From its inception in San Mateo, California, in 2006, Maker Faire has grown into a global phenomenon, a living exhibition of creativity, technology, and do-it-yourself culture that now thrives in more than 130 cities throughout the world. The curation of each Maker Faire uses a community-building approach to support the participation of new makers. This decentralized curatorial method has helped to foster an organic and thriving culture of makers that extends beyond Maker Faire into community-based workshops, schools, libraries, and other public spaces. Dale Dougherty and Sherry Huss are the founders of this movement and will share their evolving approach to curating experiences and communities, in conversation with Eric Siegel.

Dale Dougherty is the founder and CEO of Maker Media, which launched Make:magazine in 2005, and Maker Faire, which held its first event in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2006. He was a cofounder of O’Reilly Media, where he was the first editor of their computing trade books and developed GNN in 1993, the first commercial website. He served as a lecturer in electronic publishing at the School of Information at UC Berkeley from 1997 to 2002.

Sherry Huss is the vice president of Maker Media and cocreator of Maker Faire. She has held senior management positions at MediaLive International, Key3Media, Ziff-Davis, and Softbank. She was also instrumental in launching and managing successful technology and consumer events such as Sun’s JavaOne, Oracle’s iDevelop, O’Reilly Media’s Web 2.0 Summit and Dwell on Design.

Eric Siegel is director of the University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley. He has served for eleven years as director and chief content officer of the New York Hall of Science, which received the Institute of Museum and Library Service National Medal in 2015. In 2014, he was honored with the Association of Science Technology Centers’ Leading Edge Award for Exceptional Leadership. He has taught graduate courses in museum management and exhibition design at New York University.