Upcoming: Tech for Good Hackathon in Singapore

Upcoming: Tech for Good Hackathon in Singapore

By Victoria WenzelmannNo Comments
30 teams of young minds will take on problem statements in an attempt to prototype solutions for recognition and visibility aside from just doing good. Exemplary teams will showcase proposed solutions at the Tech For Good showcase and festival on 2nd of November in sunny Singapore. The festival will showcase team prototypes along with volunteer welfare organization partner organizations and beneficiaries, with a central hands-on event Makerspace (GiG@republica style) where EG will conduct hack-a-toy workshops along with others. Tech for Good is an innovation challenge for passionate and creative youths, 15-25 years old, to develop innovative solutions that will benefit persons with disabilities and their families/care-givers. The challenge runs from August until November where participants develop solutions through an iterative process of design thinking, culminating in a public festival of prototype showcase and workshops for PWDs. EngineeringGood is a volunteer driven charity that needs your support to continue bringing innovative low-cost accessible tech solutions and STEM-oriented hands-on hacking workshops to caregivers and persons...
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An Update on ‘Reimagine Open’

By Victoria Wenzelmann1 Comment
Several GIG members supported Mozilla‘s Reimagine Open project by hosting Focus Groups in their hubs. Reposted from Mozilla: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/update-reimagining-open/ In March 2019, Mozilla started its projectReimagine Open to revisit the ways Mozilla practices open to imagine better futures for our digital lives. In the following months, over 20,000 people from around 160 countries answered Mozilla’s survey and four focus groups were hosted in Europe and North America. Now, we're writing with an update on our latest work: More focus groups, this time in the Global South. Our friends at the GIG Network supported Mozilla’s Reimagine Open project by hosting conversations in Brazil, Cameroon, Rwanda, and India about the state of the web. Here’s what they learned: Report from the Global Innovation Gathering “Think internet with freedom, privacy and security.” GIG supports Mozilla’s Reimagine Open project by hosting Focus Groups all around the globe. What we learned was important and galvanizing. Across the focus groups, memories of first internet encounters were generally characterized by enthusiasm, enlightenment, enchantment, empowerment and...
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GIG @ Communities & Technologies

GIG @ Communities & Technologies

By Victoria WenzelmannNo Comments
The biennial Communities and Technologies (C&T) conference stimulates scholarly debate and is a prime venue to disseminate research on the complex connections between communities and information and communication technologies. #comtech2019 aimed to also connect academia and practitioners - an endeavor that GIG as a network and many members obviously relate and can contribute much to! Already in 2017, some GIGers participated in C&T in Troyes, as Oliver Stickel from Fablab Siegen had initiated a workshop around 3D printing and digital fabrication for education and the common good. This year’s C&T took place in Vienna from June 3rd till June 7th, and many GIG members participated in various roles. Regina Sipos and me organized the workshop Critical Making For and With Communities with the goal to facilitate and further exchange between researchers, practitioners and activists in the fields of critical making, social and digital innovation, participatory design, and community management. It was a very fruitful exchange between people working in...
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GIG@35C3. Hacking Diversity at a Hacker Congress.

GIG@35C3. Hacking Diversity at a Hacker Congress.

By Victoria WenzelmannNo Comments
In December 2018, we managed to gig up rp:Accra and just a week later also 35C3. It has been an intense time - but totally worth it! What is 35C3? The Chaos Communication Congress is an annual conference organized by the Chaos Computer Club, Europe’s largest association of hackers. The congress features a variety of lectures and workshops on technical and political issues related to security, cryptography, privacy and online freedom of speech. The event takes place regularly at the end of the year since 1984, hence the 2018 edition is the 35th one - 35C3. With now 16,000 participants, Congress is considered one of the largest events of this kind, and it is completely self-organized. GIG@35C5 Similar to re:publica and due to the bottom-up nature of the events, Congress is quite focused on Europe and Northern America, which is reflected in the speakers, participants and topics. We want to make sure international perspectives beyond these are represented at CCC. . Hence, GIG...
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GIG at ifa Design Exhibition “Pure Gold – Upcycled! Upgraded!”

GIG at ifa Design Exhibition “Pure Gold – Upcycled! Upgraded!”

By Victoria WenzelmannNo Comments
Samer Shawar and Marios Mouratidis did a Junk Drawbots Workshop and Victoria Wenzelmann gave an introductory talk on GIG at the Design Exhibition Pure Gold – Upcycled! Upgraded! The exhibition was opened in Hamburg in November 2017 and will travel the world for the next ten years. Pure Gold is a project by ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen) that explores the subject of rubbish and presents approaches to using existing trash to create valuable products. It consists of two complementary parts: the physical and material exhibition and the virtual platform as a space for dialogue, discussion and the storage of knowledge.    Working with seven curators from Europe, Latin America, North Africa and the Near East, East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, ifa has brought together 76 exhibits and a total of 53 designers for the exhibition, where they present added value and appreciation within many diverse contexts. The workshops that take place at the international touring exhibition venues with local designer and...
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GIG@re:connecting Europe 2017

GIG@re:connecting Europe 2017

By Victoria WenzelmannNo Comments
In 2017 the re:publica team came up with an ambitious project to take the idea of re:publica further: Activists, scientists, hackers, entrepreneurs, NGOs, journalists, social media and marketing experts gathered in Dublin and Thessaloniki to debate the future of the information society in Europe. With re:connecting EUROPE, we aim to promote the development of a Europe-wide network of creative industries and push the exchange between the various digital scenes along our North-South axis. The conferences in Dublin and Thessaloniki gave us valuable insights and new perspectives on our interconnected world, which we discussed in-depth with our speakers and visitors. The events also created spaces for a cultural exchange of ideas across our European borders and allowed us to learn more about the issues concerning people on the ground at the re:publica locations. As a global network whose aim is to connect grassroots innovators we were huge fans of the re:connecting events. With the Labmobile already being used as a Mobile Ressource Center by Greece Communitere, GIG was excited to...
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PitchDrive in Berlin: A visit from Africa’s top 14 Startups

PitchDrive in Berlin: A visit from Africa’s top 14 Startups

By Victoria WenzelmannNo Comments
Africa is at the start of a technological renaissance. Last year, it was estimated that African startups raised a record-breaking total of $366.8 million in investment, with the top 10 destinations being Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Rwanda, Cote d’Ivoire, Tanzania, Egypt, Ghana, Senegal, Morocco, Tunisia and Uganda. The PitchDrive competition selected 14 of Africa’s top startups to go on a tour through Europe to raise capital and awareness. PitchDrive is organized by the Nigerian innovation space CcHUB, powered by Google for Entrepreneurs. PitchDrive is a tour through exciting tech cities in Europe (London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Zurich and Paris) to pitch to investors, explore international opportunities and learn about frontier technology markets. On Wednesday August 23rd the startups came to Berlin to meet investors and actors of the local ecosystem. They were hosted by GIG the Global Innovation Gathering, an international organization that supports exchange between innovators from across the world. In cooperation with the PitchDrive team from CCHub, GIG organized the group's...
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Digital Africa – Arte cross-media project

Digital Africa – Arte cross-media project

By Victoria WenzelmannNo Comments
„Digital Africa“ is a multi platform project about digital innovations in Africa, produced by Berlin based film production company Berlin Producers in cooperation with French-German TV ARTE, GIG, re:publica, Shrinkfish and others. The project consists of four elements: Documentary Film A DOCUMENTARY FILM (52‘) will be broadcasted on German – French TV ARTE in 2018. Starting from Berlin GIG founder and re:publica curator Geraldine de Bastion goes on a journey through Africa. Geraldine discovers digital inventions and innovations, interviews creators and pioneers, and experiences the application fields of new developments. Webpage A WEBPAGE hosted by GIG provides additional information to digital innovations in Africa: An interactive map, information to various projects. Blog Geraldine´s travel blog is published here as well as articles of other bloggers on this subject. Geraldine is open for ideas before and even during the journey. Please leave your comments, ideas and invitations below!   Web-Clip-Series A provocative WEB-CLIP-SERIES presents six European problems and six African inventions. Animation artists Ebele Okoye and Shrinkfish (Nigeria) will “bring” these inventions to...
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Towards an IoT from the Masses

Towards an IoT from the Masses

By Victoria WenzelmannNo Comments
re:publica is Europe’s largest and most inspiring conference on internet and digital society. It attracts to Berlin over 7000 participants to discuss, in a 500 hours program with more than 850 speakers, themes and topics concerning our interconnected society and creates a space for bloggers, politicians, scientists, business people, artists and activists to come together. The founders of re:publica GmbH, newthinking communications and Spreeblick Verlag have been involved in internet policy and digital culture and society for over a decade. They are also the founders of two of Germany’s most well-known blogs: netzpolitik.org and spreeblick.com. This large background on digital policies cleary drove the main themes of the 10th anniversary festival edition – called TEN (or NET), on the first week of May, 2016. One could get a full perspective on world´s worst policies for digital (software and hardware) innovation or enjoy a pleasure talk about the ethics around digital design; a lecture about the economy loss of new migrations...
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Science is a type of energy

Science is a type of energy

By Victoria WenzelmannNo Comments
There’s something magical happening here in Berlin. Every year the Global Innovation Gathering brings people from all across the world who create empowering community spaces together, and this year we have our friends from Basra, Palestine, and Egypt as a part of our crew. The Global Entrepreneurship and Maker Space Initiative [GEMSI], has been supporting the development of collaborative community spaces across MENA and I took the opportunity to be with our crew in person to discuss some of our history and some of our dreams for the future. (more…)...
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