JASON EXPLORING BeNeLux MAKERSPACES
Jason, exploring BeNeLux A new explorer start his journey in 2024, supported by VULCA Jason, Belgium maker located in Brussels, wants to explore makerspaces, fablabs and hackerspaces all over the BeNeLux. Let’s learn more about him and his coming tour We met Jason during a maker event organised by RFFLabs in Paris. It was in OctoberMake 2023. The month after, Jason took his ticket to join Vulca Seminar in Ljubljana (Slovenia). Quickly, Jason started to open the discussion with us to see how he could contribute to Vulca in his part of Europe. Jason want to better understand the maker movement in BeNeLux, so naturally, we proposed him to join our team of makerspaces explorers In 2024, Jason will be exploring every months new makerspaces, Fablabs and Hackerspaces starting with BeNeLux over weekends. Located in Brussels, Jason will mostly travel using public transports such as train, bus. Vulca team group picture Jason, tell us more about you I come from a family whose mantra is : “You own what you have in your hands and in your head; the rest, people can take it away from you.” I very much embrace this belief that know-how and knowledge are our only possessions in life, proof is, these are the only things we actually take to the grave. Since I am 12, I have been dreaming of an open workspace on the district main square where everyone can bring their stuff and repair it together with the others. I believe in a world where everyone has access to everything and when I discovered fablabs, I figured that the open workspace + digital fabrication is the future I was dreaming of so I’m fully in. I believe in a world where human & relationships come first, so I’m now visiting fablabs across the BeNeLux to weave relationships and build this network and this community at the heart of Europe. Also I’m meeting maker/fablab communities as much as I can from across the world from Japan, India, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Europe, … Jason participating on an Escape game made by Navid and Leon I am a Belgian engineer curious about everything, hyperactive and dreaming of a world where everyone is free to be curious, to be creative and to exercise their critical mind. I value intellectuals who make and makers who think, so you can find me or get me hooked talking about philosophy or hammering & welding things together. I love board games, learning languages, discovering new perspectives and imagining better futures. When I’m not visiting labs, I work as a freelancer in Product & Strategy for MedTech & Digital Health companies and I am building a company in prevention in orthodontics, Breeze Medical Jason & Aleksandra – Vulca Seminar Slovenia My journey in fablabs I did the FabAcademy in 2021 in Brussels and started meeting the Fablab Network community. I did it with the objective of building a digital microscope that could be locally manufactured in Africa to diagnose among other things, malaria. I ended up making a foldable 3D scanner but learned a ton of things on the way thanks to Quentin Bolsée. Nevertheless, at the end of 2021, it was time to continue the microscopy project and I left for Tanzania where I printed my first African digital microscopes with my good friend Valerian Sanga (member of GOSH) Then I went to Rwanda where I kept visiting Medical labs with Maurice and fablabs where I met Dany, Olivier, Héritier, Lambert, Frédéric and many others from FabLab Rwanda. Back in Brussels, I started visiting the different labs of Brussels. Then in 2023, I went to Bhutan for the FAB23 where I met Constance, Rico, Matthieu, Haflidy, Hafey, Nanditha and so many others and continued with visiting some Indian labs. After that, Constance invited me to participate to OctoberMake in Paris where I met even more incredibly cool french makers including Alexandre who invited me to the Vulca Seminar in Ljubljana where I met again some of the folks that I knew from the Fab Network and plenty of yet new places. After all of this, and having a great match with the Explorer approach of Vulca I joined as Explorer. Jason, introduced to Vulca community during the seminar I am also looking at businesses that run through digital fabrication and embrace free software & open source movement such as Mekanika or Ugani Prosthetics. Here with Joren from Ugani Jason, exploring BeNeLux In 2024, Jason plan to visit over weekends fablabs, makerspaces and hackerspaces in Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg. If you want to welcome our explorer in your city in 2024 and better connect you with the European Maker movement, please contact us.
Welcome REMI
Welcome REMI 🚐 A new explorer start his journey, supported by VULCA and RFFLabs With his grey van, Remi prepare his EUROPEAN VULCA TOUR of Fablab, Makerspaces and Hackerspaces. He started in France in 2021 with the help of the French Fablab Network (RFFLabs). Today, in 2022, his wheels are warm enough to drive in neighboring countries. REMI MAUVOISIN The new VULCA EXPLORER on WHEELS ! Remi tell us a bit more about himself « My name is Rémi and I was born in the mid-80s. I grew up in the south west of France with my brother where our parents taught us the art of making, sharing and curiosity. After building tiny houses, repairing motorbike and hacking computers in my village, I discovered the city while studying in Bordeaux to become a technology teacher. Indeed, I wanted to continue hacking, tinkering, recycling while sharing this with others and the educatio system was perfect for it. For 15 years, I’ve been doing school projects, concerts in Parisian venues, helping my friends building their houses, playing alternatively basketball and football, reading a lot about low-tech philosophy and piles of wood cut in winter to keep me and my family warm. I decided to turn towards other horizons, while keeping this desire to share my experiences and my skills, by being more interested in the new ways of doing things FabLabs and makerspaces. So here I am, on the road to meet people and their projects, in order to create a link between all these initiatives, before embarking on this adventure myself! » Remi preparing his next VULCA TOUR His first tour out of his native country will be during +3 weeks in North of Spain. (You can see the road map below). For Remi, touring in Europe is a wonderful way to learn new language, meet other culture and understand the different model of open-workshop, before to get back to his family village, in the south ouest of France and start also his Open-Workshop including a space for makers in residency. As Alex.R is currently doing with Mountain Makers. REMI’s FIRST TOUR IN SOUTH OF FRANCE AND NORTH OF SPAIN If you are in his road, contact Remi. He can probably make a stop in your city or village. ALEXANDRE ROUSSELET Just a few words about our FIRST VULCA explorer. Even if he started hitchhiking or by bus/train/plane with Nicolas between 2015 and 2016, he quickly decided to buy his own van. Indeed, the van allows the VULCA EXPLORERS to go to every village or rural area, such as FabFarm in Algarve (south of Portugal) or Pralnia MakerSpace in Sokolowsko (Poland) or visiting Tzoumaker, in Kalentzi (Greece). Alex has driven for +150 000 Km in 36 Countries, visiting +400 makers communities, which make VULCA one of the most connected NGOs to the Europeans Makers movement so far. Now Remi and Alex will work and explore Europe together. Each of them will make their own roadmap. They will also participate and represent VULCA in as many as possible European Makers Events, promoting Makers Mobility and the concept of Residency for Makers that should be more common in European Makerspace and Labs. For the maker movement, each VULCA TOUR is a chance to be connected to each other with the help of an explorer that make the link. Indeed, our makerspaces explorers allow better connection for those that need to be more linked in order to learn, make and share together. As an exemple, Constance Garnier was personally connected to 13 European Fablabs to finish her research in 2019. Or also, Buinho was connected to Fablab Cuenca for a EU project that they got in 2021. Or Navid Lari, a Belgium Makers from Open Fab found his residency in Fablab Vagur (Feroe Island) in 2022. Navid Lari, The picture below wouldn’t exist if our explorers wouldn’t be on the road meeting Fablabs and makers to match-make them. Navid, a Belgium Maker in Residency in Fablab Vagur (Feroe Island) Remi and Alexandre, Are on the wheels and ready to drive until your Fablab, Makerspace, Hackerspace or Open-Workshop. They would be also pleased to take part to your conference, seminar or hackathon and share with you and your audience, what they have seen in hundreds spaces in Europe. The best way to meet them ? Contact us here