Maker Faire Shenzhen 2024: The True Maker Festival

Introduction to the event

On November 16 and 17th, Chaihuo Maker Space in association with Seeed Studio and Make: organized the Maker Faire Shenzhen 2024, which was held at the Vanke Cloud Design Commune in Nanshan, Shenzhen, China. The event's theme was “Enchant Everything with AI," which consisted of a Maker Forum, Tech Application Exhibition, Innovation Workshops, Satellite Events and other sections. Maker Faire Shenzhen 2024 gathered 120+ exhibitors from China and several other countries and attracted professional visitors from nearly 20 countries and more than 20 provinces in China.

Maker Forum: All about how makers can build AI

This section consisted of experts, scholars, entrepreneurs and makers in the field of AI to discuss the latest development trends of AI, share their innovative stories and successful experiences, inspire more people to join the wave of AI innovation and promote the popularity and application of AI across various use-cases. This was a full-day event and consisted of 20+ speakers across the globe delivering such inspiring and insightful talks!

In the “The AI-driven Maker Era” session, the forum featured six important guests, including Eric Migicovsky, Founder of Pebble watch, Beeper; Eric Pan, Founder of Chaihuo Maker Space, Founder of Seeed; Derek Qian, Marketing Director of Arm China; Sharron Liu, Robotics Solution Architect of NVIDIA; Taotao Zhang, Head of Project Center of Innox Shenzhen; and CX Strategist of Omi.me, Arseniy Sergeyev, experts, business leaders, technology leaders and professional makers in the field of AI came together to focus on the current cutting-edge advances, development trends and application scenarios of AI technology. From the perspectives of “AI+Hardware/Software, Marketing Trends, Technological Advancement," they addressed how AI can become a powerful driving force for the makers' movement to realize the future value and promote the innovation and sustainable development of various industries.

Pan and Migicovsky discussed on the topic of “Do Not Build an AI Startup." They touched upon the opportunities and development of Shenzhen, analyzed how its changes are attracting makers back, talked about the path of startups and hardware innovation, survival and breakthrough strategies under the pressure of limited resources and giant competition, discussed the future value of AI + hardware, and how to define a good AI product.

In the “AI for Science” session, the organizer of Chaihuo Maker Space, together with the Light Cone Frontier Science and Technology Fund initiated by Guokr Future Light Cone, invited scholars and industry pioneers in the field of cutting-edge science: Jianxi Luo, Professor of Systems Engineering at the City University of Hong Kong; Max Yin, Assistant Professor at the City University of Hong Kong; Boxiang Wang, Co-Founder and CTO of Link-Spider; Henri PANG, Greater China Region Strategic Representative at Kickstarter PBC; You Chen, Founder of Guangzhou Eacinbio Co., Ltd.; Chen Xiong – Associate Professor, Deputy Dean of the Department of Civil Engineering, School of Civil and Transportation Engineering at Shenzhen University; Jianjun Zhuang, Professor at Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Director of Engineering Training Center. They discussed the latest cutting-edge advances in the fusion of AI and cross-disciplinary and the core challenges, in-depth exploration of “AI + Science."

In the “AI for Good” session, the guests were mostly practitioners from international organizations, environmental protection, scientific research and other fields. They shared the great potential and role of AI in promoting sustainable development and discussed how to responsibly use AI to realize the deep integration of science and technology innovation and social values and promote the construction of an inclusive, fair, and prosperous society.

In the “Cyber ​​Farm” session, speakers showed how technologies such as IoT and AI are enhancing productivity and creating new opportunities in rural areas. Through this platform, the guests shared how they utilize digital technology to empower the countryside, improve the efficiency of agricultural production, and bring unprecedented development opportunities to the countryside. Meanwhile, the forum also invited experts and scholars in the field of agricultural science and representatives of the media to conduct in-depth exchanges and sharing of the latest developments, challenges and practical experiences of the digital countryside, to work together for the prosperous development of digital agriculture.

Tech Application Expo: Showcasing the latest and greatest technology products and innovation projects from across the globe

With the theme of “Enchant Everything with AI," Maker Faire Shenzhen 2024 witnessed a load of AI-enabled products and hardware prototypes. There were 120+ exhibitors from 20+ countries who were selected to showcase their projects and products in this event of which 30% consisted of AI hardware projects. According to the organizers, in the two-day exhibition, this year's technology applications showed projects, programs, and products served by the industry, mainly focusing on AI, robotics, intelligent manufacturing, science and technology education, entertainment, smart city and smart agriculture.

Many familiar industry pioneers also appeared at Maker Faire Shenzhen to exhibit, such as NVIDIA, Raspberry Pi, Seeed Studio, Ultralytics, Makeblock, and other well-known companies. In this era of rapid development, colleges and universities bring together excellent research talents and resources to promote the breakthrough and application of key technologies. This year's summit also converged 18 colleges and universities from all over the country, including Shenzhen City Vocational College, Shenzhen Vocational and Technical University, Shenzhen University, Southwest Jiaotong University, North Central University, Xijiaotong Liverpool University, Nanfang University of Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, and many other colleges and universities.

There is also a video demonstration of many of these exhibits available by Make:, feel free to take a look!

Innovation Workshops: Empowering makers with hands-on learning

This year, MFSZ24, in collaboration with industry innovation partners and exhibitor partners, organized 21 thematic hands-on workshops. They were mainly divided into “Industrial Innovation Workshop” and “Interactive Experience Workshop."

The Industrial Innovation Workshops were organized by Kittenbot, Chaihuo Maker Space, Seeed, DIGUA Robotics, Arm China, and ABeam, where participants were led by professional instructors to experience the sense of achievement of getting started with hard technologies and contemplate the possibilities of applying the technologies to real-life scenarios at the same time. This year's summit featured a total of five industrial innovation workshops, including the SiRider S1 Development Board Evaluation Workshop, Arduino Miniaturization, and tinyML Application Workshop, RDK X5 Development Workshop for DIGUA Robotics, AI Model Creation Workshop, Advanced Perception System Workshop, and Digital DX Workshop.

The AI Modeling Workshop showcased how to seamlessly integrate AI technology with hardware through Silicon Power's SenseCraft AI platform without needing to have an AI background. The Interactive Experience Workshop, on the other hand, was jointly organized by the organizing committee and several exhibitors and teams, focusing on interactivity and entertainment, and was committed to providing an opportunity to experience the charm of science and technology up close and personal!

Co-located and satellite Events

This year Maker Faire Shenzhen also witnessed three satellite events namely NVIDIA Tutorial, Maker Flash Talk, and Maker Tea House. All three events were centred on the relationship between AI and makers, where AI provides makers with more automation tools and open resources, enabling them to focus on creativity, explore new possibilities, and drive the birth of more efficient and personalized products and solutions.

Conclusion

Maker Faire Shenzhen 2024 was a blast for everyone. From such great exhibits to new products showcased by various companies, it was all in all a great event for all makers inside us!

I was grateful to showcase my OraCAN project at Maker Faire Shenzhen this year.

Lastly special thanks to the organizing crew and all the supporting companies and their staff for giving us such fond memories.