Cinnober, with its innovative Labs-facility, will be one of the organisers behind an upcoming
Makeathon event that begins on January 18.
The two-week Makeathon Challenge will take place in the Swedish university town of Umeå. The Makeathon is arranged together with Sliperiet, an open, interdisciplinary innovation space for collaboration and innovation at Umeå University and Uminova eXpression, the incubator for the culture and creative industry.
The innovative Makeathon concept has attracted considerable international interest in recent years. The basic idea is to mix passionate designers, creators and developers from different fields, and provide an environment, such as the innovation labs in Sliperiet, where they can be optimistic, collaborative and creative. A design competition is held that enables participants to
transform their ideas into functioning prototypes, for the chance to bring the product to market.
The theme for this specific event will be Financial Flows in the Physical Space, and the vision is to explore ideas for how to visualize and communicate the complex information that comes from the global financial markets. The participants will work in teams where they, together with a team leader from Cinnober, will develop ideas and learn about Scrum, a successful agile
project development method which is used internationally. The event culminates in a grand finale, where a jury will designate a winning team.
Alexander Sehlin is responsible for the Makeathon project at Cinnober:
“I’m really looking forward to these intensive weeks and I challenge students to join this exciting event and try their creative skills. Our partners Sliperiet and Uminova eXpression, who recently arranged another successful Makeathon, have great experience in this field. In the long term, we hope this will contribute to a start-up culture in the region and that our flourishing fintech community here continues to expand.”
Marlene Johansson, Director Sliperiet, shares the enthusiasm:
“This Makeathon with Cinnober Labs gives the students from different disciplines the opportunity to explore our digital fabrication labs, FabLab and SoftLab. They can experiment with innovative ideas and prototypes for a market that will go though some disruptive changes in the future.”