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🏭Maakschap Amsterdam

A digital platform and a manifesto for distributed makers' community and their right to the city

What is this tool about ?

Maakschap Amsterdam is tool designed and developed by the Amsterdam Pilot team providing a virtual spaces for makers. The aim of this platform is connecting the alliance of makers , consolidated during the Centrinno experimental process , for sharing knowledge among themselves, and collectively advocating for better maker policies.

The platform publish a Manifesto structured according with three points :

  1. Affordable and reliable workspaces: By securing lease agreements and ensuring makers have the opportunity to buy.

  2. Participation: Involve makers in participation processes for urban planning

  3. Education: Promote and maintain vocational education programs in the city and create more access to circular manufacturing for all learners in Amsterdam.

People can sign the manifesto and join the network at this website. The alliance and its manifesto are used by the makers themselves as a centering point in which to discuss and address the needs, challenges, and opportunities of the maker community.

The platform and its manifesto emerged from two years of collaboration, networking, and community-building activities led by the Pilot team and the makers' community in Amsterdam Nord. Its launch signified a pivotal moment in their journey towards establishing the Amsterdam FCH Initiative, marking the transition from research and community building to the actualization of their hub and its sustainability beyond the project's duration.

Ideally, the platform will transition to the alliance itself, serving as the virtual hub for a distributed community of makers located in various workspaces across the city. Additionally, during the project's final months, the Pilot team secured the HMC Learning Hub—a physical space for organizing in-person events for the entire community.

Through these tools, the Amsterdam team enacted the intertwined relationship between the digital and physical aspects that characterize FCHs.

Step-by-steps guidelines for application

Find here a list of suggested steps shared by the Amsterdam Team for you to follow if you want to set up a digital space for your FCH inspired by the Maakschap platform.

Understand community needs

When designing a platform to improve makers' rights, it is crucial to address their actual needs. It is essential to meet them and understand their struggles, identify their needs precisely, and determine the key factors that unite them.

Draw up a Manifesto

summarise the common needs into a manifesto based on insights gathered during participatory research including multiple voices

Empower the network

Emphasize and share the importance of the alliance being led by makers through different events’ format.

Disseminate the Manifesto

Launch the platform and the Manifesto through organisation of events and use them as a centering points from which to discuss and address the needs, challenges and opportunities of the maker community.

Why this tool could be relevant (also) for your FCH ?

Innovative Space

The platform Maakschap Amsterdam act as an innovative digital space connecting a distributed community of makers. Through this space makers can share knowledge, ideas and project proposals and advocate for policy for makers. Furthermore it function in synergy with a physical location in Amsterdam Nord where events, gatherings and training courses can be organised for the distributed community.

Social Inclusion

Beside being the result of collaborations among the three partners of the Pilot team and makers from the area the platform aim to reach a large spectrum of audience , from common citizens to policy makers academia and SMEs interested in joining the alliance and ensuring that a diversity of voices is represented.

Local Outcomes 👍

The launch of the Maakschap platform may allow you to obtain the following outcomes ( as Amsterdam did) :

More visibility for makers in the city both to the general public and to policy makers

Increased sharing of knowledge / tools and support among makers

Increased awareness among local politicians and policymakers regarding the importance of prioritizing favorable conditions for makership and makerspaces on the political agenda

Organisational Practices

The use of this tool contributed to the following changes in local organisational practices each of them may relate to some of the three foundational aspects of a FCH: Vision , Community and Infrastructure.

Community

OP7. Facilitating community action, while orchestrating a common vision is most relevant for using the tool for our FCH.

By using the alliance and the manifesto as a way to ‘center’ or align makers, Amsterdam Team was able to create structure that allows makers to

  1. hold ownership of this alliance and

  2. self determine the actions they want to take in lobbying for makershio in the city. By determining a foundational set of principles that all in the alliance agree with, there is still room for disagreement and discussion amongst makers on certain issues, ensuring a diversity of voices within the alliance.

Summary Table

Characteristics

Difficulty

Medium

Duration

-

Facilitator I Participants

F= 3 , P=63

Setting

Online

Do you want to know more?

Here some useful links that you can look at if you want to know more about this platform and the efforts made by the local team for advocating for better conditions for makers in Amsterdam :

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