Open technologies are becoming increasingly prevalent in many aspects of society. From cell phones' operating systems to high performance computing, open source software provide some of the most powerful tools to tackle today's challenges. Large scale projects such as Wikipedia have demonstrated that open standards and practice can be applied to knowledge in a general sense and deliver invaluable resources to the general public. The advance of Open Hardware systems such as Arduino, alongside advances in consumer-grade 3D printing technologies, is nowadays boosting the development of Maker communities in most parts of the world, progressively imposing a rethink of innovation and manufacturing techniques.

In this workshop, open to the general public, we will explore through talks and demos many aspects of open technologies and their implications in the context of academic research and education.

The workshop is coorganised by Alexandre Kabla, Jim Haseloff, Oliver Hadeler, Robert Mullins and jointly sponsored by CamBridgeSens, OpenLabTools and SynBio.org.uk.

Attendance is free of charge and open to the general public.

Participants are also invited to present demos of software or hardware project during the afternoon sessions. Lab space will be made available for this purpose.

Please register on the University of Cambridge eSales system.

Contact Alexandre Kabla (ajk61@cam.ac.uk) for more information.

The Workshop will take place in the Engineering Department, Cambridge University

Morning session - Short talks

Location: Lecture Room 1, Inglis building, Ground floor

Afternoon session - Demos (1.30pm to 4pm)

Location: EIETL Lab, Inglis building, 1st floor

Current list of demos:

Open Microscope and Mechanical testing rig, Josie Hughes and James Ritchie

Raspberry Pi and Arduino projects with MATLAB & Simulink, Coorous Mohtadi

3D printed platform for microscopy, Richard Bowman

Micropython, Damien George