Making = taking your life into your own hands.

Maker culture is spreading – from coders, hackers and 3-D printing communities to bakers, artists, brewers, activists and academics – people are choosing to create and do it for themselves, by themselves.

The individual maker has been around since the beginning of humanity, but we are now moving beyond the artisan and entering a new era of DIY where sharing with the wider community is key and learning is not the mechanised, formalised process offered by our education system. Rather, it’s an exploration through creativity and play – something many of us will have to re-learn!

Key to this is the rise of open source, open hardware, open data… The world is opening up and the idea of centralised command and control is crumbling. New software, hardware and digital technologies means that anyone with enough interest anywhere can start to turn their idea into reality.

So this year’s TEDxKrakow will be a celebration of making. We’ll be asking our speakers to explore and demonstrate the practice, and to ponder what it takes to make more makers. We’ll be featuring some of Krakow’s makers and encouraging our audience to have a go at making something – anything!

Together we can make Krakow better.