In celebration of International Women in Engineering day 2019, we decided to interview our Iraq Innovation Advisor, Wafa Al-Attas, who is leading Field Ready’s work on GIZ’s ICT for Youth Program in Iraq. Wafa describes herself as… A social entrepreneur. She started as a businesswoman in her native Yemen and moved into social enterprise supporting youth refugees and local community as the head of the Amel Association Community Centre in Beirut. After moving to Holland she con

If you visit our newly established Field Ready: Erbil Makerspace, housed in the Re:Coded House co-working space, you’ll find Ravin and Mariam leading our technical team, making it the only female led makerspace in Iraq! Both are extremely talented young engineers. Ravin graduated top of her class in Industrial Engineering at Koya University and was one of seven engineers from the whole of Iraq selected to participate in the Mechanical Engineering Germany Iraq (MEGI) summer sc

Field Ready is pleased to announce the launch of a brand-new makerspace in Erbil, Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Field Ready: Erbil Makerspace will form part of a growing network of innovation and co-working spaces across Iraq. On behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH is supporting Field Ready to deliver GIZ's ICT for Iraq program, it will give Field Ready’s existing

Iraq faces a critical time in its turbulent recent history. Different areas of the country face a myriad of humanitarian, reconstruction and stabilization challenges. At the same time, this situation presents an opportunity to propel on-the-ground initiatives that can have a lasting impact for the country. A primary example are makerspaces, collaborative spaces where learning and skills development lead to making and fabrication which in turn result in entrepreneurship and im

Reuf (pictured left) is the Technical Advisor to our Iraq project. He is originally from Sarajevo, Bosnia. So he is intimately familiar with the realities of modern conflict, the process of reconstruction and what it takes to locally make solutions using partnership, ingenuity, technological know-how and hard work. Reuf has extensive experience in making, engineering and training based in part on having his own company, HIVE Creative Agency, where he is a 3D print lab owner a

Following three years of occupation by ISIL and intense fighting to remove them, the healthcare system of the Northern Iraqi city of Mosul has been left in shambles. Many healthcare facilities were destroyed as they were used as safe havens, yet they face increasing demand as displaced population return to the region. At the same time a community of young techies gathered to find ways to improve the lives of their compatriots through building the capacity for innovation and t

In acute emergencies, children face a disproportionate risk of disease due to various factors perpetuated by poor water quality, lack of water and soap among many other reasons. Field Ready has been working with Save the Children and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to research, develop and implement a handwashing intervention for kids by using locally manufactured soap with a toy to incentivize handwashing. While our pilot was implemented in Iraq and initia

After spending a fun-filled week with our child-designers, we had a set of 12 animals to be placed inside different combinations of transparent soap, and it was time for production. The original plan had been to carry two 3D printers with us into Iraq, but at the last minute, additional restrictions due to the closure of Kurdistan’s international airspace made that impossible, and a plan B was born. Field Ready has a wide network of makers in different locations, and with add

After spending a fun-filled week with our "child designers" (see here), we set up 12 animals to be placed inside different combinations of transparent soap and we began production. The orignal plan had been to carry two 3D printers with us into Iraq, but at the last minute, additional restrictions due to the closure of Kurdistan’s international airspace made that impossible, and plan B was born. Field Ready has a wide network of makers in different locations, and with additio

Will having a toy inside a soap help encourage children to wash their hands? Instinctively, it may seem a likely hit but a great on paper can fail when it's tried the real world. Careful planning and on-the-ground testing are essential. With a small grant from the Humanitarian Innovation Fund, Field Ready joined forces with Save the Children and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), to measure actual impact in a trial in a camp for displaced persons in N