Together with Serena Cangiano, I was in Brussels for a 4-hour workshop within DSI4EU project funded by European commission and in partnership with NESTA and Waag.
We invited local projects and communities to have a discussion around the evaluation of how open source and maker projects can grow; how they are re currently growing; and how they could have a better impact according to factors and values that make a project sustainable beyond financial and commercial parameters.
“Size Matters?” was a hands-on workshop focused on key questions such as:
– can maker projects scale while considering societal good as a parameter?
– what is a sustainable way of growing as an innovator?
– can social impact be the driver of the bottom-up innovation?
Together we started answering these questions and creating a “maker” scale, a dynamic open source tool that will support the community of social innovators to grow considering values such as the creation of a community, the technological openness, communication, and financial sustainability. In the next weeks we’re going to start sharing documentation and concept on github.
The workshop took place during the first European Maker Week, on Tuesday 31st May afternoon in Brussels at iMal Center for Digital cultures.
_________________________________________________________________
About DSI4EU
DSI4EU is a EU community funded project that will support, grow and scale the current Digital Social Innovation network of projects and organisations, bringing together social entrepreneurs, hackers, communities and academics working on key DSI fields such as the makers movement, the collaborative economy, open democracy and digital rights.
The DSI4EU consortium partners are: NESTA UK, WAAG, SUPSI.
http://www.digitalsocial.eu
ZOESCOPE 