Time flies, and the exhibition opening is drawing ever closer！
This year, we’ve received an overwhelming number of outstanding applications! Not only are our longtime partners who’ve journeyed with MFSZ joining us, but many new collaborators are bringing innovative projects to the table. Most excitingly, a significant number of projects integrating AI technology have emerged this year, clearly demonstrating that everyone is truly leading the way in hardware innovation!
As always, this year’s event remains a prime opportunity for the maker community to meet their idols in person, with 100 Innovation Ambassadors joining us onsite. On Maker Faire’s boundary-less, barrier-free mega evolution stage, these shining stars of ingenuity will join everyone in freely colliding ideas and openly sharing creativity.
Today marks the 7th installment of our Innovation Ambassadors! From China’s open-source pioneers to France’s artistic geeks, from Mexico’s outstanding AI evangelists to Shenzhen’s seasoned innovation mentors—the five ambassadors joining us this week bring diverse industry experiences and cultural backgrounds, yet share a common passion for innovation!
01 Li Dawei
Li Dawei currently serves as Director of the Shenzhen Open Innovation Lab, focusing on open innovation and Counterfeit technology research. He is also a member of the Free Software Foundation and a code contributor to multiple Apache projects.
He co-founded China’s first maker space, “New Workshop,” and developed Ardublock, a visual programming tool for Arduino. As a key pioneer of China’s maker movement and an active builder of the open innovation ecosystem, he has made significant contributions to these fields.
02 Henry Peng Yiheng
Peng Yiheng is the Chief Strategy Representative and Senior Advisor of Kickstarter, the world’s largest crowdfunding platform, in the Greater China region. He is also the co-founder of H3Future Heart Cube Innovation Lab and has won numerous international design awards as well as the TIME Magazine’s Best Invention of the Year.
With acute market insight and rich experience in cross-border innovation, he is dedicated to connecting global makers with investment resources, driving more valuable innovative projects onto a broader international stage.
03 Benjamin Poilvé
Benjamin Poilve is an electronic engineer from France who loves music and art. The open-source music synthesizer Minichord he developed creatively integrates open-source technology with music production and has been widely loved and highly praised by both the technical community and music producers.
His practice that blends technology and art has opened a window for us to personally experience the spirit of makers and the infinite possibilities of open-source hardware technology.
04 Alejandro Puig
Alejandro Puig is a seasoned AI developer from Mexico, with over ten years of cross-disciplinary AI development experience. He is also the creator of the Youtube channel @AMPTECH.
As an outstanding contributor to the tech community, Alejandro is now dedicated to helping more local tech community developers and hardware enthusiasts leverage AI to support their projects.
05 Fan Xincan
Fan Xincan currently serves as Professor and Dean of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship College at Shenzhen Polytechnic. He has been honored as an Outstanding Teacher of Nanyue, a Leading Professional Talent of Guangdong Province, and a Lihu Scholar.
To date, he has published over 60 academic papers and secured more than 20 intellectual property rights, including invention patents. Prof. Fan has dedicated himself to advancing the deep integration of industry and education, making significant contributions to cultivating innovative talent and advancing entrepreneurship education in the Greater Bay Area.
These Innovation Ambassadors will gather in Shenzhen to actively participate in this year’s Greater Bay Area International Maker Summit! This represents a rare international networking opportunity within the AI hardware community.
We are confident that all makers and tech enthusiasts will gain unprecedented inspiration and opportunities at this grand event. We also believe that all exhibitors this year will achieve greater global exposure and opportunities on this international stage!
Aiming to promote business connections between professional visitors and exhibitors, Maker Faire Shenzhen 2025 has initiated a new registration channel for professional audiences, which can ensure more efficient exhibition output and provide a good exhibition experience.
Visitor Register for MFSZ25
Over the past 12 years, the development trajectory of Maker Faire Shenzhen can be seen as a microcosm of the development of maker culture in China.
- 2012: “Gathering Small Wisdom, Journeying through the Great Future” – This was the first Mini Maker Faire in China, with less than 1000 attendees, and was more like a gathering within a small circle. But we saw the infinite possibilities emerging from the maker community.
- 2013: The slogan was absent, and the maker community was still small. – In the OCT Creative Park, there were cross-disciplinary exchanges among different creative communities, silently laying the foundation for cultural output.
- 2014: “Innovate with China” – the event was upgraded to the Featured level for the first time, with a significant increase in scale compared to previous years, and the beginning of professional independent forums. This year, makers began to enter the public’s view.
- 2015: “Everyone is a Maker, what are you waiting for?” – This year’s Shenzhen International Maker Week became one of the largest Maker Faires in the world. This year, the concept of “maker” was elevated to a national level, and the trend of “mass innovation, mass entrepreneurship” swept across the country.
- 2016: “My World, My Creation” – As the sub-venue of the National Innovation and Entrepreneurship Week, the event was held for the first time in the commercial center area, experiencing unpredictable weather from typhoons to scorching heat. Many makers succeeded in your entrepreneurial endeavors this year, but it seemed like there were even more failures. The hype around entrepreneurship shifted towards rationality.
- 2017: “Makers, Go Pro” – The event took place at the university campus for the first time, focusing on Maker Pros and providing a platform for diverse innovators and makers to showcase themselves, presenting more possibilities for the growth path of makers to the entire community.
- 2018: “Co-making in the City” – The main venue of Shenzhen International Maker Week, where individuals and groups with shared visions and values gathered to showcase stories, projects, and explorations of collaboration among different communities and people.
- 2019: ” To the Heart of Community, To the Cluster of Industry” – The event was upgraded to the Maker Faire Shenzhen, attempting to attract professional audiences and focusing on pragmatic aspects such as solving the needs of industrial upgrading and co-developin. It aims to build a platform for innovation and industry dialogue and collaboration.
- 2023: “Where Are The Makers?”– Starting from our own mission and values, we aim to explore the future direction of makers and the possibilities for commercialization. Though this question does not have a definitive answer, we do hope that through this event, we can communicate and share with every one of you, finding more ideas and directions together.
- 2024: “Everything is AI” – This year, we brought together over 120 exhibitors from around the world, attracting nearly 1,500 professional attendees from nearly 20 countries and over 20 provinces across China. The exhibition showcased a wide range of AI application projects and hosted 10 AI hardware-themed satellite events, alongside various workshops.
