The Shapeways Community team knows that our community is global and an important part of building community is meeting, talking and sharing ideas face-to-face. This March we are covering a lot of ground across the United States and Europe and you can find us in five countries and thirteen different cities giving talks, hosting meetups, judging hackathons and leading workshops. Whether you are in Berlin or Los Angeles (or many places in between) we hope that you will connect with us this month – take a look at our events page and our meetup page for updated dates and locations.
To kick off our marathon month, Savannah Peterson, Director of Community at Shapeways gave a talk at the Gasparilla Interactive Festival, Tampa Bay’s showcase for cutting-edge technologies, digital innovation, and entrepreneurial inspiration, and served on a panel about women and millennials as entrepreneurs and innovators.
On March 8th we sponsored a Printathon at Brandeis University where our master of social media, Eric Ho, and customer service agent Andrew Thomas served as judges for the students projects. The event featured two Teams from Brandeis, one from UConn, one from Columbia and one from Waltham High School. The theme of the competition was social justice and students were encouraged to print products that can help humanity. The day was followed by a meet up with Voxel8, an electronics 3D printer.
Brandeis University Printathon participants and judges
In the next two days three members of the Shapeways Community Team will be on stage talking about different aspects of 3D printing in three different time zones: On Thursday, March 12 Natalia Krasnodebska, Community Manager, will discuss 3D printing and intellectual property at the Copia Institute Inaugural Summit; On March 13 Lauren Slowik, Design Evangelist for Education, will lead a workshop on 3D printing in education at the 3D Printshow Summit in Madrid, Spain; finally, also on March 13 Savannah Peterson will speak about “Decoding Gender Diversity in Tech” at SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas.
Setting up for the 3D Print Show in Madrid
Lauren will also be making stops in Barcelona, Paris, Amsterdam, Eindhoven and Berlin for the 3D Print Show – please check out her blog entry on her European road trip for updates on meetups and events throughout the month.
Me and author Michelle Ward at Craftcation in 2014
Finally, at the end of March I will be heading out to Southern California to speak at Craftcation, a conference for creative makers in Ventura, California held March 26 through 29. I will be talking about funding your creative business and creative business models, plans and goals and will be talking a lot about business lessons from our Shapeways shop owners. I’ll also be hosting a meetup in the LA area on Wednesday, March 25 and a High Tech Meets Handmade Happy Hour in Ventura on Friday, March 27.
We hope to see you while we’re out on the road this month!