330 students, 12 workshops, 21 beneficiaries for 30 high-impact projects
The goal of Maker Week: to bring together key technologies and positive-impact projects through the students of the Master's in Digital Strategy at Digital Campus. A celebration of purposeful digital innovation, asking the right questions to ensure that blockchain, 3D printing, augmented reality and podcasts are put to work on projects in science, culture, social inclusion and sustainable development — powered by the creativity of our students.
Monday 13 June, 9am at Théâtre Le République: 330 Master 1 and Master 2 students crowd in alongside 8 representatives from the partners of this first edition.
What would Maker Week be without its many partnerships?
Contacted about ten months ago, IBM said yes immediately. A major player in the digital economy since its inception, a global leader in innovation and a pioneer of computing, IBM embodies in itself the diversity of technologies and their uses.
On the other side, Adobe, well known to the school's students through its famous Creative Suite, is one of the inventors of creative computing — one of the Silicon Valley companies that understood before others that the world of publishing, information and communication would turn to machines to draw, retouch and integrate visual media as well as human-machine interfaces.
We also have Autodesk, a player born alongside creative computing: architects, designers, engineers, animators — all professions that think about the world in 3D need Autodesk software.
No introduction is needed for Salesforce, which revolutionised customer relationship management by embedding the founding principles of the web into its user-friendly interfaces. Its latest acquisition, Tableau, is already the favourite tool among data analysts.
Sarbacane, a French start-up that has carved out a place for itself in the highly competitive newsletter market, is also part of this partner line-up. As is Ausha, a French start-up founded in 2018 that specialises in podcast creation and distribution.
And finally, NoCode for Good, which is not a software publisher but promotes the use of no- and low-code platforms — meaning access for all to tools for managing complex processes and building interfaces without going through tedious coding steps.
With such a diverse panel of players, anything is possible — and that is exactly what we wanted for our students and the project owners they were to support. Drawing on some of the solutions provided by our publisher partners, we designed 12 distinct workshops that had to meet the following criteria:
- Ease of use (2 hours maximum)
- Diversity of creative universes to explore
- Alignment of deliverables with beneficiaries' needs
After the kick-off, it was back to school. Students took the tools in hand and began working in small groups of 2 to 4 people.
In a relaxed atmosphere, the primary goal was to learn a new technology and enjoy the process. Students were supported by dedicated supervisors who were well acquainted with the workshop software and platforms. A dialogue formed with project owners to clarify briefs and each party's needs. The clearer the framework and the smoother the exchanges, the more confident students became — and the more their creativity emerged.
In groups, they were tasked with addressing the challenges of the 21 beneficiaries identified by Creatis, Ashoka and Singa. On the beneficiary side, associations such as Kulturelia, SoScience, Ogre la fabrique, Grimm & co, les Cultiveuses, Le grenier ludique benefited from the talent and creativity of our Master's students to address their needs.
Stepping out of your comfort zone, taking a sidestep to explore a speciality or technology never tested before — that was the whole challenge for our students during this Maker Week.
The final day is dedicated to presenting the work to the public and, above all, to the beneficiaries who come to discover what has been developed for them. To do so, students set up an exhibition across 1,000 m2 in record time.
The campus is buzzing: the 12 workshops are on display, and two deliverables were expected: a prototype and an A0 poster summarising the proposed solution.
Throughout the day, beneficiaries come to meet the students who spent 4 days working on their challenges. Across 4 floors, demonstrations, explanations, discussions and talks follow one after another.
Ariel Kyrou and Mathilde Berchon took to the stage in the auditorium to speak respectively about Science-Fiction Philosophy — from tinkering to the hacker spirit — and the Maker movement.
Ariel Kyrou: the maker movement did not come from nowhere, and it is Ariel Kyrou's great talent to recount everything that contributed to shaping its spirit, aesthetic and approach, drawing from his works, Dans les imaginaires du futur, Entre Fins du monde, IA, virus et exploration spatiale, as well as two solid essays describing how platforms are reconfiguring our world and how, at the same time, citizens are seizing digital tools to liberate themselves: Google God, Big Brother n'existe pas, il est partout, and Révolutions du Net: Ces anonymes qui changent le monde.
He began with the early days of the World Wide Web in the mid-1990s, of which he was one of the key players in France, showing how much free inspiration, tinkering and utopias were its crucial driving forces. He then turned to the roots of the tinkerer, the hacker and thus the maker, particularly as depicted in films and above all science-fiction literature. A broader perspective to better understand how ideas and creation nourish and make possible the world of today — and could chart the paths of futures that might be digital, but in earthly and anarchistic modes!
With the fundamentals of Hacker culture established, it was time for Mathilde Berchon's talk on Maker culture.
Mathilde Berchon: author of two books on 3D printing — L'impression 3D (2014 - Editions Eyrolles) and Le Grand livre de l'impression 3D (2020 - Editions Eyrolles) — a world tour of makers under her belt, actively involved in the development of 3D printing in France, and founder of FuturFab, she recounted the origins of the movement, introduced its iconic and inspiring figures, explained how to integrate maker practices into our professions and, last but not least, how the maker movement can offer responses to today's environmental and social challenges.
Finally, to close this first edition in style, the startup garage takes on a festive character as the Maker Night is launched to celebrate the Maker spirit.
- 5 days (only!)
- 330 students involved (M1 and M2, all specialisations: DA, UX, TL, DM, BC)
- 15 specialist supervisors
- 8 publisher partners
- 12 technical workshops
- 21 project owners
- 30 briefs
- 90 prototypes produced
- 1,000 m2 of exhibition space
- 2 exceptional talks
- And lots and lots of smileys, likes, loves and satisfaction from publishers, project owners and students alike.
See you next year for an even wilder edition!