The Digital Makerspace (DMS) is an open online project platform where entrepreneurship, conservation, and technology communities come together to collaborate on solutions to end human-induced extinction.
The Digital Makerspace in use at Zoohackathon 2018.
The DMS is a collaboration space and project pipeline where ideas for tech-enabled solutions to conservation problems can be born, tested, and developed. We believe that open innovation, collaboration across disciplines, and community engagement are key to generating world-changing ideas, and that many minds working together can refine them and achieve big things.
The DMS supports all Conservation X Labs programs and activities across the entire innovation pipeline, from idea to scaled solution. Projects from our Challenges, Prizes, hackathons, and directed innovation projects all live on the Digital Makerspace to connect to the Tribe.
Our community members work together to define the problems, propose solutions, and complete the tasks necessary to bring a project from simple idea to full-fledged product. The DMS community isn't just online: our network of partners provide opportunities for hands-on testing in the field, in laboratories, and in makerspaces across the world.
Our community runs on people like you.
On the Digital Makerspace, you can:
Respond to a Challenge in the Challenge Browser - a list of some of the most wicked problems facing the planet including our active prizes & challenges.
Join a project with the Project Browser - the full list of 150+ inspiring projects being built by the Digital Makerspace community.
Post a new idea in the Ideas Bin - get thoughts and feedback from the community about your crazy and potentially world-changing idea.
Discuss a tough problem in the Problem Bank - a space to talk out the obstacles in conservation, and see which ones we can solve.
The DMS is a community dedicated to collaborating on innovative new tech projects. We support projects born on the DMS and help transform them into financially sustainable, viable products that address human-induced extinction.
The Con X Tech Prize
In 2018 we launched the Con X Tech Prize on the Digital Makerspace, offering $3,500 each to 20 teams to create the first prototype of their bold conservation idea. After a period of rapid prototyping, those 20 teams compete for a Grand Prize of $20,000.
Zoohackathon: Coding to End Wildlife Trafficking
In 2018, Zoohackathon held their annual world-wide hackathon, bringing software developers in San Diego, Madrid, Uganda, Mumbai, and New Delhi together for 48 hours to develop innovative open-source solutions to wildlife trafficking. Conservation X Labs partnered with them to run the event on the Digital Makerspace.
Each team hosted their project on the Digital Makerspace where it will be available to the community to provide feedback, connect with new team members, and continue to iterate on their solutions.
Be a hero.
Together we can co-create the future of conservation.
