2014-04-28

Tinker, Connect and Learn - The GIG 2014 makerspace, lounge and stage programme

Left your phone charger at home? Want to turn your mobile into a microscope? Come to the GIG makerspace at re:publica. We'll be here making, hacking and inventing things during all three days of rp14.

Want to meet innovation hubs, makerspaces and hacker spaces from across the world? Then come and hang-out in the GIG Lounge, where GIG speakers will be giving micro talks throughout the first two re:publica days.

Our stage programme on Thursday, May 8th, will be the grand finale of GIG 2014, with speakers reflecting on the impact of maker movements, tech start-ups and innovation in different regions, as well as the role of digital media in governance and limitations to freedom of speech in different regional contexts.

The whole GIG group includes over 70 people, amongst them the entire AfriLabs network, representatives from the Impact Hub and iceHub network as well as hackers and activists, including like Reem al Masri. Reem from 7iber.com, a citizen media and Net freedom organisation in Jordan, Bilal Ghabib, who facilitates the  development of Hackerspaces in the Middle East, Markos Lemma, founder of iceAddis and manager of a research program on literacy run by MIT, OLPC & Tufts University and Martha Chumo, who founded the NairobiDevSchool after being refused a Visa to enter the USA despite having a MIT scholarship. GIG will also be joined by Ms. Mbabasi, Rwandan's State Secretary at the Ministry for ICT and Youth, as well as the Federal Minister and State Secretary from Germany's BMZ, Gerd Müller and Friedrich Kitschelt.

 

Photo: re:publica (CC BY-SA 2.0)