Welcome to edgeryders @thomasmboa, I’m noemi, one of the first around here, currently in living Brussels.
Are you a member of a fablab yourself or do you do your research independently?
You say impact as scale needs government, and gov support is easiest achieved when having international backup. Is international partnerships/ funding/ media something you are staying away from, intentionally, or have you tried and failed? Or maybe you find it very expensive to get that kind of exposure?
In local government, maybe I’m stupidly naive, but frankly I’m even surprised you’re not the city mayor, or one of the “elders” group members, most influential citizens and so on…
We’d love to have you in Brussels, let’s see if there is an affordable option.
In addition to what Winnie writes above, I would say the first day panel on infrastructures for autonomy would benefit massively from your insights: Your understanding of the community dynamics but also government resistance. The take seems to be: where collaboration is not possible, but some of the people in the room might be more optimist. We’ll see. For example, @cindys has been mobilizing groups to do citizen science, maybe there’s examples she can share where barriers have been torn?
Eric Osiakwan, a tech investor in and around the African continent is also joining us for a panel on funding innovation - is there anything you would like to ask him in advance? I’ll ping him so maybe he can already join here.