Engagement strategy & documentation of events

Engagement of target groups is a core aspect of Made4You. As one of the aims is to build an
ecosystem by linking existing local communities of citizens with disabilities and their
families, healthcare professionals and makers it is important that one of the core strategies
of the project is to interact with these communities and establish collaboration between
these separate communities to develop their own open source and license interventions.
Communication and engagement via different means are core to reach the target groups
and in workpackage 1 we focus on a series of events as a core means to engage and
collaborate.
In this deliverable we first describe how we plan to engage the different stakeholders with
the final aim to make them users of the careables services, namely co-design sessions and
the careables platform. This document has been elaborated in close collaboration with the
team responsible for project communication, dissemination and outreach. It is important to
stress that depending on the context and the target groups different engagement methods
should be applied. The Made4You partners have defined a strategy of how to move people
from becoming aware of careables to being informed and finally to actively participate.
During the first year the project team already held 25 open days, 28 workshops, 4
educational events, 7 maker gatherings and 42 presentations of the project to diverse
audiences. During the Made4you open days and even during presentations, hosted at
different locations, many ideas for careables were developed. The open healthcare solutions
our participants have come up with a very diverse and range from a smart pill box to a smart
toy and pimped cane for a blind person. Some of these open solutions are presented in this
deliverable.
Drawing from first experiences we developed some guidelines on how to best organize
careables engagement events. These guidelines are included in this document and should
help other maker spaces or open healthcare interested audiences to start their own co-
design sessions for open health and care solutions.