Community Activation and Engagement Strategy

This document describes the guidelines and strategy for community activation and engagement of the mAkE project.

mAkE aims to reinforce existing and create new Pan-African networks of Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs), specifically makerspaces, including FabLabs, open science and hardware spaces across Africa and Europe. The mAkErverse is a framing that sets the tone and builds a multilevel model strategy for community activation and engagement. The context draws on the autonomy of already existing communities and networks of makers, innovators, hubs, and spaces within their own systematic cyclic orbits providing an opportunity to add value to and nurture them both on the individual and community level through the mAkE project. Autonomy is identified as a pivotal part to the whole strategy because the project does not exist without the makers and does not control the makers ecosystems but rather approaches the communities in the ecosystem from the bottom-up providing valuable useable assets and from the top-down supporting advocacy and championing the benefits the communities bring to the world. Broadening the dimensions of visibility, understanding of and knowledge about makers and moving beyond linear engagement to a more cyclic perspective underpins the strategy. The term mAkErverse is an umbrella term uniting different maker ecosystems in Africa, Europe and beyond. We identify and engage with communities from the individual level through to city, country, region, continental and global level in order to amplify the value and impact of makerspaces and makers utilising an amplifying approach. The role of an ‘amplifier’ and its description is an electronic device that increases the voltage, current, or power of a signal. mAkE aims to encompass the role of the ‘amplifier’ for the communities it represents thereby supporting all active participants within the hardware innovation space to achieve more and drive exponential impact and sustainable growth. Engagement refers to a “connection, interaction, participation, and involvement, designed to achieve or elicit an outcome at individual, organisation, or social levels”. Supporting ‘amplifiers’ as networks of networks that therefore enable their communities provide an opportunity to create a multiplier effect, taking a project like mAkE to a new level of impact. mAkE not only aims to raise the quality of the maker community but to actively contribute resources, knowhow and provide support for its ongoing development through access to open source resources, visibility and exchange. mAkE will create and influence an Amplifier Approach (AA) through identifying and promoting diverse activities of and for its members, partners and stakeholders. The consortium aims for mAkE to build rich engagement through the AA of its activities and sharing best practices that showcase the diversity and success of the community network of networks working in various local settings and contexts.