Makerspace outdoor
16:15 - 17:15
English
Workshop
Everyone
Tech for Good
#ASKotec: an emergeny field kit for Access to Skills and Knowledge

Short thesis

#ASKotec; the 'Access to to Skills and Knowledge Open Tech Emergency Case' is a resource kit for community trainers, created for mobile field-use where there is neither easy power nor internet connectivity such as refugee camps, low-infrastructure regions or rural areas. Intended as ‘Open Tech for Good’, #ASKotec was created through a series of hub development workshops by a community of young innovators intent on bringing skills training and peacebuilding together in the effort to end the South Sudan conflict.

Description

Currently being field-tested, both in South Sudan and refugee settlements in Northern Uganda, #ASKotec is designed and being further developed as a multi-functional hands-on resource, tool and repair kit for community trainers to tackle basic education, skills and access to information challenges in such regions. Intended to be presented as an example of how 'Tech for Good' is applied in post-conflict development by local communities, #ASKotec will also be demo’ed at the GIG Makerspace. Here, #ASKotec can be put to action, for example, to show how to build a simple solar charger for mobile phones or test alternative mobile power sources such as Open Source Ecology’s protoype ‘Solar Box’.

#ASKotec is packed in a dust-proof case with basic tools and materials to distribute knowledge, repair other tools and equipment, to learn about basic (open source) IT, solar technology, or up-cycling old material to create new forms of open innovation …anywhere! It contains 40 items incluing basic electronics and connections, soldering and cutting tools, mechanical and measurement tools, learning guides as well as a light Linux computer decked with a package of free and open software.

Youth peace activist John Ajang Bior one of the #ASKotec developers and trainers will join co-creator of the first #peacehackcamp in South Sudan Eva Yayi Mawa and Open Source Ecology Germany’s Timm Wille to discuss the role of skills training in conflict situations, getting feedback from experienced field-trainers, open tech and hardware advocates, development specialists and the GIG community.