Community Inventor Days

Abstract

This paper describes a series of Inventor Days designed to catalyse sustainable relationships between communities and makers to support grassroots innovation. By appropriating core properties of hackathons, the Inventor Days brought together residents in a community and makers from across the city. Over three events, makers and community members worked together to learn about the local area, design novel ideas that addressed local issues and build prototypes. We show evidence that these events created enthusiasm around use of technology to support the community, while developing ongoing relationships that enabled members of the community to continue building on their experiences beyond the events. We propose this as a new means of enabling innovation in communities.

Strategies for Engaging Communities in Creating Physical Civic Technologies

“…The project was centred on a series of three day-long hackathon-like Inventor Days [31] spread across six weeks, which were designed to bring together Ardler residents with the city's maker communities. Across the three events, mixed teams worked through a rough design process that involved: exploring Ardler to identify challenges and opportunities in the local area; brainstorming ideas using craft materials; exploring electronics and code to build rough prototypes; and finally fabricating more refined prototypes at the local makerspace.…”

Everybody's Hacking

“…For example, they have been used in developing new approaches to sensitive mental health disorders [3], while others have taken key elements of the format to engage neighbourhoods with technology and support grassroots innovation [32]. In part, researchers have aimed to capture some of the key properties of hackathons, especially their more exploratory and playful nature by comparison to other participatory design activities [32,34].…”

“…For HCI researchers, we might consider how we can harness some of the qualities of hackathons to create this type of space in other contexts where a hackathon is not appropriate. Recent work in HCI indicates some of the shapes these participatory environments might take, such as critical playshops [34] and Inventor Days [32].…”

Open Design, Inclusivity and the Intersections of Making

“…An alternative idea within emerging critical discourses -that is now also gaining traction on-the-ground -is to tackle specific challenges with reference to pluralistic values (e.g. care within maker spaces [63]; makers interactions with non-maker communities [62]). This is a pragmatic approach that resonates with similar calls for 'designing our way out' of the limitations of neoliberalism [46].…”

“…Taylor et al's "Community inventor days" (matchmaking 'makers' with members of the wider community) also explored the interactions between makers and wider publics [62]. Now that we know such connections yield value, can existing connections between communities be leveraged in similar ways?…”