The inaugural Maker Faire Kuwait happened this past weekend. It was a great first event, with 67 local makers showing their projects, from high-tech inventions to handmade regional crafts, to an engaged flow of attendees. Through all three days, one aspect stood out: the large number of proud young women engineers.
Kuwait is a tiny, triangle-shaped country, about the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island, sitting between Iraq and Saudi Arabia along the northwest corner of the Persian Gulf. Historically, it was a boat-building and trade leader for the Arabian peninsula; the discovery of large oil reserves in the 1930s helped it develop a strong focus on science and engineering and turned Kuwait into one of the richest countries in the world.
I wasn’t too familiar with these aspects as I arrived to Kuwait the night before its first Maker Faire began. Approaching at night over the Persian Gulf by plane, the downtown stood out as tall and modern, each building brightly lit up with flashing lights along the waterfront. The roads also appeared comparatively empty to those of western cities — I later learned this is in part from it being an alcohol-free country with little proper nightlife, but also because the country rises for 5am daily prayer, then has its workday from 7am until 3pm. (Kuwaitis also pay no taxes, another perk of the their lofty economic position; Porsche Cayenne SUVs abound like Honda Civics do in the US.) In the daylight the next morning, the desert’s grit offset some of the nighttime gleam, with dusty construction and rebuilding providing a rapid transition between the country’s past and its glossy downtown skyscrapers and towers.
I met Ms. Hala Montague, the senior PR officer of Kuwait Investment Company (KIC), one of the Faire’s two organizers, as I arrived to the shiny Kuwait International Fairgrounds the next morning, located in a quickly growing area about half an hour from downtown. Energetic, proud, and in charge (and a wonderful tour guide over the next three days), she introduced me to many of the exhibitors, including a cheerful local artist who hand-carves intricate designs into all types of bird eggs, ranging from the size of small marbles, to ostrich eggs the size of a nerf football (he told me those are not easy to come by). I quickly noticed many groups of schoolchildren touring through the space, eagerly listening to the makers explain their projects, participating actively in the 3D Pen Workshop, and throwing balls at a wall to pop virtual balloons and unlock a prize box. This youth was on display not only at the faire, but in Kuwait overall, where 70% of the population is under age 30.
Maker Faire Kuwait organizer Ahmad Alsaleh and KIC’s Hala Montague, at the start of day one of the event.
The other group helping organize the Faire was Creative Bits Solutions, a Kuwaiti business that distributes tools and electronics for makers in the Middle East, founded and run by Ahmad Alsaleh and Nasser Al Khalidi. He and Nasser brought the maker movement into Kuwait by founding the country’s first FabLab, and also designed and sell an educational robotics hardware platform called Ebot. In 2014 they participated as makers at World Maker Faire New York, and brought the idea of organizing their own local event home with them.
The Kuwait producers split their faire into two sections: artist projects on one side of the hall, tech projects on the other. Many of the tech groups came from engineering programs at local universities, recent graduates showing their capstone projects. As I met the makers in the tech area, I began to notice that the majority were young women who were electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, computer science engineers, and IT professionals. The proportional number of female makers outweighed what I see at Maker Faires in the US or Europe.
This female prominence can be traced back to the country’s historic and recent engineering and science needs. Its massive resources have always been offset with a relatively small population, providing work opportunity for women. Countries with a strong travel culture also tend to move toward modern ideals. Despite a massive stock market crash in the early 80’s and turmoil from the Iraqi invasion of 1990, Kuwait has maintained a progressive position in the region for arts, media, government, and gender. Women even outnumber men in their workforce, according to a report from February 2016.
That’s not to say that women there have perfect parity overall — the right to vote was only granted to women twelve years ago; there are still strict rules enforcing modest attire; men there can practice polygamy, and it was hard to find teams of makers containing both men and women at the Faire, although this did not get a strong reaction when I asked about it.
Many of the women’s projects at the Faire focused on assistance; one group had built an attachment to affordably motorize ordinary wheelchairs. Another group created a camera tool that could translate sign language gestures into spoken words. Four women showed their diabetic wound detection device that could help diagnose foot injuries caused by the disease. Another female duo built an app to provide social reminders and tools for people experiencing the onset of Alzheimer’s. One woman built a robotic “nose,” designed among other uses to help impaired people determine if their produce is fresh. There was a tracked robot designed to detect and pick ripe fruit (“No one else’s robot has an arm like ours,” one of the makers explained, showing me the appendage they made for it); a home-brew CNC PCB mill; a modular digital fabrication machine; a connected home model house (“I just started learning Arduino,” the maker, Fatima, told me); a heat-resistant drone for firefighters; and more — all from women, humble but proud of their work.
“Ability Wheelchair,” a powered conversion for standard wheelchairs, built by Fatimah, Fatimah, and Deyar.
“My Voice,” a sign-language translation device, by Anfal and Sara.
The Diabetic Wound Detector team: Noura, Esraa, Anwar, Shaika, and Amira (not pictured).
Heba, Fatma, and Fatima, engineers from the American University of Kuwait, show off their Harvesting Robot.
A custom PCB milling machine, by engineer Afrah Abdulaziz AlMutairi.
Auxilio, a fire fighting drone.
E-nose, “a device mimicking the human olfaction system using sensor arrays and pattern recognition system.”
Fatima’s connected, sensor-driven model home powered by Arduino.
The AnyMaker, explained here by Marwa, is a modular digital fabrication tool designed and built by the FabLab UAE.
Alzheimer’s assistance app Rico’s designers, Anaf and Rawan.
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