President Obama is celebrating America’s makers today at the first-ever Maker Faire at the White House. The rise of the maker movement powered by the Internet and technologies like 3D printing, easy to use design software is reviving a whole new generation of doers and makers. June 18, 2014 has been proclaimed as the National Day of Making.
The first time event at the White House will feature makers, innovators, and entrepreneurs of all ages who are using cutting-edge tools to bring their ideas to life. The President sees this interest in the maker movement as a stepping stone to revive American manufacturing and encourage the future workforce and innovators to build and create.
The President was quoted saying, “I am proud to host the first-ever White House Maker Faire. This event celebrates every maker — from students learning STEM skills to entrepreneurs launching new businesses to innovators powering the renaissance in American manufacturing. I am calling on people across the country to join us in sparking creativity and encouraging invention in their communities.”
The Presidents wants to support the next generation of Americans who will be “makers of things, not just consumers of things.”
It is also no surprise that Local Motors, an early supporter of Crowdsourcing Week and pioneer in crowdsourced automotive design was featured as one of the “makers” at this historic event. The Local Motors platform empowers anyone to design, build, and sell the world’s coolest machines. The platform combines global co-creation and local micro-manufacturing to bring hardware innovations to market at unprecedented speed.
Jay Rogers, the Founder and CEO of Local Motors that is leading open source innovation in hardware manufacturing delivered a gripping talk at the CSW Global conference in Singapore in April this year. Rogers, a US Marine and Iraq veteran founded Local Motors to “disrupt traditional product development practices by reaching out to the broader, global community of designers, engineers, enthusiasts and makers in order to deliver innovation literally, at the pace of conversation.”
View Jay’s talk at CSW Global 2014 Singapore here.
Per their blog Local Motors will open 100 new Microfactories over the next ten years. Microfactories feature Lab spaces that are open to innovators who are willing to share their projects. Each Lab is also a nexus where the community can pursue STEM education and empower a global community.
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