We are happy to announce an upcoming series of events and activities we have been planning to be held this autumn 2021, globally connected in the GOSH community and regionally bringing together some interesting people to collaborate, share, learn, develop in Maribor, Slovenia.
UROŠ - Ubiquitous Rural Open Science Hardware (pronounced: UROScH)
We have already discussed this since end of 2019 and we think it’s the right time to get started. Last week we had the kick-off with our local team in Maribor, and we already have a group of collaborators involved form the GOSH community and the global hackteria network. @nanocastro @TAKE @pin @marymaggic @squaresolid, who will be involved as remote / local residencies to develop further their research interests in different contexts, focusing on the application of Open Science Hardware in the rural context, farming, gardening, fish breeding, wine making and more…
Background of UROŠ
In early 2019 have been invited to collaborate within a national programme of Slovenia, the konS platform, a large network of very interesting initiatives at the interface of art, technology, education and industry, funded through the European Union cohesion programm. The main local collaborator is Miha Horvath, part of a youth and culture center Maribor, with whom i already worked many times over the last decace. Such as the the festival Kiblix - Share is in the Air, an open source technology and art festival we co-directed in 2011.
So our ideas has grown to combine this opportunity to organize a regional GOSH event series, as there are many interesting local initiatives in Slovenia and beyond their borders in Croatia, Italy, Serbia, Austria.
Schedules
We started NOW! Hurray!
NOW: Remote residencies to research and develop projects in different local contexts
Mid August: Local outreach to find more local partners, outreach tour Slovenia
October UROŠ Temporary Autonomous Lab - Local residencies
Spring 2022: UROŠ Gathering (Who wants to join the team?)
Until April 2022: Reflection on process and learning
Call for Collaborators!
We would like to set up an international team now to help organizing and contributing to this regional gathering. Resond to this topic here and join the first call.
Online Call for more info on how / what / why:
Monday, 26 July, 13:00 UTC (thats 15h in most parts of Europe, but every time zone is welcome).
We meet here in Big Blue Button: Digitale Gesellschaft - Hackteria Global Network
Finances
Through the kons platform we already have guaranteed 15k EUR to be freely used for this series of activities, and the smaller transactions will be managed through the Hackteria accounts. Additionally, the local team, Miha Horvath, coordinator, and their administration & PR/design is on other parts of kons internals. A first rough budget was developed and is currently under detailed construction.
We would love to get more support through active participation in the GOSH community and hopefully add more people to be able to travel and join us!
About Maribor (see wikipedia)
It’s a nice mid-sized city with a strong history in technology and engineering, situated in the mostly agricultural and rural eastern part of Slovenia. Part of the industry has been in decay since their independence and the fall of Yugoslavia, which supported the region as a strong technological hub. Also it has a long history in the art&tech field, hosting the International Computer Art Festival and the art, tech and science exhibition KIBLIX, aswell as other initiatives. The local University has very good enginnering and agricultural departments and we already have established collaborations therein. Another local Open Science Hardware business, IRNAS, has been part of earlier GOSH activites, and is a great example of sustainable growth of a small business in the field of open science hardware, with a strong focus in wildlife preservation.
Travel possibilities (restrictions)
We believe it’s the right time again to plan concrete in-person activities with local and regional, international participants, while keeping hybrid participation and partially online activities in place. There is a strong political will, especially for travel within the European Schengen area, to keep borders open, and allow free travel without quarantines for people who have a covid-certificate (vaccination or proven recovery). For other travelling from other parts of the world… we have to see. Slovenia has a bit tendency to close borders arbitrarily.
More info will follow regularly!
Hope to see many of you at the upcoming call, when we will describe our current ideas and are happy for contributions from the whole GOSH community to shape this event!
. Thanks 
