Merri-bek Tech

Merri-bek Tech, a group in the inner northern suburbs of Naarm (Melbourne), invites everyone involved interested in tinkering with grass-roots technologies in support of a Sustainable, Resilient and Just future to join us for the Naarm Solarpunk Meetup.

This month, we're visiting the Maker Community maker-space, in Brunswick. We'll do a quick tour for those who haven't been before.

After that, rather than a group discussion we're going to gather round a screen and doing a LoRes (local resilience) web server install on a Raspberry Pi, from scratch. If you're interested in command-line Linux, web servers, mesh networks, or local climate resilience you might find this interesting.

If we're still keen for general chats after that, we can always head to the Brunswick Green pub next door.

About the Naarm Solarpunk group
Some of us are technologists, and will be showing off software or hardware projects, and others are more interested in community organizing, responding to the climate crisis, or building local resilience. Whatever your area of interest, or your level of skill, you're absolutely welcome to dive in.

At the meetups we'll have a show-and-tell time for any projects that you're working on, as well as occasional short presentations. The space will be hosted by volunteers, and we'll actively work towards inclusion through applying a code of conduct.

Merri-bek Tech has some projects that you might be interested in updates from, including our attempt to build P2P mesh network based community hosting on Raspberry Pis, and our project to run a local fediverse social network.

We aspire to keep this meetup Solarpunk as fuck. We support the hackers, tinkerers and makers and misfits. There are plenty of other spaces for big corporate green tech, so bring your hobby project, not your day job, unless that job is firmly rooted in the solidarity economy.

We are not value neutral. We'll start with Merri-bek Tech's values and principles, and build from there together. In particular, in the context of ongoing genocide, we will ask you to leave if you're associated in any way with the weapons industry.

This meetup will be hosted on the stolen, unceeded lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land.

Accessibility
Please note that this month's venue is not accessible to everyone. The front door has a metal rail to step over. We're meeting on the mezzanine level up a single flight of fairly steep stairs. The route to the bathrooms is not wide enough for some wheelchairs. The lighting is overhead and flouro. There may be dust in the air from woodwork and other crafts.

We will return to a more accessible venue next month. If you'd like to attend at the maker-space and there are some accommodations that would make it easier for you to do so, please reach out.