We are GIG
Written by Ricardo Ruiz
Notes from a GIG community call on open technologies, locally generated data and environmental challenges Four centimetres. That is the resolution of the drone imagery Tommy Charles showed us from Freetown, next to a satellite picture of the same street that blurs everything below twenty or thirty centimetres into a grey smudge. At four centimetres … Continue reading “GIG Community Call: Open Environmental Sensing for Climate Resilience”
Written by Ricardo Ruiz
On April 18 and 19, 2025, makers filled the GrEEK Campus in downtown Cairo for the tenth edition of Maker Faire Cairo. A robotics demo ran next to a calligraphy station. A workshop on AI powered design sat beside a class on shaping bioplastics. The theme was Dots Connected, and after ten years the phrase … Continue reading “San3a Tech: Ten Years of Making in Cairo”
Written by Ricardo Ruiz
Last October, more than 3,500 repair events took place in 50 countries, all within a single two-week window. A broken radio somewhere in Querétaro. A jammed sewing machine in Bühl. A laptop that just needed a new battery in Portsmouth. Somewhere in that count there was probably one of GIG hubs, quietly doing what they … Continue reading “Repair Brings Us Together: GIG Joins International Repair Day”
Written by Ricardo Ruiz
Zuzana Šmrkovská’s knitting machine is from the 1980s. It’s a Brother, one of the 900 or 950 series, the kind that used to hum through Czechoslovak textile factories before that whole industry collapsed. She runs it now from her laptop, through an open source controller built by the AYAB community. Same machine, different century. That image opened … Continue reading “Crafting Connected Communities: A Material Library and a Hacked Knitting Machine”
Written by Melanie Chan
We are excited to invite all GIG members and Makerspaces based in French-speaking countries, or those who are part of Francophone communities, to join our first Francophone GIG Community Call in collaboration with the African Makerspace Network (AMN). Over the years, the GIG network has continued to grow across Africa, Europe, and beyond. We believe … Continue reading “GIG Community Call: Francophone GIG Community Call”
Written by Ricardo Ruiz
Nathan Parker, GIG member since 2017, is back to walk us through four years of work most of the network has only heard about in fragments, the Open Hardware Manager. Nathan traces the story back to Kathmandu, where he met Geraldine de Bastion and Andrew Lamb. He had just come from two months in the Black Rock … Continue reading “GIG Community Call: Open Hardware Manager – Connecting Designs to Distributed Manufacturing”
Written by Ricardo Ruiz
The mathematics building of TU Berlin, May 23 and 24, 2026. A heat wave pushed temperatures to records, and inside the corridors of a concrete campus, several hundred people from dozens of countries gathered around circuit boards, knitting machines, flow batteries, and looms. For the first time in its history, the Open Hardware Summit came … Continue reading “Distributed Roots in Berlin: GIG at the Open Hardware Summit 2026”
Written by Geraldine de Bastion
Reflections from the make-a-thek Central Eastern European Study Tour The EU-funded make-a-thek project integrates modular makerspaces into public libraries to promote circular approaches to fashion and craft. In June 2026, we conducted our first make-a-thek study tour through Germany, Czechia, and Poland to explore regional circularity practices and build long-term collaborations. During this tour, we … Continue reading “From Industrial Memories to a Circular Future for Heritage Craft, Textile Production and Fashion Design”
Written by Ricardo Ruiz
A sewing machine 300 metres from a refugee camp in northern Greece. A farmhouse in Alsace, dating from the end of the 17th century, with a bell that still calls people to communal dinner. A row of benches in Vilnius made from the demolished pillars of a Soviet-era trade union mansion. Three scenes, three countries, … Continue reading “Make-A-Thek Community Call: Crafting Connected Communities”
Written by Melanie Chan
This year, re:publica’s motto “Never Gonna Give You Up” centered on resilience, solidarity, and fighting for a better future amidst ongoing global and technological crises. At a moment when democratic values, open knowledge, and community infrastructure all face serious pressure, the Makerspace was a dynamic interface on the ground connecting these critical topics. Curated for … Continue reading “Making together: The Makerspace at re:publica 2026”
