Youngster sets up a platform for creators and innovators

A few years ago, when Jaya Shakthi Kannan wanted to learn budding technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), he faced some practical difficulties. He couldn’t find any learning centres in the city with experimental setup and experts from that particular field to guide him. While doing a market research about sustainable education, he realised that Chennai lacked a makerspace. This led him to launch Makers Tribe — a multi-dimensional community-based organisation that encourages and supports budding makers, creators and innovators.  It’s the first and only makerspace in Chennai.

“In general, there is a wide-spread acceptance of makerspace in developed countries, but in India, this is yet to gain attention. When I started Makers Tribe, my aim was to provide an avenue for like-minded people by providing them with a shared workspace to co-create innovative products. This platform provides an ample amount of creative opportunities and exposure in various spectrums of technical and non-technical skill sets. We could also recognise and applaud the makers, who are ready to explore new possibilities,” shares Shakthi.Makers Tribe that is located on OMR is not just bounded to tech, it’s beyond that. People from various fields and age groups can come together to share resources and knowledge, work on projects, network and build.

The various classes/workshops provided by Makers Tribe are IoT Labs, co-working space and prototyping.

“We also organise workshops and certification programs for adults and children. This emphasises the makers that they are on the right track, by uprising their skills towards a global perspective arousing intellectual curiosity. Every day there will be some events conducted at Makers Tribe on different domains like technical and non-technical. The major technical workshops that we handle are IoT, machine learning, drone, ottobot, and 3D printing. Some of the non-technical events are woodcraft, thread lamp, first aid, musical jam, personal storytelling and Tamil mandram,” he explains.

The team’s goal is to educate people on trending technologies and to share the experience of making innovations possible. “There are many talented people among us, who are finding it hard to develop their ideas and materialise them. In the coming years, we hope to create a community of makers, who can use our makerspace to do constructive things along with people across various backgrounds,” sums up the youngster.