MAKE-IT talk at Maker Faire Rome 2016
Channel: MAKE-IT
Date: 09/11/2016

MAKE-IT: understanding and experimenting collective awareness platforms for the governance of Maker initiatives

ICT software and hardware are completely changing the way we make tangible and intangible goods. Nowadays, intangible goods or virtual bits can be shared globally and then turned into physical objects or atoms locally. This transformation from bits to atoms has been democratised especially by the Maker movement: Makers that gather in online communities and platforms and in local Fab Labs, Makerspaces, Hackerspaces. The community dimension of the Maker movement is highly important, but how does it work? How are Maker communities organised and governed? What do Makers do and how they behave? Which are the various ways in which the Maker movement impacts on and adds value to society? Online platforms are already adopted by Maker communities, and they can be further researched and improved in order to foster the impact of Maker communities. The overall objective of the MAKE-IT project is to understand the role of such platforms (Collective Awareness Platforms - CAPs) in enabling the growth and governance of the Maker movement, particularly in relation to using and creating social innovations and achieving sustainability. The results of this research will help to understand the uses and impacts of CAPs in different contexts, as well as of the Maker movement itself. This project addresses CAPs for Maker communities by not only interviewing Makers but also by engaging them in action-research initiatives, where experimentation regarding such platforms will see the participation of Makers themselves beside the researchers. To understand how the role and impact of CAPs approaches the Maker movement, MAKE-IT will undertake multidisciplinary research in different fields including: behavioural studies, social psychology, sociology, management information systems, economics, environmental science, technological impact and governance issues. This project is developed by the Netherlands Organisation for applied scientific research - TNO (Netherlands), Danish Technological Institute

http://explore.makerfairerome.eu/evento/Event_119