Connective Cities: Recent Episodes
Change Darer
Five 15 minutes podcasts that will show you the people behind the projects through their “Good practices” on challenges and solutions to overcome the Corona crisis.
Meet Pradita – the FabLab co-founder and Miss in Technology
Praditha shares the stories of empowering women in tech through her project: Miss IN Tech. Then she takes us to a journey of creating a humanitarian response after the 2015 Kathmandu earthquake - Nepal Communautaire. She was inspired by Careables, co-founded Fablab and developed the program called :” Humanitarian Design Challenge”. In documenting the design of humanitarian responses Improvisation is key.
Listen to our last episode and find out how she has seen innovation occur at every personal level in people’s homes working with communities so she knows that innovation is possible everywhere- we just need to create space and trust.
Meet Nidhi – "The non-tech maker and community designer"
Nidhi has been approached by GIG members as a designer awarded with a prize for her College project: the wearable technology "Digitally Speaking” aimed at protecting women.
As a designer she sees design as a driver for innovation and discovered the fields of community-led design. In her project she created packaging made from kitchen waste material. This gave her the faith that innovation is not only a western affair.
Hosted by: Daniela Marzavan from Change Darer and Star Ngei
Sound and Editing by: Dominic Ryniak
Technical Support by: Paweł Ngei
Music by: Monster Logo Studio
Tarek: “the resilient hacker space founder who spreads the virus of making and Hacking from Egypt to Africa”
Tarek’s story is one of resilience, bravery, and a strong support system. When his Hackerspace in Egypt was destroyed by a building crash the GIG community jumped right away for help. This wave of solidarity and help gave him more energy than before and motivated the whole team to continue and grow stronger. When too much money was donated, he prefers to give something back for maker- and hackerspaces in regions in Africa that were in much more need.
Tarek first heard of GIG in 2015 it was a network they said. and he did not understand if its WIFI Network or what it has to do with people. He had no clue what a network is. And came to Berlin to meet GIG and was surprises how people would share success and mistakes. GIG transforms to him work relationships into real friendships.
His 1st story takes us to the Maker Express a bus that traveled ti 29 cities in Egypt meeting with talented students and gave workshops on how to builds a 3d printer. He helped spread the virus of making and hacking and fight the misbelief that hackers are making some illegal stuff.
His 2nd story relates to that- since after almost a decade of activity right now Policy and Government representatives now call Tarek for advice concerning capacity building activities or youth employment. Before when the goverment would call him and his team would be scared thinking they might have made something wrong without knowledge.
Eman, Tarek’s mother always believed in him- and is never surprised by his achievements and success.
Declan: the bridge builder between lawyers and techies
The Lawyer’s Lab the project he dedicates his work to has pulled up the #AfricaLawTech Festival and GIG helped reach very good exposure and visibility at the re:publica Accra in Ghana courtesy to GIG.
Declan says: 'I did not find GIG, they found me!'
Declan was an entreperenur at the early age of 12- luckily for his brother one that did not pull trough with his prototype testing as you will hear in this episode. He will give us some insights in their work at Lawyer Hub aimed at deconstructing the belief that Layers are uptight and unhumaine. To him tech is about human beings and human entreprise, Polocties about artificial intelligence need to be written by humans, so his organisations helps techies on the policy side of things.
Amongst innovators who collaborate it’s valuable to have a great lawyer who understands tech as well as a great techie who understands law.
Chris – “The individual eco-social designer and his friend Jay”
Chris takes us to the very beginning of his story in making and hacking systems and redesigning societies.
Starting off with Palomar5 he gained inspiration and the first tools and materials to open the ‘OpenDesignCity” – an initiative brought to life in Berlin’s largest and Coworking Space, betahaus.
There they developed activities such as Bausteln Montag and had the first 3Dprinter Maker Dot3. Everyone would bring screwdrivers, tools, cnc cutters or just a ton of bricks to the ODC – and the true collaborative sense and vibe of the community make this place special.
His co-founder Jay Cousins proposed one day in 2013 to make a Berlin cool places tour with this new group of global makers and hacker calles Global Innovation Gathering.
From there he will take us to Elephantine Island in Egypt where a pure Barcamp Style project helped the local communities come up with solutions to replace revenues from tourism – back in the days when Egypt was shaken by the Arab Spring and most tourists stopped visiting the area.
After he and Jay had cartographed the island and put up a workshop plan with an hour by hour activity up at the pier where participants would arrive by ferry from Aswan, something incredible happened. A herd of goats came and ate the plan. So the 3-day event shifted to a true barcamp with pop-up workshop and spontaneous gatherings
His second story takes us to Sri Lanka where his colleague Himindu came up with an innovative idea to visualize the tree planting progress and make progress in tree planting, by creating a big event where all people from the island come together with family and kids and plant trees, while visualizing together the activity.
His kids who still know how to ‘wonder like a child’ would not be surprised by all these stories.
Salih – “The University Makerspace Founder in an unstable country”
Started off with the electronics club in Mosul and has always been inventive and creative about his life. At the University of Kabul, he continued to run activities and inspire younger students throughout the political unrest and bombing. He knew that Hackerpaces andre places of innovation and can create opportunities for young women and men and saw all international cooperation fundings aiming at precisely that: supporting young people, capacity building and tech – but somehoe Makerspace were never in the ‘radar’ of internatiomal cooperation funds.
This changed when Kabul Maker Space joined GIG, a n organization that gives visibility to Maker- and hackerspaces and creates awareness for the importance of these places and the communities around them. When he received a phone call one day from the German development fund who was interested in their activities- he knew they had finally made it. Gig helped overcome some bureaucratic hurdles and together they managed to hack bureaucrtacy too.
Now with Field Ready and Siemens they have an umbrella organization from the UK and a tech partner form Germany who exponentially grow the impact of their hub.
Podcast with GABI -- “The social innovator and digital literacy educator”
Gabi was a pioneer in her early 20s entering the making and tech scene as one of few women. When she first joined the Global Innovation Gathering and got a place on the stage at Europe’s largest conference for internet and society : re:publica her thought was: “ They must have invited the wrong person” What am I doing here? Dinners and receptions with German policy makers and a big wave of visibility overwhelmed her.
To her surprise she felt really cared for and belonging when GIGsters that she had never met before helped her overcome her stage nervousness.
– like when GIGers joined her re:publica stage in 2013 to ask the right questions from the audience that would help her get back to her script when they noticed she had lost it.
The moment when when most felt that Innovation is not only a western affair, was when cross continent south-south bridges and connections materialized in in-person events, meetings and exchanges: She, as a Brazilian maker, innovator and community builder met Sheilah from XY Space in Nairobi, traveled to Kenya and worked with local spaces. They realized how many things Brazilian and Kenyan aker culture have in common. Then she was introduced to spaces in Shenzhen and created the next bridge. China-Brasil-Kenya: Materializing cross-continent connections.
A Moment is a transportation device that takes the listeners from where they are to where the storyteller wants to bring them. A story has a start, a middle and an end. A story has a time, place, and conditions around it. Through the first series of our Moment’s portal, you will travel to Egypt, Kenya, Irak, Brasil, India, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. You will meet makers, hackers, designers, and community builders who face challenges related to humanitarian response after an earthquake, setback after a building collapse, the support of the global community in times of financial difficulties, or the peer-to-peer mentorship and empowerment of diversity in tech, personal career paths and how a goat ate the plan.
A Moment’s Portal tells how a community of concern overcomes challenges together, how people felt when they really felt carried by the Global Innovation Gathering and why despite the common belief, Innovation is not only a ‘western affair’.
A Moment’s Portal is a concept first introduced to Daniela by Yannis during the Campo Virtual Latino- a digital Virtual Campus aimed at empowering social workers, grassroots and environmental communities in Latin America through digital literacy and building empathy through the new digital means.
In this opening feature episode, you will get to know Fadia, the spokeswoman and community catalyst from Global Innovation Gathering.
We will talk to her about what this community is about and why we need to share the stories of the people behind it.
Credits:
Hosted by: Daniela Marzavan and Star Ngei
Sound and Editing by: Dominic Ryniak
Technical Support by: Paweł Ngei
Music by: Monster Logo Studios
The shutdown of the informal economy and crowded slums were pressing challenges during the lockdown. Would tax reliefs reach the most vulnerable population? And how to deal with the acute housing problem?
Nadia implemented distance learning at her school by her own initiative. But where do you get started when parents lack connectivity and even have problems setting up an Email account?
Bogotá is “the city of no one”, but how can you keep its citizens informed during the pandemic? And how can 60 communication officers unify their message under one brand?
The lockdown left thousands of artists without a stage. Armin tells us what kind of support he got from the senator of culture and how good ideas emerge during breakfast.
After ISIS left Mosul Salih rebuilt his maker entirely. When the hospitals in his city were left without medical supplies in the middle of the pandemic, he and his friends knew what to do.