Maker Faire Rome 2019: Making Carbon Free a Reality – 18th to 20th October

“Maker Faire Rome – The European Edition” is back from 18 to 20 October, returns to the Fiera di Roma.  An edition rich in novelties, carbon free and with 100% of the electricity consumed which will be renewable

Circular economy, robotics, artificial intelligence, IoT – Internet of things, technologies for education and training, space, technology in contemporary art and agritech are among the main themes of the 2019 edition

Lorenzo Tagliavanti (President of the Rome Chamber of Commerce): “Maker Faire Rome is a great platform and a great networking moment where innovation from above meets innovation from below. A place where technology is within everyone’s reach and interaction is the main feature. An opportunity for meeting, training and business. The Chamber of Commerce facilitates this process and Rome confirms itself as a city of research and talent”

It is a well recognised, longstanding European event dedicated to technological innovation, with a simple and informal approach, now approaching its seventh edition, organised by the Chamber of Commerce of Rome, through its special unit Innova Camera.

Given the success of past events, the format was expanded but kept its basic structure: on Friday morning of 18 October they start with the Educational Day, the traditional event that offers free training, in a preview day open only to school groups from throughout Italy (last year as many as 27,000 students attended). On Friday afternoon, from 2 pm, Maker Faire opens to the general public until Sunday, 20 October, hosting the best of international innovation in seven themed pavilions for an exhibition surface area of over 100,000 square metres. The subdivision of the pavilions proposed by the curators invites visitors to become active participants, already starting from their names: Re-think, Learn, Create, Discover, Make, Research.

The curator of MFR 2019 is Massimo Banzi, co-founder of Arduino, named by the weekly magazine “The Economist” as one of the advocates for the “new industrial revolution” driven by the Maker movement. Assisted by Alessandro Ranellucci, executive coordinator of all MFR content. Together with them, a qualified team of area managers: Fabrizio Bernardini (space area), Paolo De Gasperis and Leonardo De Cosmo (EdTech), Carlo Hausmann (food and agritech area), Mauro Spagnolo (circular economy), Valentino Catricalà (art), Paolo Mirabelli (drones area).

Maker Faire Rome is evidence of how creativity, work and the strength of ideas are able to generate new production models based on individual initiatives and brilliant projects. For the seventh consecutive year, the city of Rome has confirmed itself as an attractive hub for new ideas, content and economic models: just think that over a thousand projects from over 40 countries have arrived from the various calls and over 600, after careful selection, will be exhibited at the fair.

“Maker Faire Rome – explains Lorenzo Tagliavanti, President of the Chamber of Commerce of Rome – is a great platform and a great moment of networking where innovation from above meets innovation from below. A place where technology is within everyone’s reach and interaction is the main feature. The event also evolves thanks to the co-creation effort we are carrying out, constantly, with companies, professionals and institutions. Maker Faire Rome is increasingly surrounded by academia, research and industry to create vertical insights and create a system – concludes Tagliavanti – for contagious know-how, dissemination and integration at its core. All this is done in Rome also thanks to the role of facilitator that the Chamber of Commerce plays, confirming that the capital is the city of innovation, research and talent”.

The main themes

Circular economy, robotics and artificial intelligence, IoT – Internet of things, digital manufacturing, foodtech, agritech, smart mobility, sustainable building, virtual and augmented reality, space, technology in contemporary art, sportech, edtech: these will be some of the themes of the 2019 edition.

Circular economy: Maker Faire Rome becomes carbon free and plastic free

The great issue of the circular economy and, in particular, of bioeconomy, greenbuilding and greentech are very topical issues to which the MFR has already dedicated an entire pavilion since last year’s edition: dozens of innovative companies and experts in the field demonstrate how to combine business, manufacturing and sustainability by exhibiting their products, their projects and their technologies.

And this year, Maker Faire Rome will make a further leap in quality as it will be the first Italian trade fair event to show a real sensitivity to climate change through the adoption of a carbon neutral approach, as well as being plastic free.

The intention is to start a virtuous, difficult and demanding cycle that can reduce the environmental impact of the Fair by transforming it into an event of great environmental, as well as technological, value. In fact, all greenhouse gas emissions generated during the days of the event will be compensated through the planting of the Maker Faire forest thanks to the collaboration with the start-up zeroCO2, whose trees will be individually traced with a code and a system of georeferencing.

The event will also use only certified energy produced from renewable sources. To develop the “Maker Faire Rome Carbon Free” project, an Enea spin-off was commissioned to carry out a detailed quantitative and qualitative calculation of the emissions generated during the days of the Fair. For example, all data on the energy, water, transport and waste consumption generated during the event will be collected.

In support of this ambitious project, as part of Maker Faire Rome 2019 all the material used to supply food & beverages will be entirely biodegradable and certified compostable. Considering the size of Maker Faire Rome, this is a very significant organisational and economic effort, but one of great symbolic and environmental value, which involved almost a year of joint work with all the stakeholders involved.

Visitors will be invited to take part in this project by being asked to not introduce plastic bottles or containers into the fairgrounds.

Maker Faire Rome seeks to improve and further develop this project also in future editions with the aim of becoming an event of great environmental, as well as technological, value, to demonstrate the real possibility, from the outset, of a radical reversal in terms of the reduction of climate-changing emissions, the convinced adoption of the circular economy, the replacement of the main polluting materials with bio-compostable ones.

100% OF THE ELECTRICITY CONSUMED WILL BE RENEWABLE

In 2008, Green Utility Spa installed a photovoltaic generator, integrated in the roofing, in the Fiera di Roma, with a power of over 1.7 MWp, capable of producing almost 2 GWh per year.

The system made an important record at the time: it was the largest generator in the world, in terms of installed power, involving thin film. Since then it has produced about 16,888,788 kWh, avoiding emissions into the atmosphere for about 8,454 tons of CO2.

Thanks to the partnership with Green Utility Spa, energy partner of the sustainability project of MFR19, 100% of the electricity consumed by Maker Faire Rome 2019 will be renewable and with zero CO2 emissions.

And at MFR 2019 there will also be room for fashion. Altaroma, has always been committed to supporting and promoting young interpreters of contemporary Made in Italy creativity, with an eye always on the lookout for new trends, will be the protagonist of a dedicated space with six designers characterised by creativity, product quality, research and experimentation, using innovative and high quality materials. Fili Pari, Italo Marseglia, Repainted, Tiziano Guardini, Zingales Shoes and Woobag will exhibit their collections of clothing and accessories made through eco-sustainable production processes, characterised by the use of renewed materials ranging from marble dust to wood, recycled leather from the food industry such as salmon skin, renewable raw materials of vegetable origin and certified microfibres of the latest generation, high-performance technical fabrics obtained from the regeneration of waste such as fishing nets and plastic recovered from the ocean.

To stay constantly up to date www.makerfairerome.eu – #MFR19; Facebook: @Maker Faire Rome; Twitter: @MakerFaireRome; Instagram: @Maker Faire Rome