Overview of the EU H2020 DiDIY project, and presentation of some PRELIMINARY data about gender issues and barriers in Digital DIY

1. Digital DIY:
It can change society, but how much space is it
leaving to women?
Yes, WE Stem
March 8th, 2016
by Marco Fioretti

2. CC BY-SA
Marco Fioretti
marco@freeknowledge.eu
What is DiDIY (Digital DIY)?
● A phenomenon:
– Driven and enabled by technology
– But above all a social and cultural one
– 3D printing and Makers are its most popular
faces, but maybe not the most important
ones

3. CC BY-SA
Marco Fioretti
marco@freeknowledge.eu
The DiDIY project (www.didiy.eu)
● International, interdisciplinary project
● Funded by the European Union Horizon 2020 programme
● Objectives:
– Study nature and long term (social, economics, ethical,
cultural, legal...) impacts of DiDIY in order to...
– Produce guidelines for educators and law/policy makers

4. CC BY-SA
Marco Fioretti
marco@freeknowledge.eu
Smart cities...
Industry 4.0...
Internet of Things...
Startups...
«Digital Revolution» or... «First World Problems»?

5. CC BY-SA
Marco Fioretti
marco@freeknowledge.eu
What happens when digital fabrication...
… becomes really DIY, really for EVERYBODY?
(source: snapshot from Google image search)

6. CC BY-SA
Marco Fioretti
marco@freeknowledge.eu
A long time ago, in a
galaxy far far away...
Today:
Micro vegetable gardens,
controlled with Arduino
(source: snapshot of Google image search)
(source: snapshot of Google image search)

7. CC BY-SA
Marco Fioretti
marco@freeknowledge.eu
What happens when everybody can manufacture by him
or herself:
● Toys... to run their
kindergarten business
● Chairs... for their
restaurant
● Brakes... for their car
● Medical instruments...
to visit their patients
(source: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:865593/#files

8. CC BY-SA
Marco Fioretti
marco@freeknowledge.eu
● redefines what is right and
wrong
● destroys «intellectual
property»
●
destroys jobs
● increases pollution (a 3D
printer in every home? No thanks!)
● can create new barriers!
DiDIY is bad!
● less Pollution:
– spare parts for everything,
for everybody
– on demand production
● may create less jobs, but
more resilient ones
● brings new life also to LOW-
TECH sectors
DiDIY is good!

9. CC BY-SA
Marco Fioretti
marco@freeknowledge.eu
Women and DiDIY: some data
Instructables:
~210K users,
but women are
barely half than
men

10. CC BY-SA
Marco Fioretti
marco@freeknowledge.eu
Distribution by age

11. CC BY-SA
Marco Fioretti
marco@freeknowledge.eu
New female/male users per year

12. CC BY-SA
Marco Fioretti
marco@freeknowledge.eu
Activity levels (number of uploaded projects)

13. CC BY-SA
Marco Fioretti
marco@freeknowledge.eu
Technological vs non-technological projects
«The scatter plot of number of female users who uploaded technological (X) and non-technological (Y)
projects. With respect to the previous it shows a relatively smaller number of tech project vs non-tech
ones.»

14. CC BY-SA
Marco Fioretti
marco@freeknowledge.eu
Thanks and... an invitation:
● What do you think?
● What are your experiences?
● Let's talk about women and DiDIY
● See you on:
– Www.didiy.eu
– Twitter: @digital_DIY
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant
agreement No 644344. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this website do not necessarily reflect the views of the EC.