In light of the significant continued public health concerns related to coronavirus, we have made the decision to Once again move NOMCON to a virtual experience instead of an in-person conference in 2021.

Our first priority remains the health and safety of all of YOU - our attendees, our community, and all of your communities.  With that in mind, we have decided to host this year’s NOMCON on a virtual platform. Although we will miss seeing you all in person, we see this transition as a significant opportunity:

• To continue to reach and engage a larger audience of maker leaders

• To further expand the types of engaging programming choices that we are able to offer at NOMCON

• To enhance the conference experience with additional online features including session recordings, dynamic chat, networking, and notetaking features. 

• To design and create a conference that continues to grow and nurture our community

• To support the health and well-being of our community

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our annual event is scheduled ONLINE from June 23-26, 2021. NOMCON typically assembles 350-400 maker leaders from across the U.S. (and Canada, the UK and Mexico) to come together to spark and increase connections across sectors, share best practices, work through our common pain points, generate robust collaborations, and work together to promote the growth of an inclusive Nation of Makers

Platforms: We are excited to debut a new platform for NOMCON 2021 - Gather.Town! This new exciting platform will allow us to come together virtually to enjoy our usual keynote, presentations, and workshop offerings, while maintaining some of the social and community exchange that NOMCON is known for. Come to NOMCON, attend a talk, find your friends and colleagues in the conference center, explore interactive and dynamic exhibitor and sponsor offerings, enjoy some networking events compliments of our networking sponsor, Glimpse, and experience an online conference like none other!

Dates: With the unique opportunities our virtual conference offers, we have decided to expand our conference offerings to extend from the dates of Wednesday June 23rd to Saturday June 26th, 2021. We plan to design the conference experience so that most conference-goers will not need to spend more than 2 hrs in front of their screens a day to attend the sessions they are most interested in, and most conference sessions will likely occur between 12 pm and 5 pm Eastern Time.  There will be a variety of experiences from panels and workshops to happy hours and informal network gatherings that will keep the conference fun, interesting and informative. More information on the structure, sessions and activities during those days will be forthcoming as the planning process progresses.

We look forward to providing you with the same unparalleled opportunities to network, to find your maker tribe, to learn from one another, and to engage in dialogue that pushes our community forward at NOMCON 2021 - See you there!

The 2021 Nation of Makers Conference (NOMCON), held on June 23 - 26, is the annual national conference that brings together leaders from maker organizations representing the diverse sectors, people, regions, and foci that represent the U.S. maker movement. Hosted by the national nonprofit Nation of Makers, the conference aims to spark and increase connections across sectors, generate robust collaborations and partnerships, set a research agenda for the U.S. maker movement, and promote the growth of an inclusive maker community. A central goal of the event is to promote relationship-building across lines of regular conversation thus generating an increased sense of connected community throughout the entire ecosystem of maker-supporting entities.

NOMCON 2021 will be held VIRTUALLY online, on the Gather.Town and Glimpse platforms this year, due to COVID-19 pandemic. We are working on programming that will make your virtual conference experience an informative and enjoyable one, and platforms that are simple for the user.

“One can understand a place by what its people make.” Deborah Needleman, NYTimes

The theme for NOMCON 2021- From Local to Global: Igniting Local Makers to Create a Resilient Movement for Positive Global Change. - focuses on how we can magnify the local activism and impact of local communities of makers.

This impact was evidenced not only by the tremendous amount of personal protective equipment and medical supplies (over 48 million units) produced by makers during the COVID-19 pandemic, but also in the impact that local makers have in sectors as varied as education, workforce and economic development, entrepreneurship, job creation, defense, innovation, and beyond. We look forward to convening a diversity of leaders of maker organizations (spaces, events, and support entities - public, private, academic, corporate, government, non-profit and for-profit), from across the United States and beyond, to dialogue, share best practices, and work towards an actionable agenda to push forward the impact of the maker movement. Building on our previous themes of Intentional Inclusion (2018), The Power of the Network (2019), and Sustainability: Building and Supporting an Ecosystem that Sustains us all (2020), this year's conference will focus on both celebrating the incredible contributions of local makers that have resulted in a global impact while both dialoguing about and creating structures to support and scale-up communities of change.

“Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.” - George Elliot

“Ecosystem builders connect, empower, and collaborate with others to build the whole system. They are the system entrepreneurs, working to lift up the whole community to achieve its potential. They play multiple roles, including system architect, champion, advocate, convener, cajoler, traffic cop, air traffic controller, and storyteller.”

— Kauffman Foundation

NOMCON is intended for leaders and builders who create and support the maker community ecosystem! NOMCON is the perfect conference for those who:

• Run or organize spaces (hackerspaces, makerspaces, Biospaces, FabLabs, etc.)

• Organize events (hackathons, maker camps, workshops, summits, etc)

• Represent organizations that support the maker community (for-profit, non-profit, educational, government, or institutional)

• Are thinking about, or are in the process of starting a space (hackerspace, makerspace, collective/collaborative, etc)

NOMCON invites organizations that support makers and maker movement to share insights and connections with other organizers in the Nation of Makers community. If you are a leader, or have aspirations to be a leader, who supports makers and the maker movement, this conference is for you!

Many events in the broad maker community focus on promoting makers and their projects, inspiring someone to try making, or teaching people how to be makers. The organizers themselves rarely have a chance to step back and thoughtfully consider how to best support the community they are creating. At NOMCON you will share, connect, be inspired, and will have opportunities to:

• Expand your network from within your maker community

• Share resources to grow your space without draining your budget

• Identify the strengths and gaps within your community ecosystem

• Recruit volunteers from outside your network

• Collaborate with local businesses, educational institutions and the community

• Tell your inspiring and impactful maker story

• Find partners and supporters to collaborate with

As a maker leader, you are invited to participate in the greater community dialogue of how we should grow the Nation of Makers, and what projects we, as a Nation of Makers community, should undertake to help the maker movement and our communities, locally and nationally. NOMCON is an opportunity to learn from and collaborate with your peers to create an ecosystem that supports all of us in our efforts to grow and thrive!

Expect to learn, to be challenged, and to contribute to a meaningful building of the maker movement ecosystem!

NOMCON is an opportunity to meet and share best practices, exciting trends, and resources with your peers in the maker community. This will be different from any maker event you’ve been to in the past!

We are excited to debut a new platform for NOMCON 2021 - Gather.Town! This new exciting platform will allow us to come together virtually to enjoy our usual keynote, presentations, and workshop offerings, while maintaining some of the social and community exchange that NOMCON is known for. Come to NOMCON, attend a talk, find your friends and colleagues in the conference center, explore interactive and dynamic exhibitor and sponsor offerings, enjoy some networking events compliments of our networking sponsor, Glimpse, and experience an online conference like none other!

Our programming will be presented in a number of different formats (please note, as we develop programming, this list will evolve):

Keynote Talks: Luminaries representing the full breadth of the maker movement will give diverse perspectives on this year’s theme, “Sustainability: Creating an Ecosystem that supports us all”.

Fireside Chats: An intimate chat between two community members, a fireside chat shares an intimate conversation with a luminary in the maker community.

Panel Sessions: Featuring a curated panel of makers from across our Nation of Makers community, panel sessions are an opportunity to learn from subject matter experts within our community.

Discussion Sessions: Facilitated by makers from around the community, discussion sessions are opportunities to dive deeply into topics of interest, share what we know, and learn from others.

Working Group Sessions: An opportunity for our Nation of Makers working groups to convene in a face-to-face setting, goal set, and develop an action-setting agenda for moving forward. (Current NoM Working Groups: Metrics of Impact, Libraries, Assistive Technologies, Growing Beyond Earth, Disaster Relief, Culture and Inclusion, and Policy)

Project-Planning Sessions: Project planning sessions are opportunities for participants to discuss new and scalable efforts, implementable actions, and next steps. The intent of these sessions is to allow conference attendees to participate in a project planning process, and to leave with a clear vision of next steps, committed project partners, and what we hope will be a sustainable road map to future success.

We're excited to crowdsource proposals for conference session programming - with a preference for engaging, informative, and innovative programming.

This year's theme, "From Local to Global: Supporting Local Makers to Create a Resilient Movement for Positive Global Change," builds upon the foundation of our first three successful NOMCON themes: "Intentional Inclusion" (2018), "The Power of the Network" (2019), and "Sustainability: Building and Nurturing an Ecosystem that Sustains us All" (2020).

If you have an idea for an engaging, innovative and informative session for NOMCON 2021, please submit it at our Call for Proposals. Please note: The proposal deadline is April 9, 2021 at 11:59 pm ET.

Proposal Submission Tips:

• If your proposal is a fully-developed session proposal, please include the tentative title, as well as all presenter(s), facilitator(s), etc.

• If you have an idea, but it is not a fully formed proposal, please feel free to propose it here and offer suggested speakers, formats, etc.

• Proposals that engage the attendees, fit within the NOMCON theme of "From Local to Global: Supporting Local Makers to Create a Resilient Movement for Positive Global Change", and that are fully fleshed out will be given priority for acceptance.

We will have programming for youth at NOMCON 2021. If you are interested in participating in youth programming planning, please contact Trey at trey@nomcon.org

In order to create the most inclusive access possible, we have created a "pay-what-you-can" pricing structure. Please see https://www.nomcon.org/pay-what-you-can-2021/ for details.

Yes! Without the generous support of our sponsoring partners, NOMCON would not be possible. If your organization is interested in supporting NOMCON as a sponsoring partner, please visit https://www.nomcon.org/partners-2021 and contact Dorothy Jones-Davis at: dorothy@nationofmakers.us.  

We are very excited about the enriched exhibitor opportunities available in the Gather.Town platform. If your organization is interested in exhibiting at NOMCON 2021, please visit https://www.nomcon.org/2021-exhibitors, and contact Trey Lathe at: trey@nomcon.org.