As open technologies become increasingly prevalent in many aspects of society, from cellphone operating systems to high performance computing, open-source software provides some of the most powerful tools to tackle today’s challenges. Large-scale projects such as Wikipedia demonstrate that open standards and practice can be applied to knowledge in a general sense and deliver invaluable resources to the general public. The advance of open hardware systems such as Arduino, alongside advances in consumer-grade 3D printing technologies, is boosting the development of maker communities in most parts of the world and imposing a rethink of innovation and manufacturing techniques.

At the Open Technology Workshop, attendees will see talks and demonstrations of many aspects of open technologies and their implications in the context of academic research and education.

On Saturday, 25 July, there will be a hands-on open technologies hackathon at Makespace Cambridge. The full programme begins on Sunday, where featured speakers include:

• Javier Serrano on CERN Open Hardware
• Robert Mullins on lowRISC
• Luka Mustafa on useful-source
• Magnus Manske on wiki science
• Jelena Aleksic on TReND in Africa
• Tom Baden on FlyPi

A Mini Maker Faire will take place that afternoon.

Attendance is free of charge and open to the general public. Participants are invited to present demonstrations of software or hardware projects during afternoon sessions. Lab space will be made available for this purpose.

For more information and to register, visit the link on the right sidebar.