Maker Faire Shenzhen is now a featured faire, and it’s bringing a whole new show to China’s industrial city. The fair will be 10 times larger in scale this year than last, both in number of makers and visitors. The fair consisted of 4 parts — the exhibits, the workshop, the center stage and the forum. Get a sneak preview here.
Exhibits
More than 100 exhibitors will be on site to show off their cool projects. Some will be famous Chinese makers, such as RoboPeak, PVC-Bot, Make Block, Betwine, Yeeklink and Ufactory. But we’ve also dug up some local makers such as Iron Man to bring their projects.
Makers from overseas will be on hand as well, including exhibitors from Japan, US, Italy, France, Germany, UK, Singapore, Malaysia, and more. They’ve come to join the big party, along with makers that have launched projects on Kickstarter, such as Motrr and Hex & Spark Devices. Other featured makers include Protei, the open source sailing drone which helps clean oil spills and perform ocean research, and OSVehicle, an open-source vehicle platform that attended Maker Faire Rome last year.
Workshops
There will be ten workshops during Maker Faire Shenzhen, ranging from electronic Lego to robotics and 3D printing. The registration has surpassed 150 people, but the actual attendance could be double that. Some booths will hold continuous workshops, so people who can enjoy hands-on learning all day.
Center Stage
The center stage provides a platform for people to share their experience and ideas and to showcase their cool projects to a wider audience. The performances include 8-minute speeches, dancing robots, robot soccer, and a how-to for assembling an open source vehicle.
Forum
The theme for the forum is “Innovate with China.” There will be four sessions: keynote speeches, Makers in Visionary, Makers in Education, and Makers in Business.
MAKE’s own Dale Dougherty will be on hand to give a keynote speech, as well as Chris Anderson of 3D Robotics, Tom Igoe from Arduino, and Randolph Wang from Intel.
The makers in Visionary session will have a panel discussion of maker culture, addressing maker cities from a prospective point of view, forecasting what the city dweller’s life will be like in 10, 15, and 20 years.
There will also be university professors, makers from hackerspaces, and researchers giving talks, including Lyn Jeffery from the Institute for the Future, Shigeru Kobayashi from Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences, and David Li from Hacked Matter.
The Makers in Education session will focus on the relationship between maker culture and education, including how the maker movement affects the modern education system and what changes should be taken in order to better educate the modern generation. Speakers include Joey Hudy and Trevor Zylstra from Sparkfun.
The Makers in Business speeches will be given by entrepreneurs, providing suggestions for makers who would like to step into entrepreneurship, as well as insights regarding how large companies can join the maker movement. The speakers include Katherine Hague from Shoplocket, Cyril Ebersweiler from AXLR8R, and Vincent Tong from Foxconn.
We would also like to thank the individual and company sponsors. First of all, thanks to the support of Make, who made it possible for a featured Maker Faire to happen here in Shenzhen. Also, we’ve got support from China Merchants Property Development Co and Nanhai@Cool. With their support, we chose Nanhai@Cool as the venue for Maker Faire Shenzhen. This is where the economic revolution first unveiled in China, 30 years ago.
We’ve also got sponsors from Intel, Atmel, PCH, H.Q. Cloud Valley, InnoConn, and UK Trade & Investment. InnoConn is a platform/incubator provided by Foxconn, which provides resources to bridge the gap between makers and the industry. UK Trade & Investment is supported by UK Embassy in Guangzhou. They bring 10 UK maker teams including Bare Conductive, Music Thing, Triggertrap, and Mindflood to Shenzhen this April.
We’ve also have cooperating media such as CSDN, Leiphone, Tencent, Shenzhen TV, and CCTV will have coverage of Maker Faire Shenzhen. The prestigious DJI Innovations will provide unmanned aerial systems to record the event as well.
This year’s Maker Faire will truly encourage the maker culture in China, and further promote the communication between makers from China and abroad.
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