Zhang Yu

JeniZhang13@163.com

MASSIMO BANZI, co-founder of the renowned open-source electronics platform Arduino, said that he hopes Arduino users around the world can turn their ideas into products and promote global technological innovation in cooperation with Shenzhen’s innovation resources.

Banzi expressed his vision at a press conference to declare that Arduino is coming back to the Chinese market. The conference was held following the opening ceremony of the 2018 Shenzhen Maker Week, which kicked off yesterday morning.

In the winter of 2005, the first Arduino development board was born. Through open-source hardware, Arduino has created an unprecedented open-source sharing community. At present, Arduino has recorded more than 26 million users worldwide. China, in particular, is a very important part of this cross-border community.

According to Banzi, in terms of the number of users, China’s open-source hardware and STEM education has grown at a much faster rate than the international average over the past five years, even faster than most countries in Europe and the Americas. As the most popular platform in this field, Arduino has also witnessed rapid progress in China.

“Using Arduino as a prototype or basis, China’s makers have developed many creative projects, including the Internet of Things (IoT), robots, drones, smart home controlling systems and 3-D printing,” said Banzi.

The press conference also disclosed that Arduino will forge a partnership with local technology company Seeed Studio to help Arduino better serve the Chinese market and help its Chinese users connect with the global community.

Eric Pan, founder and CEO of Seeed Studio and Chaihuo Maker Space, said Seeed has been working in close collaboration with Arduino for a long time and that the partnership will focus on localization and internationalization.

Seeed will assist Arduino in intellectual property protection and the two parties will develop Arduino’s Chinese community into a more structured ecosystem, said Pan. Meanwhile, Arduino will provide multilingual versions of its forums to help users share and utilize project resources.

Banzi added that Arduino will further explore the STEM education industry and will organize winter and summer camps in collaboration with Chaihuo Maker Space to jointly develop courses and provide more exchange programs for Chinese schools.