When Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989, he made it open and available for everyone to use it, but since then companies have sought to monetize people’s access to it. Following the invention of the internet by 13 years, in 2002 free-software company Mozilla released their FireFox web browser challenging the prevalent browsers of the time with its free and open-source approach. Now, in 2016, the world is in the midst of an Open Internet movement, championing sharing and collaboration over private exclusivity, and Mozilla is asserting its advocacy through MozFest – an annual festival celebrating the Open Web.
This October, from the 28th to the 30th,MozFest came to North Greenwich, filling Ravensbourne College with a 9am – 5pm program of workshops and talks, all concerned with the world of tech. Being based in London, 3DPI took advantage of this privileged position and went to see what events, if any, would take the open-source 3D printing community into account, and how the Open Web movement informs and interacts with the 3D printing industry as whole.
The 7th annual MozFest 2016 sprawled over 10 different floors of Ravensbourne College, each curated into a particular learning Space. These Spaces included, but were not limited to, the digital arts, journalism, education, and science. Around 1,700 people attended the multi-lingual event, and amongst the institutions met by the 3DPI team were representatives of University of Edinburgh, the BBC, the V&A Museum, University of Warwick and the National Archives.
For this journalist in particular, it was the STEAM education aspect of the festival that was the most poignant. MozFest advocates learning not only for children, but also in adults, and had taster workshops on long-form journalism, to beginners programming. Many of the Universities I spoke to, had started 3D printing labs as part of their engineering and art schools, and school outreach programs – uploading the resources online for other schools to use for free.
The festival especially befitting to the Ravensbourne, as the college specializes in design and technology related arts courses, counting a materials section as part of its library, and having as its home one what is, in my opinion, of London’s most striking pieces of modern architecture.
Stay tuned in the coming week for more exclusive articles on the projects 3DPI discovered at the festival. Remember, you can sign-up to our newsletter so the stories reach you each day just in time for breakfast.
Featured image shows the Ravensbourne College in North Greenwich. Photo via: Beau Jackson for 3DPI.
