Pop-Machina

POP-MACHINA aims to demonstrate the power and potential of the urban maker movement and collaborative production for the EU circular economy. We draw from a number of cutting-edge technologies (factory-of-the-future, blockchain) and disciplines (urban planning, architecture) to provide the support necessary to overcome scaling issues; to find the areas more in need of our intervention and to reconfigure unused spaces. We put forth an elaborate urban community engagement program to network, incentivize and stimulate through maker fares and events existing and new maker communities in all our municipalities. We build upon the current informal curriculum for maker skills development by nurturing the social side and we put educators and makers together to exchange ideas on the training modalities. In every pilot city we demonstrate business oriented collaborative production of feasible and sustainable concepts from secondary raw material or other sustainable inputs, based on the needs and preferences of the local stakeholders. Based on the findings we kick-start a series of policy events to discuss openly – without pushing our results – the tax and legal barriers that hamper collaborative production.