Venue: Pivotal Labs (625 Avenue of the Americas, 2nd floor, New York, NY)

RSVP required: https://www.meetup.com/MakeIt-NYC/events/233622665/

Join us for Hackaday NYC's first Meetup of the fall season as we anticipate 2016's fifth + final Hackaday Prize challenge, "Assistive Technologies" as well as World Maker Faire, coming to the New York Hall of Science on October 1st & 2nd.

We will kick off the evening's talks with a spotlight on Assistive Technology -- currently confirmed speakers include Holly Cohen & John Schimmel of DIYAbility, Johnny Falla of the Enable Community Foundation, and Chad Leaman of the Neil Squire Society.

Next up, Nisan Lerea will demo the new WAZER, an affordable desktop waterjet cutter.

Got big plans for Maker Faire? We will dedicate ~45 minutes for an open session of Lightning Talks. Take the mic and share your latest projects & ideas with the community -- a sign-up sheet will be available at check-in and time allocations will be determined by the number of participants.

Extra special thanks to Pivotal Labs for generously providing our venue for the evening.

If you'd like to set-up a lightning talk ahead of time or if you have any questions or concerns, please contact Shayna. See you on September 29th!

Tonight's speakers include:

Holly Cohen & John Schimmel (DIYAbility)

Holly Cohen is an occupational therapist that specializes in assistive technology. She is the co-founder of DIYAbility and is an adjunct professor at NYU's School of Steinhardt in the Department of Occupational Therapy. She has lectured nationally at conferences, discussing the benefits of assistive technology for individuals with disabilities. Most recently Holly was a speaker at the 2016 TED conference.

John Schimmel is a tinkerer, programmer and lover of all foods that go with maple syrup. He is the other co-founder of DIYAbility, an adjunct professor of assistive technology at NYU's ITP and IDM program. John has an interest in making electronics, programming, fabrication tech and STEM accessible for people with disabilities to make their world.

Johnny Falla (Enable Community Foundation)

Johnny Falla volunteers as a Director for the Enable Community Foundation as his "5-9," which 3D prints radically affordable prosthetic devices for people globally. In his "9-5" day job, Johnny serves Director of Development at JUST Capital. Previous to JUST Capital, Johnny’s career has spanned the worlds of digital communications and brand strategy, international development, and venture philanthropy. He served as Engagement Director at Sub Rosa, a New York-based experiential design firm, where he focused primarily on advanced manufacturing projects in Nigeria on behalf of GE. His career started at the Skoll Foundation in California as an Associate Program Officer, working on the Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship for eBay co-Founder Jeff Skoll. He has also led digital marketing for Jeff Sachs’ Millennium Promise, focused on rural village development across sub-Saharan Africa.

Johnny earned his Master in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and holds a BA in International Relations from Stanford University. Johnny is a long-time Brooklyn resident and originally from Portland, Oregon.

Chad Leaman (Neil Squire Society)

Chad Leaman is passionate about bridging communities of knowledge and experimenting with technology for social good. By day, he is the Director of Development for the Neil Squire Society, a Canadian nonprofit organization that uses technology to empower people with physical disabilities.As a volunteer, he co-organizes NetSquared Vancouver, providing free technology workshops for nonprofit organizations, and Chair's the BC Technology for Learning Society.He’s also a father of young twins and most likely to get injured while playing sports.

About DIYAbility: Empowering people with and without disabilities.

"We believe that people with and without disabilities can be empowered when using...