What is Maker Culture?
The maker culture is a contemporary culture emphasizing learning-through-doing in a social environment. According to Industry Analyst Jeremiah Owyang, “maker movement puts power in the hands of the people to fund, design, prototype, produce, manufacture, distribute, market and sell their own goods”. This new trendy movement impacts global manufacturing as creation shifts ge graphically to local, philosophically to sustainability and legally to force the adaptation of new IP laws as people move from consuming to creating and sharing (Owyang, 2014). Sharing Economy impacts core business models and higher education (HE) must be ready to address the change by developing relevant competencies of graduates in order to secure innovation and growth. 3D printing is not only the main technology for prototyping, but also hyped as the technology to bring about the next industrial revolution. The overall market for 3D printing products and services which hit $2.2 billion in 2012 and was forecasted to grow to $4B in 2025 (IDTechEx, March 2014), actually hit $5.1 billion already in 2016.
Why HEI Makers?
The comprehensive research has been carried out by HEI MAKERS consortium analyzing around 100 university’s makerspaces, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Technical University of Denmark, Aalto University and other partners. The conclusions show that similar structures are emerging rapidly but they lack clear recognition frameworks, access guidance, strategic integration of university makerspaces into study process, networking between universities, public and private makerspaces and businesses. These are the challenges that HEI MAKERS will address through collaboration of7 partners throughout 2018-2019.
Our aim and tasks
The aim of the HEI MAKERS project is to increase innovation and creativity through partnership of higher education institutions (HEIs) and technical spaces. HEI MAKERS consortium will:
Foster collaboration of HEIs, university and private makerspaces, and other businesses
Amplify technological entrepreneurship and technical creativity as key competences
Promote innovative education methods
Increase open resources based learning opportunities
Recognise competencies gained through active learning at makerspace as per programmes developed
Test the above-mentioned collaboration concept and ensure sustainability of results
Identify and attract new players who will join the next stages of the HEI MAKERS initiative
HEI MAKERS will encourage more HEIs to initiate collaboration with makerspaces and re- think their study programmes, to employ innovative training methods and address the challenges of XXI century labour market. Project’s outputs will open up new learning opportunities through practical application of entrepreneurial and prototyping skills, which can involve and lead to the commercialization of new services and products, to attracting potential investors, to creation of global start-ups and spin-offs and thus growing economy.
Do you see yourself involved in the activities as mentioned above?