Makerspace Covid-19 Safety Protocols 

Makerspace Covid-19 Safety Protocols 

By Theresa FendNo Comments
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 [email protected]. ...
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Careables Olinda Diary: Our first 15 days

Careables Olinda Diary: Our first 15 days

By Theresa FendNo Comments
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...
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Celebrating the creativity and the transformation of social entrepreneurship

Celebrating the creativity and the transformation of social entrepreneurship

By Theresa FendNo Comments
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...
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Careables goes Olinda

Careables goes Olinda

By Theresa FendNo Comments
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. Careables is an international platform collaboration that enables citizens to co-design and deliver people-centred health products through means of digital fabrication The aim of the work package of Careables Latin America in Olinda is to engage stakeholder communities, bring these existing communities together and connect them in the field of open source healthcare solutions. The engagement focuses on both local levels as well as global engagement activities. The partners LabCOCO, FabLabOLinda (Both in Olinda city) and LabProComum (city of Santos) function as the hubs to connect to local communities of citizens with (physical) healthcare needs, carers, and public healthcare professionals with the community of makers and medical herbalists. Each hub executes a specifically tailored program for their local context to identify the needs of these communities, but also sensitise the active involvement of citizens in the...
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Plastic for Good

Plastic for Good

By Theresa Fend4 Comments
At re:publica 2019, GIG member Nidhi Mittal from India was nominated to participate in the Plastic For Good challenge organized by Distributed Design Market Platform, co-funded by Creative Europe to work with Precious Plastic in Eindhoven and beta test their new sheets & beams made out of recycled plastic and design products using their brand new version 4 machines. “The product that I had made is a portable, convertible backpack+desk along with two fellow makers, Augustin and Moritz. We explored the qualities and possibilities of beams made out of recycled plastic.” Nidhi Mittal Backpack with integrated desk made by Nidhi, Augustin and Moritz Image courtesy: Distributed design market platform Many of the things which are taken for granted in schools of developed countries such as bags, books, desks, and chairs are often considered a privilege in developing countries. Most of the schools in rural parts of India lack these basic amenities which results in kids carrying heavy books in flimsy plastic...
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Digitally Speaking

Digitally Speaking

By Theresa FendNo Comments
Digitally Speaking, the Wearable tech project for the safety of Women by Nidhi Mittal and Avik Dhupar was selected as one of the top 14 creative projects in the Distributed Design market platform award in association with Index awards! They got a chance to present their project and talk about GIG at 'We make the City' conference which was held in Amsterdam in June,2019 Read more about the project and awards here. ...
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The Optics of the Commons

The Optics of the Commons

By Theresa FendNo Comments
"The commons is what gives meaning to our existence" Kum'tum Akroá-Gamella, from the Akroá-Gamella people, state of Maranhão, northeast of Brazil. We believe that the commons, in its multiple perspectives, is an essential kaleidoscope concept for facing this historic moment of hopelessness, in Brazil and in the world. The Optics of the Commons series brings together sixteen short episodes featuring voices and ideas from young experts and activists. In the videos, they address different perspectives on living and making communities based on a diversity of studies, practices and experiences. Seen together, the approaches produce inspiring resonances. Taking inspiration from these words, the Procomum Institute invites everyone to reflect and question our ways of existing, living and building relationships. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a7emZKVF4w&list=PLz53SY9iZdF55YaAXY2S-kVlpIBi4623a Watch and share! Let's talk about how together we can dream - and build- other possible futures. All videos have english subtitles. Find the full playlist here. ...
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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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Contemplating the Climate Crisis in a Global Network

Contemplating the Climate Crisis in a Global Network

By Theresa FendNo Comments
In the past weeks we have been bombarded with reports about melting arctic ice or forests burning in Brazil - climate change is felt around the world. This week, September 20-27, the global climate strike organized by Fridays for Future and multiple other organizations like WWF, Amnesty, Change.org, Greenpeace, Avaaz and Extinction Rebellion is taking place, followed by Extinction Rebellion’s Worldwide Rebellion from October 7th  and onwards. Through their actions, these movements seek to bring about global, systemic change and many of our members from Brazil to India are joining.  As a global community we are especially aware how climate change is affecting the so called Global South. Reports show that countries that are least responsible for causing climate change are the ones suffering most from its effects, especially regarding food insecurity and nutrient deficiencies as is highlighted in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.  Realities in countries vary greatly - there can be no “single” climate strategy for...
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Visiting the Cricket World Cup with 13 young cricketers from Khayelitsha,Cape Town

Visiting the Cricket World Cup with 13 young cricketers from Khayelitsha,Cape Town

By Theresa FendNo Comments
Part of my work is with the Gary Kirsten Foundation, a non-profit Sports Foundation which works in Khayelitsha, the largest township in Cape Town and one of its poorest areas. We build Cricket ecosystems with infrastructure and coaching for young players who have no other sport programmes to take part in. Starting in 2014, and without any starting capital, the Foundation committed to building one cricket facility and appointed a full-time coach. Five years later, and with sponsors and investors taking more notice all the time, the Foundation now operates from five schools in Khayelitsha and employs seven full-time coaches from the area. This year, we decided to take a team of young players to the sports’ biggest global tournament, ‘The Cricket World Cup’. At first, it seemed like an impossible dream, but after months of passport and birth certificate and Visa applications, fundraising, kit sourcing and branding and logistical planning, the GK Foundation World Cup Tour...
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