On Saturday, Cairo hosted its first Mini Maker Faire at the GrEEK Campus as part of the global Maker Movement. For an entire day, the campus was buzzing with activities, including talks, exhibitions and workshops.
Organized by Fab Lab Egypt, the open air event featured 83 exhibitor booths that showcased a variety of projects. They all approached the concept of making differently, from origami to Arduino accessories to 3D printers to a booth for cosplay making.
“What I like about the exhibition is the variety of the exhibitors. I saw students, start-ups, graduates, male and females in different sectors such as technology, art and design,” said Ahmed Abuiliazeed, founder of Qafeer Makerspace .
The Maker Faire proved that the Maker Movement is home to anyone with the will to ‘make,’ and according to Abuiliazeed, “Yesterday showed everyone the potential and inspired some people to launch new initiatives.”
And because making isn’t solely about established start-ups or companies, there was an exhibition space that felt a lot like a school science fair. Of all the present exhibitors, I was most delighted to see high school students presenting their innovative solutions through simple technologies. College students were also exhibiting their work.
While some people showcased artwork, there were two prevailing themes that were hard to miss: robotics and gaming.
“I remember when I was a teenager, I used to love disassembling things, and putting them back,” commented principle consultant Eric Zoetmulder, adding that he found the projects on display really fun, but they had to step their game up and “grow up.”
In addition to the showcased projects and start-ups, there were various workshops on carpentry, aviation basics, jewelry design and much more.
In parallel to the hustling happenings of the day, the stage was quite vibrant as well. It hosted several key note speakers who brought their thoughts and experiences to the day.
“There was a lot of variety when it came to the exhibitions, and a lot of innovations, too,” said Ahmed Abdelrahman, attendee of the Fair. As excited as he was, he thought that the projects “were more or less school grade science projects, not really THAT innovative.”
Beyond how successful the attendees found the Mini Maker Faire, Abdallah Absi, CEO of Zoomaal thought the entire scene was quite promising, commenting that: “I haven't seen the entrepreneurship vibe anywhere like it is in Egypt. The amount of energy is incomparable to any country I've seen in the region.”
“As leaders of the MENA Spaces program, the Egyptian community has the highest number of maker spaces in the whole region. The matched-funding for Egypt that we offered through the MENA Spaces program with six other countries was consumed in less than 24 hours.”
“The maker scene so far is in the early stage. [Makers] need to develop a business model and to look at the big picture to see how to use the making skills in order to produce economic added value and some cash,” said Abuiliazeed.
Many people thought the event helped to put the Egyptian Makers on the international map.
“Gathering all makers in one event is important for makers themselves, event attendees and the whole making scene. The most important part is the fact that there are a lot of makers in different industries with a potential of growth,” said Mohamed Hany, Zoomaal’s country manager in Egypt. “The Maker Faire could be an annual indicator for the makers' movement in Egypt.”