Announcing the OSPO and Data Science Institute's New Open Source Hardware Event

Are you looking to find a community on campus dedicated to the production of open hardware? Are you interested in hands-on-creation? Do you know nothing about the benefits of building in the open but want to learn more?

If any of the above describe you, mark your calendar for Wednesday, March 11, 2026. Come meet other hardware enthusiasts at the University of Wisconsin Madison Open Source Program Office and the Data Science Institute’s brand new event:

Build, Create, Share: Fostering Innovation and the Role of Open Source Hardware!

Join fellow hardware enthusiasts from 9:00am-4:00pm at the Alumni Lounge in the Pyle Center for a day of creation and networking. There will be attendees from all areas of the hardware community. Builders, engineers, enthusiasts- all will be looking to meet others and learn about current hardware innovations!

Our list of featured keynote speakers currently includes:

Katherine Scott, developer advocate for the Robot Operating System (ROS) and Gazebo projects at Intrinsic and the Vice President of the Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA), as a keynote speaker on open source hardware, innovation, and community (with live Q&A).
Paul French, leads a research group at Imperial College London based in the Physics department and a satellite laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute, will be joining as a keynote speaker, discussing innovation, building, and the role of open approaches in advancing research and technology (with Q&A).

UW-Madison and Madison community based speakers include:

Kevin Eliceiri, Professor of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering and Director of the Center for Quantitative Cell Imaging at UW–Madison
Stephanie Whitehorse, Director of Intellectual Property for Physical Sciences at WARF
Lennon Rodgers, Director of the Grainger Engineering Design Innovation Lab, College of Engineering
Emily Bick, Assistant Professor in the Department of Entomology
Timm Murray, representing The Bodgery, Madison’s member-run makerspace and community workshop, highlighting community-based building and collaborative creation.
Sector67, a Madison-based non-profit collaborative makerspace, sharing lessons from supporting community-driven hardware, software, and creative technology projects.

Interested? Make sure to register at the link below by Friday, February 27th, 2026. We hope to see you there!