The second edition of India's largest maker fest 'Maker Faire Hyderabad' to be held on November 10

In the recent past, the city of pearls, Hyderabad, has become a major attraction for key events. Since the inception of T-Hub, the city has given a boost to many start-ups and has become the nucleus of innovation in India. The city is geared up for the second edition of 'Maker Faire' and it is organised by T-Works, an initiative of the Government of Telangana. T-Works aims to create and celebrate a culture of hobbyists, makers and innovators. The event will be conducted from 9 am to 7 pm on November 10 at HITEX Exhibition Centre, Hyderabad.

"Maker Faire is a gathering of fascinating, curious people who enjoy learning and who love sharing what they can do. From engineers to artists to scientists to crafters, Maker Faire is a venue for these 'makers' to show hobbies, experiments, projects" read their official website.

The second edition of the Maker Faire will feature about 4o+ workshops. Around 80+ exhibitors from schools and colleges. Rural innovators will also be part of the event. A miniature version of T-Works will also be showcased. It will allow soldering and welding and will also have a repair station at the venue.

Anand Rajagopalan, Director, T-Works says, "In this Maker Faire we have a lot of workshops. People can walk in and learn to make drones, soaps and a plethora of other things, which are on display at the event. We have focused on 'makers' and 'making'. And this is across the spectrum... the whole idea is to make the general public getting familiar with physical products. People will eventually learn how to build these products. They will learn to appreciate what it takes to build physical products."

The event will have several panel discussions and over 30 workshops such as IoT (internet of things), pottery, drones, leather craftsmanship, use of scrap, etc and here entrepreneurs and innovators will share their experiences.

"There are three categories of participants. We have 'Makers Exhibit'. Students, entrepreneurs and even corporate will the hardware that they have built...some of them are virtual reality… a few of them some are sculpting, painting, etc.

The second is 'Workshop' – The same people, who have built these physical products want to teach the craft to others. We have arranged workshops at beginner levels for entire Maker Exhibits'

The third category is 'Installations'... 'Installations' is run by a very unique set of people, who don't do a regular job. There work is to take scrap materials or take things that we throw away to build something innovative... and they just do it for the fun of it. So, we call these 'art installations'. Generally, we think of art like paintings, sculpture, etc…but these guys make these installations of physical objects and they introduce technology into it…," he shares.

Anand informs that the overall idea is to bring visibility to the community of 'makers'. "To bring this community together is our goal as T-Works and the other goal is to evangelise making and building physical products to the general public. We give all these makers a platform and when the public walks in will feel that these products are easy to make and they will get inspired and want to take intermediate and expert courses to learn those processes. So, by doing Maker Faire we hit two birds with one stone... one is we give makers a platform to showcase their expertise and sharing their expertise and knowledge with the general public."

"As our goal is to bring the community together it has to be a community-driven event, not just a regular 'event'. We started about eight months ago, where we called for application and today we have a core team of 45 members and we have about 200+ volunteers, who will be coming together to make this event a success," he concludes.