Revolutionizing STEM Education in the Philippines

Revolutionizing STEM Education in the Philippines

By Ricardo Ruiz Comment Closed
Imagine a welcoming and imaginative space, with the floor resembling grass and trees serving as tables. It's a place where kids can collaborate to design, create and think. The students use circuits, 3-D printers, and crafts to create creative projects. Based in the Philippines, that is precisely what SparkleLab presents. Founded by Rosanna Lopez, SparkleLab began as a small clubhouse for kids. Having evolved into after-school and summer camps over the years, one of its flagship programs, Game Makers, teaches game design, with kids creating their games using Python. The whole learning experience is imbued with fun, creativity, and storytelling. Before classes begin, a letter is sent to the kids warning them of an evil pirate bunny trying to outlaw fun. The kids must act like a rebel army against the evil bunny to restore fun. Other programs include Stitches and Circuits, which focuses on getting girls to code, and Toy Mill, which teaches design thinking and critical making.  Set within the...
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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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Gig @ re:publica’22 is here!

Gig @ re:publica’22 is here!

By Mugethi Gitau Comment Closed
GIG @ re:publica ‘22 is finally happening in-person (after 2 years of not being able to) and we couldn't be more excited! This year’s festival with the “Any way the wind blows” happens on 8-10 June, at Arena Berlin & Festsaal Kreuzberg Yay for the Makerspace! The Makerspace is happening at re:publica 2022 and as usual is bringing together some of the most brilliant makers and innovators from around the world. Curated by the GIG and with support from our membership in the Distributed Design Platform, we host full-on three days of Workshops, Meetups and Exhibitions, all happening in the Makerspace at the heart of re:publica. Whether developing robots, learning how to replace plastic bags with biodegradable materials, making your own eco-prints on DIY bio leather, or recording crawling insects by adapting programming code, our workshops program will ensure you leave with some real Hands-on knowledge. Learn more about the Workshops program here.At the comfort of the HomeBase, our Meetups will bring speakers...
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ECSA 2022 Conference: Citizen Science for Planetary Health

ECSA 2022 Conference: Citizen Science for Planetary Health

By Mugethi Gitau Comment Closed
We got some great updates about the 4th international ECSA Conference 2022! When: From the 5th-8th October 2022Where: In Berlin Why “Citizen Science for Planetary Health”? Because the health of our planet is at risk. To preserve and support the well-being of all life on Earth, we need the commitment and efforts of everyone – policy makers, the public, business, science and research. Citizen science offers effective and innovative ways to do transdisciplinary research and influence decision-making in multiple areas and ways. Citizen science is particularly suited to connect diverse fields and diverse actors in the common endeavour of collaborating in research.The concept of planetary health is based on the understanding that human health and human civilization depend on thriving natural systems and the sustainable stewardship of those natural systems. This demands not only knowledge, commitment and engagement of health and environmental sciences, but inter- and transdisciplinary efforts from all research fields and societal and political actors. The ECSA 2022 Conference invites...
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Join our monthly hangouts shaping a gloCal Citizen Social Science Approach

By Mugethi Gitau Comment Closed
GIG, in its role as CoAct consortium member, strives to contribute to the shaping of this approach with a global bottom-up perspective on how Science should/is be thought of and addressed, and how inclusive bottom-up practices are enabled, in most diverse contexts around the world. Building on a series of hangouts, webinars, and other conversations we hosted over the last two years, we concluded in 5 key leading topics. In 2022 we will Host one hangout per topic and invite you to join the conversationCo-write an open publication and invite you to co-author [more info here] as our contribution to the shaping of an inclusive Citizen Social Science approach! Join our Hangouts! During the hangouts we will have a vibrant conversation around one topic at a time. We will also provide information regarding the co-writing and answer questions to everyone who is interested to co-author with us! April 21: Locally driven protocols and local traditions in ScienceMay 19: The ownership of ScienceJune 23: Decolonizing our educational/institutional...
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Our first CoAct 2022 hangout is around the corner!

Our first CoAct 2022 hangout is around the corner!

By Mugethi Gitau Comment Closed
Join us on Thursday, April 21st, 2PM CEST We will meet for the first of a series of five hangouts providing a space for conversation and co-shaping an inclusive *Open *Citizen *Social Science landscape - Voices and methods from around the world.The Global Innovation Gathering is a consortium member of the Horizon 2020 project ‘CoAct – Co-Creating a Citizen Social Science Approach’. Within CoAct, one of our goals is to foster a critical debate, addressing what Co-Creation, what inclusive approaches, and what science should look like when accounting for multiple voices, needs, and traditions from all around the world. Throughout the year we are going to host five hangouts discussing central topics the community identified. These hangouts accompany a process of co-writing an open publication that brings together your critical understandings to inclusive Citizen Social Science from a gloCal perspective. You can become a co-author, read more here. Register here for the hangout Topic: Locally driven protocols and local traditions in OCSS What is required...
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GIG presents a Masterclass at Innovate2030 Bootcamp

GIG presents a Masterclass at Innovate2030 Bootcamp

By Ricardo Ruiz Comment Closed
We are excited to announce that Geraldine de Bastion, a GIG member and co-founder, will present a Masterclass about GIG at the Innovate2030 Bootcamp on March 10th, in a day full of profound insights, learnings from the best, and crucial interactions moments.  Innovate2030 Bootcamp is the space where stakeholders, challenge-providers, collaborating partners and the Bootcamp´s finalist teams come together for the first time to get to know each other.  11 Masterclasses offer real-life insights from A-Z in climate-tech entrepreneurship and multidisciplinary and global perspectives given by experts from all over the world and various disciplines.  It is a unique opportunity to join an exceptional vision on climate-smart cities and meet the Innovate2030-finalists. The main goal is to share first-hand insights on innovation processes and glimpse Innovate 2030 bright concepts and groundbreaking ideas.  Innovate2030-SDG11 is a partnership by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (#BMZ) and its new lab for digital innovations – #digilab – in collaboration with the Make-IT Alliance. You can learn...
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Labmobile: on the road in Northern Uganda

Labmobile: on the road in Northern Uganda

By Ricardo Ruiz Comment Closed
Young people between the ages of 18 and 30 in Rhino Camp Refugee Settlement and surrounding communities in northern Uganda face many problems, two of which GIG and Platform Africa proposed a project that seeks to address: Youth unemployment and lack of media literacy. With a youth unemployment rate of almost 70% and a high percentage of people who could not complete their school education but were traumatized by war and flight as schoolchildren, misinformation often leads to outbreaks of violence. Tensions have increased over the past year, particularly following the Ugandan government's restrictive measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic and the World Food Program's (WFP) simultaneous 30% cut in food rations for refugees. Platform Africa foundation was in 2017 in Uganda by South Sudanese refugees. It is a non-profit organization that supports young people of all nationalities, ethnicities, genders, and sexual orientations through capacity-building programs (SDG 4). It focuses on media skills development, entrepreneurship, social-technological innovation, and establishing an open, peaceful...
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Announcing DOTS 2021!

Announcing DOTS 2021!

By Mugethi GitauNo Comments
It is finally that time of the year! Although we could not physically gather anywhere after 2019, we did gather virtually in many events, and also during the weekly GIG team calls. We know the reality of meeting online is not exactly what we want – but we’re also preparing to meet again physically in 2022 ! Still, this year’s DOTS – our annual gathering – will need to take place virtually .  DOTS will be more focused this year on our network and organisation. With this, we invite you to save the date for the DOTS week (November 26-30) and to participate and arrange sessions. Leading up to this, we shall offer several info sessions about board members roles, GIG governance and the general assembly.   The agenda for DOTS: 26th | 13.00 - 15.30 CET: General Assembly Meeting The  General Assembly is the central decision-making organ of GIG e.V. the NGO which forms the legal body of the GIG Network....
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