This is a space for us all to learn more about each other before the event, and to find each other afterwards.
I’ll introduce myself to get the ball rolling -
My name is Greg Austic and I’m an open technology advocate. I am a member/owner of Our Sci, a US-based company which supports communities who want to answer hard research questions. We mostly build software to help large groups collect, share, and analyze data, and hardware (example) to collect high quality scientific measurements in the field and in labs. I’m also a GOSH cofounder, and am so so excited about the community and the vision. I’m really excited to collaborate on other people’s projects, find ways to lower costs and improve our shared resources, learn new stuff, and most importantly meet awesome people.
My name is Thomas Hervé Mboa Nkoudou. I am the co-founder of the MboaLab in Cameroon. The Mboalab aims to provide a better life to local populations through Openness, DIY, Hacking, Making, and digital technology. I am also the AfricaOSH cofounder, a sister event of the Great Lake GOSH. I cannot wait to share experience, collaborate and meet old and new friends.
Hello everybody, I am Leandro Mastrantonio, from Mendoza, Argentina. I teach GIS and research about natural resources in the National University of Cuyo. Also I am cofounder of Open Technologies Lab in the Agrarian Science Faculty. We are learning and working about several projects of open science. Also we collaborate with farmers in soil chromatography. I am very excited to stay in Great Lakes GOSH!
Hi, I’m Matt Rogge from Seattle, Washington. I’m the technical director for Techfortrade, an NGO working in Kenya. Our work focuses on 3D printing in low resource settings. We have been developing low cost open source equipment for recycling PET bottles into 3D printer filament which we use to produce digital microscopes for schools. I’m excited to meet the group, find new collaborations and learn. This will be my first GOSH event.
Greetings!
I’m Mike Dryden. I’m a postdoc in chemistry at the University of Toronto. I am the developer of the DStat open source potentiostat and my interests lie mainly in electronics and optics related to instrumentation. This is my first GOSH event and I’m looking forward to sharing my expertise and learning from everyone else.
Hi everyone! My name is Adam W. Smith, and I am chemistry professor at the University of Akron in Ohio. My research interests include the development of open source smartphone spectrometers for analytical chemistry applications. I am excited to meet others interested in open source hardware and citizen science projects especially with respect to environmental sensing. Below are a few links to projects I’m involved in. http://www.erieopen.tech
I am Fabio. My interest is to see how we can put in commons our experiences to address challenges such as poverty, access to education and water.
As an example, my colleagues at Breathing Games develop an open source device that transforms the breath into data, among others to self-assess one’s lung capacity. Did you know that 91% of the population breathe polluted air?
Now, could we enhance this device - adding GIS (@leandro.mastrantonio), chemical sensors (@asmithw@Danielle.Rose), testing it with DStat (@mkdryden) and PET filament (@MattR) in Cameroon (@thomasmboa) - to encourage communities to take care of their respiratory health, and map the air quality in their region?
I feel that kind of projects could help us build belonging, and inspire people across the world to join OSH.
Hi, I’m Francis Esmonde-White, from Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States.
I am an analytical spectroscopist, and have developed spectroscopic instrumentation in both academia (mostly biomedical) and private industry (petrochemical, medical, pharmaceutical). I also have a good bit of experience with calibrations.
Hi all! My name is Shah Selbe and I am the founder of Conservify, a nonprofit technology development lab in Los Angeles focused on building open source conservation technologies with universities and NGOs. I am also a Fellow at the National Geographic Society focused on conservation tech. I am excited to join, since I have been meaning to get to a GOSH for the last few years but missed out because of life things (having a baby and dealing with grant issues). So excited to meet you all!
I plan on bringing some of our FieldKit environmental monitoring hardware that we have been building along side NatGeo, Moore Foundation, WCS, UCLA, and others.
I’m Ting and I currently live in Singapore where I work as a postdoc at the Genome Institute of Singapore. Our lab focuses on synthetic biology for therapeutics and I mostly work on single cell characterisation. I am interested to learn the process of creating new hardware for science, particularly repurposing of expensive lab equipment and giving things a second life!
In my spare time, I like to make things (sew clothes, woodwork, leatherwork), and I would also be interested to collaborate with anyone who can incorporate some of these skills with electronics for IOT, therapeutic monitoring etc!
Looking forward to meeting you all!
(P.S. I’m planning to come a couple days early as I’ve never visited Canada. If anyone would like to explore Toronto/ go to Niagara falls, hit me up!)
I’m Chris and I love working on projects which combine hardware, software, and chemistry/physics.
A few noteable projects I have worked on in the past:
-Oxygen separation from air for COPD patients
-Building a control electronics for drones, with the purpose of dropping soil probes.
And for inspiration, some ideas I play with in the back of my mind:
-Building a categorization system for research papers and tracking scientific research in the form of a “tech tree” similar to what you see in video games.
-Laboratory Electronic Notebook with voice assistance (allows e-notes without contamination from gloves)
-Also planning on taking a look at some of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Science Data available online, to see if clues about potential underground mineral deposits could be determined from orbital perturbations, radar, and spectra.
Hi, I’m Shannon Hicks. I’m the co-founder of EnviroDIY, and inventor of the Mayfly Data Logger, an Arduino-based hardware platform. I work at the Stroud Water Research Center as a research engineer, and we’ve deployed more than 250 Mayfly loggers in our multi-state research area, mostly measuring water quality using a variety of sensors. I’ve also traveled around the country giving workshops on how to assemble, program, deploy, and maintain environmental monitoring stations. I attended GOSH 2017 in Santiago, and I’m looking forward to seeing everyone in Toronto!
Hi Everyone! I’m Bronwen Densmore. This is my first time to GOSH, so I’m excited to connect with everyone. I work with Public Lab, and I’ll be bringing a bunch of microscopes, some air sensors, IR cameras, some sampling tools, a kite or two-- I grew up around the corner from Toronto, in Buffalo NY, so I’m very fond of Lake Erie and am eager to hear about monitoring work in the Great Lakes. My background includes a mix of design/education/library-info science/makerspaces/prototping, and I’m looking forward to learning a lot more about the tools and projects that folks will be bringing.
Hi folks, my name is Alesandros Glaros and I am a PhD student at the University of Guelph. I am studying the political economy of agricultural technologies, with a specific focus on alternative technology ownership, usage and adaptation strategies used by farmers. I’m also currently working with the Open Food Network-Canada to determine if/how small-scale farmers are using digital technologies. I’m really excited to see all the interesting projects everyone is working on! This is my first GOSH event.
Hi Bronwen, I’m Leandro Mastrantonio, Professor from UNCuyo (Mendoza, Argentina). I teach about GIS, and I would like one of the IR cameras for a drone we are doing… so bring one for me please. I’m very interested in your kits for education too.
I’m in this right moment working with @gbathree in OurSci in Ann Arbor, so see you next week!
Hi I am Chris Armstrong, a researcher at the University of Ottawa and Wits University in Johannesburg, and a member of the Open African Innovation Research (Open AIR) network, http://openair.africa. I am currently researching the dynamics of maker communities in both Canada and S. Africa. I attended AfricaOSH in Kumasi, Ghana, in 2018, and am really looking forward to the GL GOSH!
My name is Angela Eaton, I’m based in San Francisco and working on Safecast, an open data platform that supports community scientists in their efforts to collect and share air quality and radiation measurements. I’m really excited to see what others are doing on this list. I’ll be bringing a bgeigie for mobile radiation measurements and lots of enthusiasm for your projects. I need some platform assistance for the software developers out there and will be interested in talking data visualization as well. Looking forward to meeting in person on Wednesday!
Hello! I’m Alison Parker. It’s my first time to GOSH, and really looking forward to meeting you all! I’m here to learn more about open hardware and look for opportunities for citizen science and open hardware communities to work together, especially in environmental sensing. I’m coming from a think tank in Washington DC, and also interested in talking with you all and exploring ideas for how policy can support open hardware and how open hardware and the values of this community can improve policy and government. Also really excited to be in Toronto again, because I used to live here! See you all tomorrow!
Hi everyone, I’m Ryan Fobel and I am one of the co-organizers of Great Lakes GOSH. I first got involved with open hardware during my PhD studies at U Toronto where I developed a microfluidic lab robot called DropBot, a general-purpose, programmable platform for automating and miniaturizing applications in biology and chemistry. I co-founded Sci-Bots to make this technology more powerful, easier to use, and accessible to more people.
I feel so grateful to be part of this incredible GOSH community! Looking forward to reconnecting with old friends, meeting new ones, and finding ways to work together and support each other more effectively. Would love to see a strong and thriving open hardware community in the region.
