Mozilla announced at the White House Maker Faire today new partners to expand the reach of this year’s Maker Party program. Last year’s Maker Party included nearly 1,700 events in 330 cities around the world.
Maker Party is a series of volunteer-led “pop up” events that teach about the web through hands-on learning and making. This year’s events run from July 15 to Sept 15 and feature activities like learning to code, making stop-motion animations, designing games, making robots, fabricating wearable technologies, remixing websites, and more. The goal is for people of all ages to gain valuable web literacy skills as they learn about the basic culture, mechanics, and citizenship of the web.
Joining more than 100 partner organizations, new partners include the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National 4-H Council, the Association of Science and Technology Centers, and the C.S. Mott Foundation, which will leverage their considerable networks to bring Maker Party events to even more people this year.
“We’re getting ready to kick-off our third annual global campaign to celebrate hands-on making and learning, with an eye towards helping more people understand the mechanics, culture and citizenship of the web,” said Mozilla Executive Director, Mark Surman. “Teaching about how the world’s biggest public resource works, and how people can create and remix and shape it, is one way we can empower them as makers. We are excited about how these new partnerships will help us expand the impact of Maker Party, by also spreading the importance of web literacy overall. It’s about more than just learning to code. It’s understanding how to work in the open, to collaborate with others, to remix, to know why privacy matters.”
Want to get involved? Find and attend an event near you or create your own!
President Obama is hosting the first-ever White House Maker Faire to recognize the contributions of makers who bring creativity and technical ability to a broad range of projects. If you are a maker or a friend of makers, please become an advocate for expanding opportunities for making and makers in your community.
To show your support for growing the maker community, we encourage you to sign the “Building Maker Communities” pledge and put yourself on the map!
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