The most important theme of OpenMaker is collaboration. We are proud and excited to be working in conjunction with our accelerators in Bilbao, Florence and Bratislava to help realise and propel all these new exciting schemes.

Who are we at OpenMaker UK?

The UK Accelerator is being delivered by Accord Housing Group in collaboration with the Beautiful Ideas Company. We are both non-profit-distributing companies, and have worked together over the last three years to invest almost £1,500,000 in over 40 innovative enterprises that are both financially viable, and deliver social benefits and societal innovations.

With OpenMaker we are taking these ideas and applying them to bigger and more ambitious projects, uniting manufacturers and makers. We will work across two regional maker communities, active within two different areas of the traditional manufacturing industry. They are the Mersey Estuary (North Liverpool and Birkenhead) and Salford.

We’re looking forward to collaborating with our fellow Accelerators across Europe:

  • The Italian Accelerator is hosted at Impact Hub Florence and run by LAMA Developing Change.
  • The Slovak Accelerator is managed by Centire. Other events will be organised in cooperation with hubs, co-working spaces and maker spaces in Bratislava.
  • The Spanish Accelerator is managed by Fundación TECNALIA Research and Innovation, and is located in Bilbao.