Maker Faire Rome – The European Edition

Maker Faire Rome – The European Edition

Rome [ENA] Maker Faire Rome – The European Edition, in its ninth edition, is one of the most important international events on creativity and innovation. The event was created in 2006 in the Bay Area of San Francisco and took place in Rome from 8-10 September. Since 2006, it has grown into a large worldwide network of events that have turned into true platforms for innovation. It is the place where people of all

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ages come together to show what they are doing, where they share what they are learning, and where they validate their prototypes. Three days of events of debates, presentations, projects and culture in the shadow of the Gazometer, an iconic, old industrial site in Rome. To understand what innovation is and what the themes of today and tomorrow are, Maker Faire Rome put the spotlight on hundreds of innovative ideas and projects from all over the world to make visitors discover a future that is not far off. The main goal is to sensitize a wide audience – whether professional or just passionate – to the culture of innovation and digital transformation. Maker Faire Rome – The European Edition is where everyone can experience innovation

firsthand and understand what the digital environment is all about and how it is changing the way we create and live, and feel part of it. The 2021 Opening Conference theme is “Fast Forward / The Future In The Making” and it is meant as an acknowledgement of the circumstances that are accelerating changes that were longly due, and as a celebration of the ability to “make” that is helping to navigate the uncertainty of these – apparently, neverending – pandemic times.“Fast Forward / The Future In The Making” finds in design the “whirlwind of social transformation”, the founding infrastructure of a new individual and collective life between physical and digital, “which has the ability to give meaning, meaning, reason for existing to things”.

Maker Faire Rome – The European Edition

Pandemics generate innovation, but they are also extremely difficult to navigate. How can makers, designers, entrepreneurs, activists, innovators, citizens play a role in shaping the future? Historically, pandemics have always generated innovation in every sector, including science, art, architecture, technology, fashion and public health. They forced mankind to deal with prejudices and to experiment with new ways, not only of reducing suffering from disease, but also of improving everyday life. “How to do” is often more important than “what to do” because it is the process that lays the foundations for research and knowledge, which enables the calibration of the models, the testing of the tools, the validation of the prototypes;

Maker Faire Rome – The European Edition

that allows progress, in short. During this pandemic, “progress” has meant many things but all of them have always had a common factor: they were produced “together”. The ‘bottom-up’ initiatives of makers all over the world have confirmed how responsible innovation ‘often occurs even outside industrial environments. The ‘making’, once again, proved to be critical and socially responsible. What effect will these projects have on the future of manufacturing? Will we see the boundaries of collaboration between industries and makers redrawed? How is this approach changing civil society and, in particular, the younger generations?Making is a mindset that carries the ability to redesign meaningful relationships; its transformative character is a

key factor to fully understand the actions undertaken so far in response to the crisis but also an impulse to generate new response Innovation is deadly serious. Maybe makers don’t know this because they’re having the time of their lives, but politicians and institutions of all kinds have recently started to deal with innovation in the right way. And the Maker Faire, precisely because it is the Fair of Innovation and Innovators, is a stage that cannot be ignored. On Friday morning, among the protagonists was Enrico Giovannini, economist, statistician, academic, and since February, Minister of Infrastructure and Sustainable Mobility. But there is also an interesting interview with Cecilia Waisman, Vice President of Research and Development

at MindCET- EdTech Innovation Center. Make it Circular. Among the panels, also on Friday, there was a discussion on How the ageing population, digital technology, the new needs created during the COVID19 pandemic are changing needs and purchasing and consumption processes, and also Agrofood: Future and prospects of agrivoltage. There was also space for Shimrit Maman, researcher at Ben Gurion University’s Earth and Planetary Image Facility, and founder of the non-profit organisation “She Space”. Also on Friday afternoon there will be an award ceremony for ENI’s Make It Circular.The future of Agrofood. Agrofood will also be discussed on Saturday. Two panels were planned. One entitled Agrofood: What Italian public research

is doing for the future of agrifood, while the other was entitled Agrofood: The horizons of research for agriculture and forestry. In the morning, Confcommercio - Italian General Confederation of Enterprises- discussed a topic that is very close to innovators, “The ‘digital’ shop: how the physical and digital dimensions are going from being antagonistic to complementary”, while in the afternoon, again with Confcommercio, the topic was “The data revolution: Data is the raw material of the future for many businesses of the future”. In the afternoon there was for Sanofi’s Make To Care contest (ideas in support of disability), with the presentation of the projects. Make To Care. On Sunday morning the Sanofi contest get into full swing.

The day’s interviews included a face-to-face meeting with Sivan Ya’ari, CEO and founder of Innovation Africa, a non-governmental organisation that brings Israeli technology applied to water, solar energy and agriculture to the most remote rural areas of Africa. In the afternoon, among other topics, Smart City and “Technological innovation in the world of sport” have been discussed.