What’s it about

Industry meets Makers is an open innovation community building and matchmaking format that essentially involves top industrial companies posting challenges – so-called "briefings" – in future tech areas such as IoT, robotics, AI, blockchain, 3D printing and the like, and inviting makers – freelance developers, hobbyists, pupils, students, SMEs or start-ups – to solve them together with them as part of an approximately 4-month process. The aim is that, ideally, a business deal will be created afterwards to the benefit of both sides. This can be realised, for example, in the form of job and contract awards, start-ups, participations, joint market launches, sales/marketing/production cooperations and the like.

The current plan

in 3 stages

Each year, the individual rounds are prepared in the form of preceding industry and network partner meetings, started with a kick-off event in spring at which the briefing partners present their new topics, and concluded with a "Best of Industry meets Makers" event at the Digital Days in autumn, at which industry and makers jointly present what they have achieved together in the preceding months.

During the term, 1:1 meetings and small group meetings are organised where industry and makers can jointly develop new collaborations, business models, concepts and prototypes, a wide variety of activities are set at partner events (Maker Faires, industry events, 4Gamechangers Festival, etc.) and own special event formats are organised, such as expert talk evenings, speed dating trains, hackathons, beach camps, bar camps or FutureTech boot camps, through which the community is continuously built up and activated.

It is quite conceivable that we will transform Industry meets Makers into a continuous programme in the medium term, in which new topics can be added at any time. We assume that this will become realistic as soon as we introduce our own online community platform, which will most likely be the case in the course of 2021.

An overview of most of the activities we have organised to date can be found on the individual annual programme pages: Programme 2016, Programme 2017, Programme 2018, Programme 2019 and Programme 2020.

The briefing topics

We are looking for

The main topics include

Some examples from the past

To date, the specific agenda has included calls for tenders for drones, e-vehicles, smart accessories, IoT, Big Data and Industry 4. 0 applications with IoT kits and IoT platforms, smart city apps and products, 3D modelling and 3D printing, a smart electronic factory of the future concept, monitoring driverless transport systems, new aquaponics solutions, solar power island prototypes, in-car games, and blockchain applications for the smart city, industry and energy sectors, digital solutions for apartment buildings and the future of work, connected vehicles, Building 4. 0, zero emission cars, upcycling and second use in the rail and automative industry, innovative logistics optimisation concepts, lighting and autonomous driving, traceability, smart parking, safety solutions for rail, new products that rely on radar technology, tools for Covid 19 prevention and decentralised self-organisation in the event of a blackout, the visualisation of location data with the help of VR and gamification, solutions for the energy self-sufficient factory, etc.

All briefings that have ever existed in the past are still available online: Briefings 2016, briefings 2017, briefings 2018, briefings 2019 and briefings 2020.

The advantages for the participants

The results

Our experience so far

In the past years, countless results have already been achieved - both in direct connection with the briefing topics themselves and outside of them, because the participants get to know each other better in the environment of the events and come up with further ideas together through the relaxed exchange. The spectrum ranged from new projects, concepts, strategies, prototypes and models to commissions and appointments to development, sales and production cooperations.

Some examples from the past

Selected highlights include, for example the equipping of the entire Magenta roof terrace with more than 20 smart raised beds and herb tables, which can now be managed on a rolling basis by the company's employees, the smart management of mushroom growing containers using LoRa-Wan technology in combination with an app, smart water treatment plants rolled out in Africa, the eventFant, an event badge that uses vibrations and light effects, helps to maintain the recommended safety distance in times of the Covid 19 pandemic, a self-help base prototype that helps citizens make emergency calls to the municipality or other important agencies in the event of a complete power outage, radar solutions that help visually impaired people find their way around via glasses and shoes or enable optimised railway management through precise speed measurement, a smart glasses prototype that detects pollutants in the air, a pool sensor prototype that sounds the alarm when a child falls into the water, a meta search engine for components, a digital tool that optimises a producer's order management, an eLongboard prototype that went so fast that it had to be massively throttled back for real-world use, 10 to 11 drone projects, with a wide range of functions, a sophisticated virtual eFactory model that could be walked through with cybershoes at the final presentation, a prototype cistern for recycling rainwater, and an IoT-based data collection and analysis system that aims to drive a factory's energy self-sufficiency project forward, to name just a few examples.

We try to document the results directly related to the tendered briefings as well as possible at the end of each six-month period. An overview can be found on the results summaries of the different years: Results 2016, results 2017, results 2018, results 2019 and results 2020.

The Community

The following are invited to participate

Briefing partners

Top companies, SMEs, research institutes, organisations and public bodies that stand out as drivers, pioneers and thought leaders in the field of development, production or innovative application of products and solutions in the IMM focus topics and are interested in new forms of collaboration with the creative "maker scene" as well as in a joint discussion and initiation of a media discourse on exciting issues related to these topics.

The briefing partners who have participated in the first 5 years include companies such as ABB, AIT, AVL List, Bosch, Commend, Copa Data, Fronius, Greiner, IFE Doors, Infineon, Ikarus Security, Magenta, Magna Steyr, Microtronics, Nokia, ÖBB, Polycular, the Austrian Post, Salzburg Research, TELE Haase, Thales Austria, T-Systems, Wacker Neuson, Wien Energie, Worthington Industries, ZKW Group, the Gesellschaft für Krisenvorsorge and Business Upper Austria.

Some of them have already participated in Industry meets Makers for several years in a row and some have also jointly announced topics in between. For example, there have already been briefing cooperations between a large corporation, such as ABB, and medium-sized companies, such as TELE Haase and Copa Data, or also cooperations between two large companies, such as Magenta and Magna Steyr or Infineon and Thales, who got to know each other better through the format. 

Makers

Every person (private individuals of all ages, EPUs, hobbyists, students, pupils etc.) as well as every small team of freelance developers up to start-ups and established SMEs who are intensively involved in the development of products, prototypes, business ideas, problem solutions and new applications around the IMM focus topics.

To date, the participating creators include start-ups and small companies such as Tributech, nymea, Twingz, Use Data To Lead, BEST Bioenergy and Sustainable Technologies, Tec Innovation, THISPLAY, Crowd Strudel, FutureBuilt and Bloomblisser, students from universities and colleges such as TU Wien, UAS St. Pölten, UAS Campus Wien, UAS Technikum Wien, etc., who work as individuals, in small teams or with an entire degree programme, individualists who work as EPUs and whose field of activity fits the briefing focus, e.g. Clemens Mayer (Mayer Makes) or hobbyists who like to work on new solutions in their spare time, like Ferdinand Rubel (Underground Maker), but also companies with more than 100 employees, like a Signon Group (now Evolit), or research institutes, like the Research Studio, have already contributed to the process as solution developers. 

Some of the participants work on their own to find solutions, others form interdisciplinary teams in the course of the process. We have had groups of about 2 to 30 people on board who had never met before, but who have worked together on solutions for months within the framework of IMM, as well as individuals, start-ups or small companies who may have preferred to design a new model separately. 

Other stakeholders

The two main target groups of the format are surrounded by a growing community of many other stakeholders who contribute significantly to the success of the format. These include experts, maker trainers, accelerators, incubators, location, equipment and tool providers, producers, multipliers, networks, media and event partners, educational and research institutions, regional partners as well as cities, municipalities and public authorities.

Here you can find an overview of all the partners who are part of our network.

Would you like to be part of Industry meets Makers? Click here to register!