The call for proposals is closed.

Call for Proposals

MakerCon will be held for the second time in Heidelberg at the Print Media Academy from April 12 to 14, 2018. Again, the conference covers the wide area of topics, Makers are interested in. The typical visitors are ambitious Makers, communities, startups, chief innovation officers as well as hardware and service suppliers.

The talks may cover technical topics or give practical help for startups or people organizing FabLabs.

The organisers of MakerCon are are heise Developer, the online channel for software development, dpunkt.verlag, publisher of reference books for the professional computing scene, and Make:, the magazine for Makers. They invite interested parties to submit proposals for talks (30 or 45 minutes) and trainings (7 hours) as well as Pecha Kucha sessions on the following topics:


Electonics and software

  • Computing platforms Raspberry Pi, Arduino / Genuino, TI MSP430
  • ARM und x86 as hardware platforms
  • Components: sensors, WiFi Boards
  • Development environments and open source tools
  • Embedded Linux / Windows IoT: which one is the best choice for Makers?

Know how

  • Fabrication: How to choose the right material and tools (filaments, die casting, metal, wood, glass, 3D printer, laser cutter, moulding cutter)
  • Manufacture
  • Accesss to machines in FabLabs: What are the conditions? What are the benefits of a membership? When should Makers buy their own tools?

Projects

  • Rapid Prototyping: TinkerForge vs Arduino, Teensy, ChipKit
  • Your first product: TÜV, CE, RoHS, WEEE, EMV
  • Legal basics: product liability, support, warranty, return
  • Crowdsourcing: platforms, Kickstarter, Indigogo etc.

FabLabs

  • equipment, organization
  • experience reports
  • Communities
  • Events
  • customer groups

Trends

  • Wearables – Fashion Tech
  • Quadcopter
  • Robotik
  • … further

Maker and the Enterprise

  • Your own start-up: Financing, finding investors, sponsoring
  • From Prototype to RTM – finding know-how and consulting
  • Mass production: regulations, wheres and hows
  • practice reports
  • legal questions
  • Open Innovation versus Intellectual Property
  • Citizen Science

Please indicate if you prefer a presentation lasting up to 45 minutes or a short session of up to 30 minutes. Pecha-Kucha-Sessions are wellcome too. Workshops have been scheduled for half or full days (3 resp. 6 hours). Please send us an abstract of your proposed presentation, that is geared to your target group (400-700 characters). Supplementary materials (long abstracts, slides, Proposals, etc.) are also welcome. We especially place value on your positioning of the proposal in regard to the previous knowledge the audience should have as well as the educational objective of your talk. The complete schedule will be available online by January 2017.

The Program committee consists of René Bohne (Telefónica NEXT), Guido Burger, Julia Kitta (MakerSpace Munich), Maik Schmidt (Maker-Author, SW developer), and Dr. Roland Stelzer (Happylab) as well as Daniel Bachfeld (Make), Dr. Michael Barabas (dpunkt.verlag), and Rainald Menge-Sonnentag (heise Developer).