FabLab Nepal: Empowering Communities Through Technological Access

FabLab Nepal: Empowering Communities Through Technological Access

By Melanie Chan Comment Closed
Technology has become an integral part of our lives in today's fast-paced world. Technology has transformed how we live and work, from smartphones to smart homes. However, not everyone has access to the latest technology or the skills to use it effectively. This is where organizations like FabLab Nepal come in. FabLab Nepal is a community-based digital fabrication laboratory that provides access to the latest technologies, such as 3D printing, laser cutting, and CNC milling, to people from all walks of life. Their mission is to empower communities through technology by providing access to tools and resources to help them bring their ideas to life. In the following interview with Pradita Pradhan, the co-founder of FabLab Nepal, she shared her thoughts on the importance of technology access and critical technological education in today's world and how FabLab Nepal is helping communities in Nepal. "We believe that technology is a great equalizer, and everyone should have access to it," said Pradita. "We aim to...
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Data_labe: A Hub for Data and Narratives from the Favela

Data_labe: A Hub for Data and Narratives from the Favela

By Ricardo Ruiz Comment Closed
Data_labe is a data and narratives laboratory based in the Maré favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is also a member of the Global Innovation Gathering (GIG), a network of innovation hubs, makerspaces, hackerspaces and other grassroots initiatives worldwide. In this blog post, we will showcase their work and connection to GIG and invite you to listen to an audio interview with Gilberto Vieira, one of the co-founders of data_labe. You can listen to the interview here: Data_labe was born in 2016 as a project within the Observatório de Favelas, a social organisation promoting favelas' human rights and social justice. In 2018, it became an autonomous non-profit association. Its mission is to promote the democratisation of knowledge through data generation, analysis and dissemination, focusing on race, gender and territory. Its team comprises young people from low-income regions who produce new narratives through data. At the core of their projects is the question of the images constructed about the city and its...
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Fostering Egypt’s development through The Make and Innovation perspective

Fostering Egypt’s development through The Make and Innovation perspective

By Ricardo Ruiz Comment Closed
San3a Tech is a social enterprise established by young Egyptians to democratize technical innovation and build an impactful community of makers. It is also one of the Global Innovation Gathering hub members since 2022. Egypt faces a critical problem of missing the importance of research and development in the community and its effect on the industry and the Egyptian economy. Therefore, there needs to be an environment to bring together people interested in making, innovation and technology. The main challenges faced by Egypt today include the following: Lack of hands-on learning techniques in schools and universities in Egypt, although Education and training are crucial to national's industry development, economic growth and political stability. The Egyptian vocational schools need to provide the industry with qualified and skilled technicians. Craftsmanship produces low-quality creations due to different reasons. Co-innovating in MENA region These were the main drivers for San3a Tech founders to start the grass-root initiative in March 2012 through Fab Lab Egypt at first, followed by several projects and...
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Gertrude Mawuena Goh – Inspirational stories about gender-inclusive making

Gertrude Mawuena Goh – Inspirational stories about gender-inclusive making

By Ricardo Ruiz Comment Closed
Gertrude Mawuena GohAfrican Makerspace Network, Ghana Gertrude is currently working as an Executive Manager on the Africa Makerspace Network, a community of African Makerspaces. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Ghana. “The more such stories spread, the more other women would view it as normal and develop an interest to join.” Gertrude’s first contact with the maker community was through organizing the 2nd African Makerspace Gathering in 2020.  It took her some time and reading to understand the concept and ideas behind making and makerspaces.  There were hardly any women in the organization team when Gertrude started her work for the Makerspace Gathering. As a project leader, she had to coordinate and chase her team to get things done – but realized that some would refuse.  “When I faced this challenge, I was asking myself a lot of questions: is it because I am new to the team, or because I am a woman?“ She put in extra hard...
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Sailing on Knowledge Waves

Sailing on Knowledge Waves

By Ricardo Ruiz Comment Closed
In 2014, Nave à Vela - a start-up co-founded by GIG member Miguel Chaves in Brazil - has the purpose of, in partnership with schools, building a more meaningful education, promoting increasingly innovative teaching, and respecting the particularities and reality of each school. The mission is to transform schools into places where students' creativity and curiosity awake. They develop activities encouraging them to build knowledge through practices, projects and even life purposes. The Curricular Base for Innovation Culture: a methodology fostering student's development. Nave à Vela (NAV) respects the needs of each school and its particularities. For this reason, it developed an adaptable methodology to fit each school's needs: the Curricular Base for a Culture of Innovation. Designed for kindergarten, elementary school and high school students, it promotes maker learning, in which the student learns by building toys and prototypes and authoring projects. In this process, he starts to have a more exploratory relationship with knowledge and, thus, develops his autonomy. By becoming...
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Learning with Head, Heart and Hand – A Plea for Maker Education

Learning with Head, Heart and Hand – A Plea for Maker Education

By Mugethi Gitau Comment Closed
Global Innovation Gathering is proud to have Junge Tüfler*innen among our members. During workshops, they observe how children are fascinated by plants that make music, plasticine that glows because it can conduct electricity, or a talking poster. When they understand how these things are made, they quickly arrive at the point: "Maybe I can do that, too. I'll try that myself!" Doing things yourself to develop and experience your effectiveness is an essential part of maker education and, accordingly, at the heart of all learning formats. Through project- and problem-based learning, maker education strengthens key future competencies such as communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking. A diagram shows the overlap of the 4K model (Communication Collaboration, Creativity, Critical Thinking) with Digital Competencies (Reception, Reflection, Production). Maker spaces offer a near-limitless number of possibilities for exploration: also, digital skills can be taught here. Fascinating: the area for production, i.e. being able to design digital content and systems yourself. Illustration: Carlotta Klee. "Maker Spaces in der Schule: So...
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Critical Making awarded at Bali FabFest

Critical Making awarded at Bali FabFest

By Ricardo Ruiz Comment Closed
Picture by saadcaffeine During October's first quarter, FabFest Bali gathered experts and enthusiasts at Jimbaran Hub for ten days of inspiring activities and new connections at the premier conference for people-centred digital transformation. Representing the Critical Making project, former GIG Executive Board Member Regina Sipos explained: "How Critical Makers Propose Alternative Futures". The article, built upon the research conducted by consortium partners on the Critical Making project, explores how Making can be more gender-inclusive and support education and open-source hardware projects.  The Fab Fest team has unanimously chosen the Critical Making contribution as the best paper 🥇 presented at the sessions and hosted an extended conversation of about half an hour on the FabTV prime show. You can check Regina's research paper highlight session on their YouTube channel:  (starting at minute 27 but make sure to watch the previous discussion, too!). https://youtu.be/oqi8HB2LeUo?t=1650 In the video, Peter Troxler and Cindy Kohtala asked some critical questions, which were highly favourable and encouraging. Congrats to the whole Critical Making Consortium partners and all our fantastic co-researchers! 🇪🇺 The...
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Interview with Gertrude Goh from the Africa Makerspaces Network

Interview with Gertrude Goh from the Africa Makerspaces Network

By Ricardo Ruiz Comment Closed
The Africa Makerspace Network seeks to harmonize all makerspaces under one umbrella for growth and sustainable development in Africa. They achieve this by researching and contacting makerspaces in Africa, building makers' businesses, technical and entrepreneurial capacity, and enhancing prototype-to-product development and manufacturing. In this interview while in Berlin, Gertrude Gosh explains the Africa Makerspace Network and her work with Kumasi Hive in Ghana. https://youtu.be/_MhbhGWfkyo die Erstellung dieses Blogs Post  von der Stiftung Nord-Süd-Brücken mit finanzieller Unterstützung des BMZ Gefördert ...
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Please, Make things that Make sense!

Please, Make things that Make sense!

By Ricardo Ruiz Comment Closed
We are inviting makers & innovators globally to take part in the journey toward shaping a sustainable future of making.  Critical Making mentoring programme takes a deep dive into its principles:  Make Things That Make Sense: Create products and solutions that solve fundamental, real-world problems. Share How You Make: Develop guidelines that provide a framework for openly documenting everything about the project's making. Include Ecosystem Services: Aim to give back more than you take from the environment and include accounting practices that value natural resources. Integrate Local Knowledge: Build from within the community by working with local methods, materials and traditional resources. Build for Continuity: Design for the present and future; build social capacity, & aim for financial self-sufficiency.  Powering Inclusion and Openness. Critical Making adds scientific insights into the potential of the maker movement. Socially responsible making can show how global maker communities can offer new opportunities. Opportunities for young talents of all genders to contribute to an open society via open source innovation. You can learn more about...
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Makerspaces for sustainable development

Makerspaces for sustainable development

By Mugethi Gitau Comment Closed
Mboa Lab's Critical Making efforts in Cameroon Cameroon's MboaLab is teaching useful critical making skills with the aim of promoting women's self worth, their ability to determine their own choices and the right to influence social change for themselves and others as well as to remove gender bias through critical making . MboaLab is an open and collaborative space located in mefou-Assi village in Yaoundé, Cameroon. The aim of MboaLab is to catalyse sustainable local development and improve people’s living conditions through open science. Their approach focuses on the integration of local knowledge by centering the local community especially women. On 5th - 7th March 2022, MboaLab brought together secondary school girls, women in academia, and women in rural areas for 3 days of discovery and learning. Discovery and fabrication On Day 1, was a day of discovery where the participants were introduced to MboaLab, and had a tour where they visited the different sections of the lab with explanations about...
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