Italians have a love of innovation and design and it shows at Maker Faire Rome. In this episode of Make:Cast, I look back at Maker Faire Rome in October 2019 during the pre-Covid time when live events happened. I was guided through the exhibit halls by Alessandro Ranellucci, the curator of Maker Faire Rome, along with Massimo Banzi, co-founder of Arduino. Maker Faire Rome is happening as a virtual event at makerfairerome.eu this year.
“People seek solutions to problems, but they also value a lot what they learn while reaching that solution. They find out that they are happy when they made something and eventually they even create business models on top of that.” — Alessandro Ranelucci.
“Italy has a very deep culture in innovation. It is 2000 years or so we are innovating continuously. When it became more difficult, we innovate more. Normally. So I think in our culture, innovating and instruments to innovate are in our DNA.” – Valerio Focante.
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In this episode, I talk with:
- Massimo Banzi, co-founder of Arduino and co-curator of Maker Faire Rome.
- Alessandro Ranellucci, curator of Maker Faire Rome and the developer of Slicr.
- Valentino Catricalà, the curator of Maker Art and a contemporary art curator.
- Andrea Belli, inventor of a wheelchair that can climb stairs
- Jessica Cobb of Mission Control Lab from Chicago but living now in Utrecht
- Amleto Picerno Ceraso, an architect, with the Center for Digital Artisans, Salerno
- Nicole Ferrara, artist, Center for Digital Artisans, Salerno
- Robert Fitzsimmons, Huge LEDs, from Dublin, Ireland.
- Loic de Buck, founder of Industrino, from Belgium but living in China
- Joan Nadal, an eco-designer and developer of e3bot, a cardboard robot.
- Valerio Focante, a businessman from Rome.
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