Aravinth Panch : Generating A Cycle of Thinking For Longevity

Aravinth Panch : Generating A Cycle of Thinking For Longevity

Ecosystems services encompass the vital benefits that nature bestows upon us to sustain life on our planet. Diverse natural elements such as forests, wetlands, rivers, oceans, and the myriad of animal species inhabiting our world are all examples of how different ecosystems exist. During Aravinth’s enlightening mentoring session, you will have the opportunity to delve into the different roles in safeguarding these ecosystems for the well-being of our planet. To deepen our understanding of the intrinsic value that nature brings to human lives, we must incorporate practices that keep us accountable and acknowledge the true worth of natural resources within our maker practices. Aravinth, an ardent social entrepreneur, dedicates his efforts to empowering underserved communities in war-affected regions of Sri Lanka. His work focuses on enabling these communities to address local socio-economic and environmental challenges effectively. As a co-founder of DreamSpace Academy, a non-profit social enterprise, Aravinth actively fosters positive change through various impactful initiatives. DreamSpace Academy operates on challenge-based learning,...
Read More
Bahar Kumar : Reversing Power Dynamics In Community

Bahar Kumar : Reversing Power Dynamics In Community

In this mentoring video presented by Bahar Kumar, we dive deep into what entrepreneurial communities look like and to also discover the impact/need for building such spaces. Baharserves as Director at Impact Hub Kathmandu', formerly Nepal Communitere. In this role, she leads a vibrant community-based innovation hub that supports ambitious changemakers, enabling them to transform their ideas into successful ventures. With a deep commitment to empowering visionaries Bahar employs methodologies like human-centered design to gain profound insights into the communities' needs. By understanding these needs she strives to design innovative and relevant solutions that address pressing challenges. Her expertise in community engagement and innovative problem-solving has been instrumental in fostering positive change. Through her multifaceted experiences and qualifications, Bahar Kumar exemplifies a dedicated leader and advocate for social innovation. Her work at Impact Hub Kathmandu showcases her unwavering commitment to empowering entrepreneurs and catalyzing positive social impact. As she mentions, “it is through entrepreneurship that we can build impact at scale;...
Read More
Georgia Nicolau: Advancing Empathy; For Commitment To Care And Responsible Innovation

Georgia Nicolau: Advancing Empathy; For Commitment To Care And Responsible Innovation

Georgia Nicolau, an esteemed participant in the critical making mentoring program, hails from Brazil and possesses a diverse skill set, such as being a creative professional, researcher, writer, trained facilitator, and consultant. Her expertise lies in the realms of social organizations, collective action, innovation, and culture and the arts. Notably, she played a pivotal role in co-founding the Procomum Institute in 2016—an NGO that champions the commons-oriented approach in her Southern American country. At the institute, she serves as Program Director, enabling partnerships and institutional development. She initiates an in-depth exploration of the pedagogy employed by the Procomum organization. Their pedagogy serves as a means to comprehend the foundation of their community-focused work particularly in terms of integrating local knowledge. What does this mean, you ask? And also, why is this important? To address these questions effectively let us explore the analysis of the seven principles underlying the organization’s pedagogy. First is faith in people and their encounters. The notion that every...
Read More
Saad Chinoy : Curating A Curious Mind That Goes Beyond Conventional Thinking

Saad Chinoy : Curating A Curious Mind That Goes Beyond Conventional Thinking

Covid-19 one could say, is a thing of the past. However, the lingering effects can still be seen today. Although pain, suffering, isolation, and many online Zoom calls are associated with this period, some positive outcomes have emerged from the pandemic. For example, we can look towards the trailblazing organization TechForGood. It utilized the pandemic as a source of inspiration to bring individuals from the community to uphold principles that employ appropriate technology, design thinking, and sustainability to create assistive tech. As Saad Chinoy states, "an unintended consequence of being forced to do online things has this unexpected positive benefits of equalizing everyone and so.. we are relatively better now at trying to troubleshoot tech issues, and so that's exactly the skills the people who volunteered could bring to the table and trying to apply that skill [to help fix tech]". The Professional Geek individual Saad embodies the qualities of a geek, a maker, and a coffee enthusiast and, as a...
Read More
Emílio Velis: Cultivating The Skill Of Documentation & Knowledge Transfer

Emílio Velis: Cultivating The Skill Of Documentation & Knowledge Transfer

Emilio Velis, serving as the executive director of the Appropedia Foundation, brings a wealth of expertise in sustainability and international development. His work encompasses various facets of the open movement aiming to create social impact. Emilio initiates a vital conversation that dives into the essence of documenting and highlights its significance in the context of knowledge transfer. As Emilio describes, documentation is the process by which different motivations try to explain a series of statements that reflect facts about the world as experiences and narratives. Open-source documentation aims to facilitate collaboration and humanize the process by bridging connections between individuals. Thus, creating a chain reaction which begins by: an idea written down, to creation, implementation, utilization, and ultimately finding solutions. Documenting presents an opportunity for others to understand and appreciate the shared knowledge. In addition, the personal value each contribution holds can motivate others to think critically, build upon ideas, and explore alternative possibilities. In essence, this paves the way...
Read More
Please, Make things that Make sense!

Please, Make things that Make sense!

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...
Read More
Africa Makerspace Network practical training session

Africa Makerspace Network practical training session

The second edition of the AMN Practical Training Session is set to happen on the 26th August, 2022 and is themed, “DIY and Everyday Hacks for Makerspaces”. This edition is centered on knowledge exchange on the theme. Participants would demonstrate simple hacks and DIYs that can be adopted to make work easier and faster in the makerspace setting.Venue: Zoom. Event link would be shared with participants once they register.Participant registration link;bit.ly/AMN-PracWk22 Inquiries should be channeled through [email protected] The African Makerspace Network (AMN) is a community of African Makerspaces comprising researchers, innovators, hobbyists and students that use tools and equipment within a structured space for skills and knowledge sharing, community problem solving towards attaining a sustainable development in Africa. The Network birthed in 2019 currently has in its community about 27 makerspaces from across 10 African countries including Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Côte d'Ivoire and Botswana. The purpose of enhancing harmonization among makerspaces in the African region to...
Read More
AfricaOSH 2022 Cameroon

AfricaOSH 2022 Cameroon

AfricaOSH is an annual summit taking place on a rotating basis across the regions of Africa. A 3 day event consisted of presentations, brainstorming and panel discussion on sharing science and hardware to promote African innovation. The AfricaOSH Summit is a grassroots effort to bring together a community of researchers, educators, innovators, makers, makerspaces, and many more. This year’s Summit applications are now open to everyone. The Summit is slated for September 29th to October 1st at MboaLab, Yaounde-Cameroon. Apply with the link below:https://bit.ly/AOSH_Summit22https://bit.ly/AOSH_Summit22 Deadline for applications is on the 31st July 2022...Le sommet AfricaOSH est une communauté de chercheurs, d’éducateurs, d’innovateurs, de fabricants, de makerspaces, et bien d’autres. Les candidatures pour le sommet de cette année sont maintenant ouvertes à tous. La date limite pour les candidatures est le 31 juillet 2022. Nous espérons vous voir au Cameroun. Postulez avec le lien ci-dessoushttps://bit.ly/AOSH_Summit22 The aim of the summit is to discuss all the opportunities for Africa, offered by Open Science and its various trends and topics (Citizen sciences,...
Read More
Join us in the Critical Making Mentoring Programme 2022

Join us in the Critical Making Mentoring Programme 2022

We are excited to launch the Critical Making Mentoring Programme coming up this spring. Here is a sneak peak of what is to be expected! The Mentoring Programme will take place during 2022, requiring only a few hours of active participation per month. Further details will be announced soon! Do you want to stay updated on the mentoring programme? Register your email now to get a special notification when the programme opens for application in April! Update: The mentoring programme is open until the 31st of May. Click here for more details and to apply About Critical Making:Critical Making is a partnership to encourage responsible research & innovation to foster open access, inclusiveness and positive change across the global maker community. Together, we add scientific insights into the potential of the maker movement, and set up activities that focus on critical and socially responsible making. We aim to show how these communities can offer new opportunities for young makers of all genders to contribute to...
Read More
Internet of Production launches Open Know-Where to help share data about manufacturing capabilities online.

Internet of Production launches Open Know-Where to help share data about manufacturing capabilities online.

A pioneering data model has been launched that will enable a consistent way of documenting and sharing information about manufacturing capabilities. “Open Know-Where” will make it easier for anyone to know where they might be able to make anything, by providing a mechanism for the discovery and exchanges of the location of manufacturing capabilities. It has been designed to improve the discovery of manufacturing facilities and equipment within the manufacturing industry and maker communities. This initiative is particularly interested in the accessibility of knowledge relating to making things useful in humanitarian and development situations. As a data model, the aim is not to create a single database of all the information, but rather to enable the data stored indifferent places to be shared more easily. The specification is designed to be adopted by anyone who collects or shares data about manufacturing capabilities and where to get something made, including government, manufacturers, trade associations, non-government organizations (NGOs), aid agencies, mapping communities, makers and online maker...
Read More