The 2-week long design challenge allowed the teams to go through a simulated design activity with a focus on Human-Centred Design research,  documentation and access to open-source platforms such as Careables, Field Ready, Thingiverse, GrabCAD and others. The participant teams identified a product on one of these open-source platforms and adapted and iterated for the Nepali market. They then designed a new prototype incorporating findings from their design-thinking interviews. Pallab Shrestha, Program Officer of FabLab and Pradita Pradhan, Program Coordinator of...

GIG member Pitchworthy is part of a group that has an interesting announcement coming up: Safir offers you the opportunity to join the first regional network of social impact incubators in Northern Africa and the Middle East. By participating in Safir, you can benefit from skill-building sessions to share your methodologies and create a regional toolkit to support innovative entrepreneurship. The selected structures will also be in charge of supporting young project leaders. This program is open to partners in 9 countries: Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya (diaspora), Morocco, Palestine, Syria (diaspora), Tunisia. Safir is a program in partnership with: Institut Français, CFI, AUF, ANND, Lab'ess, and Pitchworthy (Bloom), and is co-financed by the European Union. Find out more here. Deadline: June 28, 2020 ...

Born on the day after the announcement of the first three cases of coronavirus in Madagascar in the begining of April, Hackoragna, a name composed of "Hack" and "Koragna", is an 100% online collaborative platform that aims to develop the digital economy of Madagascar by bringing together "informal" talents as well as micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Madagascar in an online, participatory and democratic cooperative. Around the world, millions of people are unemployed because of COVID-19 and Madagascar is not spared; the virus does not discriminate, but its economic and social impact is unevenly distributed. Workers in tourism, the arts, commerce, education and the informal sector are the most affected. Only digital and innovative enterprises survive and are overwhelmed with work.  In front of all this, young Malagasy locals and diaspora youth have organized themselves online and decided to organize #hackoragnavirus, a COVID19 Hackathon in less than 10 days. This is a Hackathon that brought together young malagasy innovators from...

Between 11-13 May 2020 HONF Foundation, CAST Foundation, Social-Digital Innovation and Ke:Kini organized an online grassroots hackathon for Indonesia. GIG wasn’t only represented by Regina (SDI) and Ira (HONF), Saad came on board as a mentor and Ricardo as an evaluator to help us activate citizens’ zest for action and creativity and form interdisciplinary teams of artists, makers, hackers, designers, scientists and practitioners who had never met before. castfoundation.id We worked with them to develop locally relevant open source hardware solutions during the covid-19 pandemic, and help us develop a better future in the form of culture hacks and next steps towards a sustainable, circular economy. Projects that the participants came up with included an affordable UV-C light box to disinfect clothes in hospitals, wearable tech alerting when others come too close, a community alarm system, a kids’ hat that buzzes when its wearer is about to touch their face, a VR exhibition app and many more. To follow up, teams...

How can we stay safe at our Makerspaces during the current pandemic? Kijenzi in Kenya and GIG member Field Ready have designed a poster for maker spaces to print out and share with their members. The poster shares the steps they can use to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 in the spaces. The poster is currently available in English and Arabic, with other languages coming soon. If you would like to translate it into your own language, please contact Andrew at andrew.lamb@fieldready.org. ...

Careables is a community of makers and users of open-source, collaborative hardware innovations that can be easily replicated globally via 3D printing and other forms of fabrication. The aim of our work package in Olinda is to engage stakeholder communities, bring these existing communities together and connect them in the field of open source healthcare solutions. Read on and join us in our first 15 days of Careables Olinda, following the project kick-off on February 5th 2020! The importance of Food Two meetings with Nutritionists working with children in a low-income community in the city or the countryside. They expressed their need for a digital measurement tool. The development of the device started, and it is on welder Connecting to the Public Health Kiosk A meeting with Olinda Public Health Kiosk on the beach. They are willing to test and help on Measurement Device Tool development. They also desire a couple of 3D printed Ramps to use on their installations. We could also arrange...

On March 14th, Lab Procomum will celebrate the 2019 cycle ventures of our social entrepreneurship school, A Colaboradora – Empreender e Transfomar (Entrepreneurship and Transform). The event will take place at the headquarters of LAB Procomum and marks the end of a one-year training, developing and mentoring process with 25 social impact entrepreneurs from Baixada Santista (São Paulo State coast, Brazil). It will be an afternoon of culture, art, creativity, entrepreneurship, good conversation and good meetings. In addition to the presentation of the projects, we will have a round of experiences with cases of creativity and social impact from Baixada Santista, São Paulo and the Federal District. This year, the city of Santos will host the Unesco Creative Cities event. And for us, this is the moment to show that entrepreneurs from the peripheries and minorities are of vital importance for this ecosystem and live creativity and social transformation in their daily lives. And we will continue to foster and build creativity and...