Wow! What an amazing NOMCON we’ve had so far. We started Day 1 off with a

fantastic Keynote by Dr. Leah Hanes from Two Bit Circus Foundation, celebrated

the amazing Infy Maker Award recipients, and launched into a full day of incredible

panels, roundtables, workshops, spark sessions and fireside chats. We finished our

incredible programming for the day with a discussion of our Core Principles and how

maker organizations can begin the important work of putting them into action. And of

course, we still had a Happy Hour - our cocktail hour was a nice break to see each

other’s faces, enjoy some fun conversations (what are YOU binge watching these

days?), and to experience a little of the maker love that we all feel during in-person

NOMCON.

But, as with any event, there were also some bumps in the road - and yesterday,

that was the magical mystery of the disappearing Zoom links. In true Scooby Doo

fashion, we figured out the culprit, and we are making sure we don’t have a repeat

of that technical glitch for the remainder of our conference. We are sorry for any

inconvenience for our attendees, speakers, exhibitors, and sponsors. We are

grateful to all of you who attended yesterday - for your patience, grace, and

kindness during the technical issues, and for sticking with us in spite of them. And in

true maker fashion, many of you jumped in as last minute volunteers (with joy!), because, well, that’s what we, as a maker community do (we fix things!) - for that, we are especially grateful. Now who’s excited for Day 2?

We are! Today’s Keynote comes from Dr. Paul Bunje from Conservation X Labs,

who will speak to us about "Empowering Everyone to End the Sixth Mass

Extinction". Don’t go the way of the dinosaurs - join us! That will be followed by even

more exciting programming including some special sessions from the Department of

Energy about their new Geothermal Prize, including how innovative uses of additive

manufacturing in geothermal could save the day! And of course, we’ll have another

cocktail hour with breakouts and fun topics to discuss (and possibly games!).

Finally, don’t forget to visit our virtual exhibit booths from XPrize, MatterHackers and

ShopBot as well as our Film Screening of Me and My Robot. There is a lot of great

information, live session info and contests, and an absolutely great movie for you to

view.

MatterHackers will be having a daily giveaway drawing for attendees that add

the MatterHatter booth to their schedule. Today’s (Thursday’s) giveaway is

a $100 MatterHackers Gift Card! Check out their booth for more

information!

XPRIZE will have a live session on Friday at 2pm ET, check out their

booth!

Attend a Film Screening at your leisure! “Me and My Robot” will be

available online every day during the conference free for all attendees. Check

out the session pinned to your schedule for link and details. Also, Alex Crooks

will be giving a presentation about the film and Q&A on Friday at 3pm Eastern

time.

Can’t wait to see you in the Zoomiverse today at NOMCON 2020!

Warmest regards,

Dorothy