The 2024 Summit Fellowship Wrap-Up

The Open Hardware Summit Fellowship was founded as the Ada Lovelace Fellowship in 2013 by Summit Chair Addie Wagenknecht and OSHWA Director Alicia Seidle as a way to encourage marginalized people in open technology to actively participate and foster a more diverse community within open source. Thanks to Avnet Cares support in 2024, we were able to continue our Summit fellowship to advance STEM and DEI initiatives in open source hardware. In the 2024 cycle we were able to provide support and mentorship opportunities for 10 fellows from around the world.

OSHWA launched the call for fellows in February of 2024, with the main fellow event being the Open Hardware Summit held in May. Throughout the rest of the year, fellows got to interact with mentors, and had opportunities to speak on OSHWA’s platforms. We were fortunate to have fellows with extremely diverse skill sets and knowledge for 2024, many of whom were able to speak or run workshops during various OSHWA events.

Kari Love presented as part of the vape recycling crew discussing ways we can reuse electric vapes.

Giulia Tomasello presented an OltrePelle workshop that sold out twice.

Bri Johnson and Juan Pedro Maestre Wic facilitated an unconference session centered on how communities are connecting across the globe to create open science initiatives.

Alyshia Bustos ran an interactive mural workshop that resulted in a beautiful mini mural designed by attendees.

We tapped some of these fellows again during our Open Hardware Month 24-hour live stream in October to discuss their work and ways they’ve been able to engage with open source hardware since the Summit.

In the 2024 cycle we were able to provide support and mentorship opportunities for ten fellows from around the world. Fellows were makers and creators in various STEM fields, from robotics to wearables, encompassing varying ages and skill levels, but all either contributing to or benefiting from open source hardware. All ten fellows were able to receive professional development funding on top of travel funding to the Open Hardware Summit due to the Avnet Cares grant.

Throughout 2024 we had ten mentors speak with the fellows on how open source hardware has influenced their work during weekly mentor talks online. Mentors gave career advice, manufacturing and intellectual property tips, or general open hardware knowledge. Fellows were engaged with questions during the meet ups, and reached out with follow up questions to mentors after their talks. We had two online fellow socials to create connection points for fellows and learn about one another. There were some wonderful collaborations born from these exchanges that are still continuing.

We are extremely thankful to AVNET Cares for for the grant award of $5,000 for the Open Hardware Summit Fellowship, matching the $5,000 raised through the Super Attendee ticket level.