For Immediate Release: April 26, 2018
Contact: Marvin Weinberger, marvin@phillymakerfaire.com
(Images available upon request)
Maker Faire, the World-Wide Festival of Makers, Expands into Philadelphia for the First-Ever Philly Mini Maker Faire
Event Date: June 24, 10 am – 6 pm
Event Location: Pennovation Center, 3401 Grays Ferry Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19146
Philadelphia – (April 26, 2018) It started as an idea – mostly as an idea about ideas – and how to turn ideas into reality.
Kicking off the summer, the first Philadelphia Mini Maker Faire is a showcase of inventors, artists, startups, garage tinkerers, crafters, science clubs, and others who like to get their hands dirty making things. These “makers” will come together to show off their creations and how they are made.
Expect to see: drones, robots, glassblowing, fashion, textiles, electronics, ceramics, 3D printing, biotechnology, and much more.
Maker Faire is a celebration of innovation, creativity, and resourcefulness. Fitting with its subject, this will not be a passive spectator event. There will be workshops, demonstrations, and hands-on activities for all attendees to participate in making.
Makers are responsible for the wave of technological and artistic fervor igniting cities across the US and beyond, leading to the opening of co-working spaces, hackathons, tech meetups, and collaborative maker spaces. It has made waves in the city of Philadelphia through ventures like NextFab, Philly Tech Week, and the Pennovation Center, among others, and internationally through Maker Faire and its affiliate publication MAKE Magazine.
Maker Faire began in the Bay Area in 2006 with the intention of spreading a love of making to audiences of all ages. It has since expanded to include cities from across the globe, from New York to Tokyo, and serves as a chance for everyone from tech enthusiasts to artisans to tinkerers to manufacturers to show off their works and their wares. It is a visual representation and celebration of the Maker Movement, which encompasses any and all inventors, artists, and entrepreneurs who innovate and create.
Now, for the first time, Maker Faire is coming to Philadelphia, the city once known as the “Workshop of the World”. The Philadelphia Mini Maker Faire will be a chance to highlight the recent resurgence of Making within the city’s tech, startup, and artistic communities, and for local Makers to connect with each other and the community-at-large.
The one-day event is being brought together in part thanks to the work of Marvin Weinberger, a Maker himself and organizer of the local meetup group, Philadelphia Makers Meetup. After working on a smaller scale through a series of monthly events to bring recognition and resources to a coterie of Makers in the Philadelphia region, Weinberger hopes to use the Philadelphia Mini Maker Fair to significantly dial up the city’s exposure to making of all kinds.
“We were inspired by Dale Dougherty – founder of the Maker Movement – during his recent visit to and talk at City Hall,” Weinberger explains. “The Philadelphia Mini Maker Faire is another step towards Philadelphia becoming a true Maker City, and to reigniting the city’s past as a manufacturing hub and resource for innovators, from Ben Franklin to now. ”
The secondary aim of the Faire is to connect the city’s manufacturers, artisans, innovators, and inventors with the resources they need to turn their startups and physical products into successful businesses. It is with this goal in mind that the organizers teamed up with Pennovation Center to host the event. The Center already serves as a hub for innovation in the region, thanks to its research spaces and collaborative atmosphere. The Center, along with the Faire, represents a shift in Philly’s potential as a destination space for Makers.
Most importantly, it hopes to ignite the spirit of curiosity and DIY mentality that sets the Maker Movement apart, helping redefine Philadelphia as a city of thinkers, doers, Makers.
Marvin is joined in his organizing efforts by Co-Chair and Executive Event Director Bruce Willner, an electrical engineer with over 20 years of experience in management and technical roles developing semiconductor and nanotechnology products.
The team will be further supplemented by an already-expanding list of volunteers and local organizations, like Charlie Affel from Hive76, Techgirlz, NextFab, and more. Each volunteer and each organization that signs on will be responsible for curating and managing a range of activities within their respective communities. These activities will stretch the limits of the possibilities of Making: from performance art to live demonstrations to scheduled workshops.
With only a few months to go before the big event hits on June 24, the team is marshalling its efforts to get local Makers on board to present, as well as sponsors to ensure its success. The goal is to gather together 100 Makers of all kinds, from hobbyists to hardware startups to local hacking clubs, in a room bursting with innovation and creativity – and to inspire a crowd of all ages to get into the Making spirit themselves. As Dale Dougherty, founder of the original Maker Faire attests, we are “all Makers”, and the Philadelphia Mini Maker Faire aspires to prove it.
Current sponsors of the Philadelphia Mini Maker Faire include: NextFab, Techgirlz, and Make Magazine. The event is now open for exhibitors and vendors, with a live Call for Makers at the link:
http://philly.makerfaire.com/maker/
More information about sponsorship opportunities can be found at the link:
https://philly.makerfaire.com/sponsorship/
Philadelphia Mini Maker Faire is independently organized and operated under license from Maker Media, Inc.
Marvin Weinberger, Co-Chair
Marvin Weinberger is a serial entrepreneur and proud maker of American products. He was involved with numerous early online businesses which are legend in Philadelphia’s investment and entrepreneurial communities, including Infonautics, Telebase Systems and CD Now. Marvin is also an inventor and holds numerous patents. In recent years, working through his hand tool company Innovation Factory, he has created a number of highly regarded tools, including the USA made Trucker’s Friend (multipurpose tool) and the recently launched Off-Grid Survival Axe (crowdfunded under the name Lil Trucker).
He is the volunteer organizer of the Philly Maker Meetup, a community for catalyzing innovation and collaboration among hard-product entrepreneurs.
Bruce Willner, Co-Chair and Executive Event Director
Bruce Willner has over 20 years’ experience in technical and management roles developing nanotechnology and semiconductor materials and devices. For the past 6 years, Bruce held executive positions a Graphene Frontiers, first as Chief Science Officer and then as Chief Executive Officer. Before Graphene Frontiers, he held positions at Structured Materials Industries, Sarnoff Corporation, and elsewhere, developing semiconductor and optics devices. Bruce is the author of two patents, a member of IEEE, and has served on a National Academies Panel. He has long had a fondness for “making” and tinkering projects involving el-wire, circuits, Arduino, and 3D printing.
About Maker Faire:
Maker Faire is the Greatest Show (and Tell) on Earth—a family-friendly showcase of invention, creativity and resourcefulness, and a celebration of the Maker movement. It’s a place where people show what they are making, and share what they are learning.
Makers range from tech enthusiasts to crafters to homesteaders to scientists to garage tinkerers. They are of all ages and backgrounds. The aim of Maker Faire is to entertain, inform, connect and grow this community.
The original Maker Faire event was held in San Mateo, CA and in 2012 celebrated its seventh annual show with some 800 makers and 110,000 people in attendance. World Maker Faire New York, the other flagship event, has grown in three years to 500+ makers and 55,000 attendees. Detroit, Kansas City, Newcastle (UK), and Tokyo are the home of “featured” Maker Faires (200+ makers), and community-driven, independently organized Mini Maker Faires are now being produced around the United States and the world—including right here in Williamson County.
About MAKE Magazine: MAKE is the first magazine devoted entirely to Do-It-Yourself (DIY) technology projects. MAKE unites, inspires, informs, and entertains a growing community of resourceful people who undertake amazing projects in their backyards, basements, and garages. MAKE celebrates your right to tweak, hack, and bend any technology to your will. Subscribe here.
Besides the magazine and the faire, MAKE is:
• a vital online stream of news and projects, blog.makezine.com;
• a retail outlet for kits and books, the Maker Shed;
• a steady stream of fun and instruction via our YouTube channel;
• Make: Projects, a library of projects with step-by-step instructions
• a publisher of best-in-category titles via Make: Books, including introductions to electronics, 3D printing, Raspberry Pi, Arduino and more.
More info: https://makerfaire.com
About Philadelphia Makers Meetup:
Philadelphia Makers Meetup is a monthly event series that seeks to reignite Philadelphia as a historical hub for manufacturers, by leveraging the trend of maker communities growing in metropolitan centers around the country, and by building and growing a maker community in Philly. The meetup seeks to encourage innovation and collaboration among startups, students, innovation centers, investors, etc. so that they will have greater access to all the resources that Philadelphia has to offer for building a maker business or product.
More info: https://www.meetup.com/Makers-Meetup
About the Pennovation Center
The Pennovation Center is a business incubator and laboratory that aligns and integrates researchers, innovators, and entrepreneurs for the commercialization of research discoveries. Intended to marry entrepreneurs with an expert workforce and scientifically advanced facilities, key features of the Pennovation Center are the common creative spaces, including coworking areas, a café, and a venue for events and programs.
By creating an atmosphere for collaboration, creativity, and productivity for innovators from all disciplines, the Pennovation Center brings people together to foster interaction and the exchange of ideas. Interior spaces in the 58,000 sqft building emphasize daylighting and retain an industrial character to develop social space with a “cool factor,” while an adjacent outdoor plaza focuses activity on the site and link surrounding buildings and open spaces to this new hub.
Landscaping for the entire site includes stormwater management techniques, increased connections between buildings, and access to Schuylkill River trails. Wayfinding and signage fosters an identity for the site, and increases visibility of the site and the Center from the surrounding area.
The campus development plan, Penn Connects, recommends sustainable development for all new projects. Like all new buildings and major renovation projects currently under design, the Pennovation Center is registered with the US Green Building Council, and is targeting LEED Silver rating or higher.
The Pennovation Center is operated and staffed by the award-winning innovation management company, Benjamin’s Desk. The Center staff includes a full time Managing Director, Community Manager, and Lab Manager, who ensure that our members and tenants have a world class experience each day and manage all meetings and special events.
More info: https://www.pennovation.upenn.edu
Founded by Dr. Evan Malone in 2009, with three locations in the mid-Atlantic region, NextFab is the premiere destination for makers, artisans, and hardware entrepreneurs. NextFab provides the tools, training, consulting, and capital required for innovators to turn ideas into products, and products into businesses.
Press Contact
Marvin Weinberger
Organizer
Philadelphia Maker Faire
610 789 1137