Last summer over 50 people from across the globe gathered at the FabLab Amersfoort in the Netherlands for the first Grassroots FabLab conference, called FABFUSE.
They discussed and researched ways for communities to set up an organize local workplaces like FabLabs, without large financial resources or governmental backing. Attendees came from Fablabs, Hackerspaces, Transition towns and many other communities and backgrounds.

This summer, 19th till 21st of July, the follow up of this conference takes place: FABFUSE 2013. Its main focus is on ‘Grassroots Knowledge Sharing.’ FABFUSE acknowledges that often little of the valuable knowledge available in local labs and workspaces is being shared or made accessible. The 2013 conference aims to showcase, discuss and develop ways for these local hubs to connect with others and share their information.

As the global ecosystem of fab labs, hackerspaces, public laboratories and other community driven workshops grows, so does the need for effective exchange of knowledge between these peer knowledge hubs. Can we cook up a grassroots implementation of peer reviewed knowledge? Or should we? Are existing platforms (journals, conferences) open to p2p communities? What great libre (online) tools are out there? Can we help the developers of potentially great tools in making the next step?
In other words: How can grassroots communities exchange knowledge?

The conference will be loosely organized in 3 topic streams:
1. Open toolchains for creation, collaboration & communication: which open tools serve the grassroots community, which tools can we help become better, which tools do we miss altogether?
2. knowledge sharing: how can we free the knowledge present in many p2p hubs?
3. community building: how do distributed communities develop, live and thrive?

The conference itself is also organized as a grassroots event, where each visitor is also co-organizer or a participant in lectures, workshops and demonstrations. More info at www.fabfuse.org