Creative Sydney recognizes the rumblings in the DIY World

As part of the VIVID festival in Sydney this year, the organizers have arranged a series of discussions examining major issues across the creative industries. Sessions offer panel discussions on education, technology, investment and more. This year the final (and I assume most exciting) discussion will be DIY World: The Rise of the Citizen Engineer, featuring Andrew Simpson, Founder of Vert Design, Colleen Morgan - Catalyst-in-Residence at The Edge Digital Culture Centre and founder of ThreadTech, Damien Butler - Assemblage Studios and fabrication lab and last but not least Duann Scott of Shapeways....

The discussion is aimed to explore:

Open source culture provides blueprints to create almost anything. Forums, hackerspaces and networks offer expertise and opportunities for collaboration. Rapid prototyping and 3D printing automate the building process and make it instantaneous. So what does the great tech leap forward mean for creativity. Designers, artists and technologists explain how they are transforming the production process, democratizing technology and empowering people to become citizen engineers.

It is a really important step we are seeing at the moment when major festivals, not just those already orientated towards maker and DIY types start to integrate these streams into their programs.  At the same time we are seeing Universities (I just visited Bert Bongers at the University of Technology of Sydney) encouraging cross disciplinary tinkering. 

So now we have the groundswell coming from you the Shapeways & maker community, we have the cultural intermediaries recognizing the movement and tapping into the unbridled creativity, then we have the universities formalizing and analyzing the tinkering. This starts to triangulate, strengthen and create a really strong framework for the culture to grow.. Exciting times for the citizen engineer....

The event is being held at in the Playhouse within The Sydney Opera House and has been fully booked up for weeks now but I will be sure to post a recap of my impressions of the evening.  If anyone is already booked to attend come and say g'day after the event. email me duann(at)shapeways.com if you would like to meet up as well.