After closing out May with a series of Maker Faires — the Bay Area Maker Faire and the Sunshine Coast Mini Maker Faire (new window) — we’re headed for a busy June full of events and Buildathons. It’s time for outreach and making.

One of our engineers showing off assistive technology at the Sunshine Coast Mini Maker Faire.

We will kick off the month by hosting a LipSync Buildathon on Friday and Saturday at the Innovation Centre at Telus Garden (new window) in Vancouver. We will be on hand to support 15 Telus (new window) volunteers each day as they build LipSyncs.

Then, after the success of the first one, we’ve decided to host another Burnaby School District LipSync Buildathon. It will take place on Wednesday, June 7^th at Burnaby South Secondary School. We’re aiming to have 50 students build 25 LipSyncs.

We will be taking part in the Vancouver Mini Maker Faire (new window) on June 10^th and 11^th.

Executive Director, Gary Birch, will be a panelist at the M-Enabling Summit (new window), a global conference on promoting “accessible technologies and environments for senior citizens and persons with disabilities,” held in Washington, D.C. on June 14^th and 15^th. Birch will be talking about the Makers Making Change (new window) initiative and the LipSync in front of an audience of over 500 influential persons and industry leaders.

The Makers Making Change team will then travel to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where we have partnered with NextFab (new window) to host the Philadelphia LipSync Buildathon (new window) on June 18^th.

Back in the beginning of April we went to the American Occupational Therapists Association Annual Conference. While from June 20^th – 24^th we’ll be in Charlottetown, PEI to attend the 2017 Canadian Association of Occupation Therapists (new window) (CAOT) Conference (new window). This is important as occupational therapists are one of our biggest audiences in terms of outreach, as they recommend and apply assistive technology solutions to their clients. The American conference was tremendously successful in terms of interest and connections made, and we expect the CAOT conference to be no different.

Our Director of Research and Development, Harry Lew, will be presenting at the RESNA (new window) (Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America) 2017 Annual Conference (new window) in New Orleans, Louisiana from June 26^th – 30^th. Lew will be comparing different open source models, and how the Makers Making Change model incorporates the strengths and works to overcome the weaknesses of previous models.

It’s shaping up to be a busy month, but we’re looking forward to it.