Founded sometime around 4000 BC and now known as the capital of the country’s start-up ecosystem, Bangalore is the place where tradition and technology meet and intersect. It is no coincidence that it was chosen to host the first Indian Maker Faire, Maker Faire Bengaluru, held on November 17-18 in conjunction with the Tech Summit, organized by Workbench Projects and presented by the State Information and Biotechnology Information Technology Department of Karnataka.
“India has, over the last decade, seen a phenomenal outburst of makers mushrooming across the country. The community has been growing as a voluntary movement, however it has garnered support from institutions, independent organizations, corporates, and the government, who understand the value and help build a strong ecosystem for its sustenance.”
There were a lot of incredible Food Makers too. Let’s find them out.
Designed by designer Natasha Sharma, Hy-tea is a tea package that acts as a product in itself. These processed and hand crafted tea sticks not only store tea but when stirred in hot water, has the capacity to loosen its fibers giving out the flavour of the tea. It acts as a sustainable substitute for widely used and manufactured synthetic tea bags. This product is solely crafted from roots of an aquatic weed grown in India.
The Mechanical Chef, your future cook is a multi-component robot that can cook a full Indian meal without any human intervention except the initial loading of the required ingredients, and can be programmed remotely via an app. The first public experiment and tasting took place at Maker Faire.
To ensure that farmers are not exposed to hazards and have an efficient way of cultivating and preventing crops from pesticides, a team from College of Agricultural Engineering at Raichur Agricultural University has worked on two interesting products: the Remote-Controlled Pesticide Sprayer and the Remote-Controlled Drone Sprayer.
Guardians of Gastronomy is a group of makers who use new technologies to experiment with food and have recently opened a food lab where they host community events, kids labs, training and innovative prototyping and co-creation activities that educate people of all ages about food in a practical, fun and engaging way, providing them with the hands on knowledge and skills that allow them to shape a healthy approach and appreciation for food.
Suvai is a farm to home initiative based in Chennai with the aim of re-introducing the ability to cook with what nature provides us while being more creative using solely natural, local and seasonal ingredients. For the Maker Faire, they had a DIY bean-dip bar, where they invited visitors to smash the ingredients together in a grinding bowl to make it their own.
Visiting Maker Faire Bengaluru has been a great experience and we look forward to engage with many more Indian makers in our Future Food activities!
