The fifth Open Hardware Summit, the first ever to take place outside of the United States, is going to join the upcoming Rome Innovation Week series of events next September 30th in the Italian Capital. The 2014 edition of the summit is going to be a two-day event and will lead up to the second Maker Faire Rome (taking place from October 3rd to the 5th) hosting a rich line-up of speakers, conferences, and workshops revolving around the transition “From Open Making to Open Manufacturing”.
The first day of the Summit will be entirely dedicated to guest speakers discussing themes such as “Cultural Ecology”, “Democratization of Knowledge”, and focusing on the issue of Open Manufacturing, that is the idea that open source technologies and business models are no longer confined to the maker movement, but are coming of age and entering the industrial competition arena. The speakers list includes high profile personalities in the academia, industry and maker communities, including Adrian Bowyer (father of the RepRap movement), Tomas Diez (Fab Lab Barcelona Director), Becky Stern (Director of Wearable Electronics at Adafruit Industries), and many more.
Registration is now open for this first European edition of the annual conference, which is organized by the Open Source Hardware Association, and the first summit dedicated entirely to open hardware. The talks will be covering a wide range of topics, from electronics and mechanics to related fields, such as digital manufacturing, wearable technology, quantified self-devices, art and biohacking. The Workshops will focus on education, manufacturing, designing, business, legal issues and much more.
The Open Hardware Summit was founded in 2010 by Alicia Gibb and Ayah Bdeir with the support of Peter Semmelhack and Bug Labs in its early years. This year’s Summit will be focusing on the transition from open design through to the implementation of production models that are more intelligent, inclusive and sustainable, from both a social and environmental perspective.
