Tomorrowland: A View from the Future
Smt. Shantaben Haribhai Gajera Trust, based in Surat, in collaboration with Sunita’s Makerspace, organized an open-for-the community online competition to celebrate Maker’s Day, an event that is held every year to encourage learners to give expression to their creative ideas.
An open-for-the community online competition on the theme “Tomorrowland” to celebrate Maker’s Day in which participants presented their imagined world of the future in the form of posters, poems, videos and PowerPoint presentations. The event is held every year to celebrate the spirit of innovation among all the schools run by the Trust. This year, it was held online because of the pandemic and was open to the general public also.
The world as we know of today, is so drastically different that a person who lived in the 1920s would feel like she has stepped into the sets of a sci-fi movie with people glued to their screens ordering food via gadgets, sending money through space and people getting ready for inter-galactic travel.
Someone must have imagined sending money thorough space; of finding information before one could say ‘information’; of not going to the bank to withdraw cash; of travelling to the mars or for that matter, the moon. The seed of all the gadgets was definitely laid in someone’s fertile mind. And this seed ultimately took fruition as the hi-tech equipment we use today.
Posters, poems, and PowerPoint presentation took flight when participants projected their imagined world of the future on them. About 12000 future planners, architects, and dreamers put their heads together in the mega event held virtually. Sunita’s Makerspace bustled with participants uploading their creatives onto the Makerspace website. The pandemic made the event virtual, but the minds of thinkers were fully alive.
Participants started uploading their works on 12th October and ended on 20th October 2020, after which judges, mentors and other makers started evaluating them through likes and online votes. To keep the competition as competitive as possible, likes received from the general public were given equal weightage as judges’ votes. It was a full-fledged reality show where much was at stake—the worth of the ideas was open for judgement in the community, in the real world. The voting continued until 29th October 2020 after which the promising ideas were awarded while the others received the certificates of participation.
The winners were appreciated by inviting them to collect their Certificates and the gifts which they deserved after sharing their creative and innovative projects and ideas. On 6th November 2020 the prize distribution competition was held to congratulate all the makers.
Sunita’s Makerspace hopes that events like this will give our learners the necessary launch pad for ideas that look crazy today, but a reality tomorrow.