Everywhere in the world, ingenious inventors are innovating with the means at hand and inventing solutions that can be useful to millions of people, to respond to vital, economic or environmental issues! These solutions are what we call low-tech and they deserve to be shared. So let yourself be embarked in this universe with, on the program, a mini-conference by members of the Low-tech Lab – an associative project created to document and disseminate all this knowledge – followed by several workshops (registration on site: first come, first served) led by volunteers and residents of the Cité internationale where you will have the opportunity to make your own low-tech! Take advantage of this opportunity to drop by the “Bazar de la Cité” to donate or pick up items free of charge.
Program
6:30pm : presentation of Low-tech Labs
7pm : beginning of the workshops
- Insulating skirts for pots or teapots (reserved for 15 people – remember to bring your own pot/teapot)
- Plastic wire cutter (creation of 5 cutters from which the public will then be able to create multi-purpose plastic wire)
- Flying Bike Workshop and Demonstration
7:30pm : opening of Cité Souk’s bazar to donate or pick up objects for free.
Sign-up for the workshops will take place at 5:45pl. The presentation of Low-tech Labs and observation of the workshops are open to all.
The 5th edition of the University of Peace will take place at the Cité internationale universitaire de Paris from 8 to 13 April 2019. It will focus on the climate emergency and the actions that must be taken today to fight against climate change and implement unprecedented transitions in all aspects of society. For 6 days, it will be an opportunity for students and researchers of 150 nationalities living on campus and the general public to debate and confront their points of view with the help of researchers, academics and high-ranking personalities.
How can we bring about a radical change in our lifestyles? How can we restore a balance that is seriously compromised today and guarantee access to natural resources for future generations? How can we change our consumption patterns in order to preserve ecosystems and reduce waste? These are the challenges of this 5th University of Peace organized by 14 houses of the Cité internationale universitaire de Paris.
Discover Low-tech Labs
The Low-tech Labs is a collaborative research and documentation project aimed at disseminating and promoting low-technologies. The program aims to enable local and effective low-tech solutions to spread widely in order to meet the Sustainable Development Goals identified by the United Nations. This program is aimed at all persons or structures wishing to contribute to low-tech innovation or to benefit from its discoveries.
A collaborative approach: In order to encourage the exchange of skills, know-how and experience, the Low-tech Lab works in a collaborative way. This approach aims to decompartmentalize the actors of innovation while promoting the ingenuity developed by the populations.
A logic of subsidiarity: Innovation must respond to concrete problems. The Low-tech Lab therefore encourages the creation of local communities so that the solutions developed are as close as possible to the contexts and needs of each person.
An open-source sharing: Because common intelligence must come back to the common, the Low-tech Lab shares the solutions of its community through open-source documentation. Open-source makes solutions accessible to the greatest number of people while encouraging incremental innovation.
The Speakers
Quentin Mateus, a design engineer who joined the association in 2016, is now in charge of the Low-tech Lab’s Agami project. He is particularly interested in the issues of materials and low-tech mobility, as well as the conditions for scaling up these solutions!
Trained as an engineer at the Arts et Métiers, deformed in an artistic life, Nicolas Kaplan is co-founder of the Low-tech Lab Marseille in 2018. Low-tech is for him a likely way to return to a human scale intelligently.
Passionate about frugal innovation, Loraine Barra has been a Low-tech Lab volunteer since 2016 and currently participates in the development of the Parisian community.
The Velo Volant, represented by Julian Leonhard and Pierre Laville, both residents and volunteers at the CiuP, is a participatory bicycle workshop, which allows the residents of the Cité to repair their bikes in a joyful and cheerful atmosphere.
Cité Souk, represented by Julian Leonhard and Léa Asmar, both residents and volunteers at the CiuP, is at the origin of the project “Le Bazar de la Ciup”, whose objective is to “give a second life to objects while helping new residents to get quickly equipped” by allowing them to give and recover objects for free.