From March 22 to 25, our open source building workshop was successfully held at ENIT in Tunis to jointly build open source hardware.

Funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the Tunisian partners successfully built open-source machines for local use in the textile industry under the guidance of Helmut Schmidt University. We developed 3 3dprinters, 1 CNC milling machine and 1 Laser cutter with participants from ENIT, ENIM, ISET and mfc pole. Open Source Hardware Experts of Ingrassia InMachines GmbH worked as coaches within the workshop.

A Machine Building Workshop is planned within our follow-up project for 2023.

The workshop is funded within the framework of the project Places of Incubovation (PISWI 2) by the German federal ministry of research and education. In the PISWI project four universities are working together to develop, implement, and disseminate OpenLabs as spaces for experiental technology learning, hardware product development, and innovation that advance Open-Source appropriate technology.

We are happy to announce that we started our follow-up collaborative project in 2021: Pilot project to close technological learning, production and innovation gaps through the implementation of OpenLabs to test feasibility and develop policy recommendations for the Tunisian textile sector. 

The project proposes the development, implementation and dissemination of OpenLabs as spaces for experiential technological learning, hardware product development and innovation using Open Source Appropriate Technology (OSAT), thereby contributing to the development of an open manufacturing infrastructure in Tunisia. In addition, business models for specific use cases will be developed in the context. 

To achieve this, we rely on a participatory research approach that involves users and potential target groups in the development, implementation and evaluation phases. We will test the concept in at least one location/region. In an in-depth exploratory single case study, we will investigate how and under which conditions OSAT and open production spaces for technological empowerment and innovation in the field of digital manufacturing and product design can contribute to a new way of value creation. 

The execution of the project and the implementation of the open production space is done with local actors from research and industry in the Tunisian textile sector. The research network is coordinated by the Laboratory of Production Engineering and consists of Helmut Schmidt University, the National Engineering School of Tunis (ENIT) – Tunis el Manar, the National Engineering School of Monastir (ENIM), the Institut Supérieur des Études Technologieques de Ksar Hellal (ISET) and the Monastir-El Fejja (la Manouba) competitiveness cluster (mfcpole). 

The award period started on 1st April 2021 and ends on 31st March 2024. 

The first Open Source Machine Building Workshop in Tunisia has been a huge success also according to the resonance within Tunisian media.

Within only one week and under the guidance of coaches from Germany, Tunisia, Italy and Nigeria almost 50 students and makers from various Tunisian universities and FabLabs have build the biggest open FDM machine on the african continent so far, a 5 axis open CNC milling machine and an open 3-in-1 machine tool combining different functionalities as well as an open source filament maker that recycles plastic.

With this hackathon were able to show what the Tunisian youth is capable of. Instead of buying expensive high tech equipment from abroad, they were trained to make it on their own with minimal costs and maximum training effect ranging from soft skills such as team work and collaboration to hard skills such as CAD/ CAM, technical data and documentation, manufacturing of parts, assembly, testing and so on. The coaches and participants showed immense motivation and excitement, in order to fulfill their mission together.

On the last day of the event various industry representatives and high officials from the Ministry of Higher Education and Research in Tunisia attended our Meet-the-Makers networking event as well as the subsequent panel discussion, in which we discussed the potential of OpenLabs for industry and education and on how to strengthen the link between the two domains in Tunisia with experts from different fields.