Toronto is a city full of makers.
Toronto Mini Maker Faire, an annual celebration of the city’s maker culture that is hosted at the Toronto Reference Library, is relaunching as the Maker Festival. As per usual, this year’s festival will still conclude in a two-day extravaganza during the August long weekend at the city’s biggest library, but, to spice things up, there will also be additional events held in the week leading up to the festival grand finale.
According to Ceda Verbakel, the festival’s creative director, last year’s Maker Faire attracted 10,000 people, making it the biggest maker event in Canada.
"An event on the scale of Maker Festival puts Toronto on the map as a city full of innovative technology and creative ingenuity," said Linda Mackenzie, the director of research and reference libraries at the Toronto Public Library, in an email interview. "As the Library—along with our peers in the education, government, and creative sectors—continues to re-imagine our spaces, programs, and services for the 21st century, hosting an event like Maker Festival underscores the Library's role in fostering digital literacy and creativity by bringing makers and learners together as excited and active participants in innovation."
Her colleague Eric Boyd, the Maker Festival’s programming director, added, "You might not know it, but Toronto's tech community is bursting at the seams—there are makerspaces, coding schools and start up incubators popping up across the city, and most nights of the week you can attend a meetup to talk to thought leaders in web development, wearables, Android apps, or the Internet of Things, to name a few."
The festival hasn’t announced specific programming yet, but it has said that it is currently looking for submissions. Those that are interested in taking part can
apply here.
In the interest of full disclosure, Elena Yunusov, the Maker Festival’s Operations Director, is a contributor to Yonge Street Media.