The P2P Lab is announcing the launch of

The cultiMake project: Crowdsourcing open source agricultural solutions

celebrating the gathering of designers, makers and farmers who are adapting to the digitised world.

Where: Habibi.Works, Ioannina (Greece)

When: From Monday, July 30th to Friday, August 3rd.

Agriculture is a key activity in the peripheral and less-developed regions of the EU and a crucial productive sector. It is a field in which ready-to-apply open source hardware and software solutions have already been produced and, thus, can be implemented and improved. Considering the fragmentation of the existing abundant open source projects in relation to agriculture, the replication, sharing and improvement of solutions is hindered.

To facilitate interaction and create feedback loops among makers, designers and farmers, the P2P Lab is organising this 5-day event in Ioannina (Greece). The event will be hosted at Habibi.Works, a makerspace for asylum seekers and Greek locals in Katsikas (Ioannina), managed by the German NGO Soup and Socks e.V. Since 2016, Habibi.Works is operating eight workshop areas which serve as platforms for mutual education, empowerment and encounter.

The main aim is to familiarise the local community with open source technologies developed within the EU and, ideally, connect hubs (e.g. Fab Labs) that provide technical infrastructures for development. This may create a network of open source software/hardware communities and local farmers that overcome barriers through knowledge diffusion and collaboration for their mutual benefit.

During the workshop, four solutions related to agriculture will be manufactured. After publishing an open call and receiving several applications, the local community selected the following designers to lead the manufacturing of the prototypes:

• André Rocha, Adjunct Professor at ESELx – IPL and a Senior Product and Interaction designer.
• Angelos Pappas, Software developer and activist.
• Jonathan Minchin, Coordinator of the Green Fab Lab at Valldaura Labs, IAAC Campus in Barcelona.
• Trifonas Papaioannou, Maker and beekeeper.