During lockdown, we were visited by Alex Rousillet, a young man from avillage in France who was in the prcess of visiting all maker- and hackpaces in Eurpe with a view to forming a mega-network that would enable cross-travel and experience exchanges in Europe, rather like the student ERASMUS scheme which he had benefited from. But he noted that in his home village, many people did not go to university and therefore didn't get the opportunity. Or people like his father and uncles who were older but still wanted to braden their horizons. He chose maker and hackspaces because they are inherently inclusive with relevant activities for many age groups and any gender. This offers the most opportunity for people to get involved.

Alex set out to persuade the European Commission to support a Europe-wide intitiative (and yes, that includes the UK). By travelling personally to each space, he gathered photos and made connections which have persisted.

They set up a VULCA WhatsApp and Slack ( https://vulcateam.slack.com/ssb/redirectSlack) to enable communication and each year a VULCA seminar. This was part of the process of convincing the EU to fund the network to provide bursaries for travel and exchanges, to increase mobility.

Norwich Hackspace is proud to support this initiative and have hosted a couple of visits. We hope to do more in the future and VULCA gets established.

Norwich Hackspace is proud to support VULCA - a network of maker and hackspaces across Europe