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MAKER FAIRE AFRICA 2010, A BIG SUCCESS
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
At this year’s Maker Faire Africa inventors, designers and craftspeople from throughout the continent showed the world the vast talent that exists in Africa’s informal sectors.
Butterfly Works of the
organising team tells more..
Everywhere you went you could meet with inventors, artists, engineers, software developers, craftspeople and hackers of all types of objects. Many of these Makers had traveled long distances from rural Kenya and indeed from other African countries, such as Buruni, Malawi, Nigeria and South Africa, to meet and exchange with other Makers. One could feel the enthusiasm and excitement of this unique event buzzing in the exchanges between makers and public. The most often said remark was why didn't this event happen before. Africa often known for it's bad news stories was showing a totally different side, that of it's younger generation and what they can make.
Robert Mburu, maker who also won the General Electric mentorship prize.
The programs central focus was the exchange between Makers and public. The circular tents encouraged this interaction with energy harvesting devices such as a bio gas system on display beside the found object glasses of Cyrus. Twice daily the Makers @ the Mike session were held whereby Makers came forward to be interviewed by Emeka Okafor of Timbuktu Chronicles. The informal atmosphere encouraged even the most shy inventor to tell their stories.
The Match a Maker site, getting all makers at the event online
To ensure that all Makers work got documented, volunteers from NairoBits and iHUB were working alongside the Butterfly crew to making video interviews with each and every maker, getting their product photos and then uploading their profile to the ‘Match a Maker’ website. This site that will work as platform for community building and an online matching
system for Makers to share expertise and look for support.
Cyrsu Kabiru, artist and designer, profile
Maker Faire Africa 2010 in the media
Maker Faire Africa 2010 has received much online and media
coverage. See here for a round up of articles and videso or check the Flickr page of or the website or the twitter account. 
A Participant in ‘Solar Makers’ with the solar lamp she made in the workshop
With Solar Makers young people could tap their potential learning about solar technology, then making their own lamp including circuitry and fashioning the lamp shade with recycled materials. 
Children could take part in 'Crafting Peace' workshop.
Crafting peace was both a children's workshop and an
exhibition showing craft works from 10 makers across Africa and Asia.
The Next Maker Faire Africa will be in 2011
Maker Faire Africa
University of Nairobi, Kenya
Website: www.makerfaireafrica.com
Twitter: @makerfaireafrica