Can Wichita help lead the ‘maker’ economy?

Once upon a time in America, a sizable share of American workers with only a high school education worked on assembly lines. They were paid enough to lead middle-class lives.

Manufacturing employment is now down to less than 8 percent of all workers, reduced overwhelmingly by automation, robotics and artificial intelligence.

But as Microsoft President Ray Nardella stated to a conference in Aspen, Colo., this summer: The next generation of workers must be educated to do things machines can’t, to have “empathy, creativity, and curiosity.”

An increasing number of people are already doing precisely that, using such new technologies as 3-D printers, as well as some old-fashioned tools, to turn out customized new products.

They are part of the national “Maker” movement, which has been popularized by “Maker Faires.” The events bring together “makers” showing off their inventions, art, jewelry and the like to consumers who have an interest in buying these things and retailers interested in selling them more broadly.

Microsoft and other firms are developing new tools to help makers do what they do best: invent, design and do things assembly lines can’t do.

Last July, Wichita held its first Maker Faire, MakeICT, at Exploration Place, which brought out about 50 makers and more than 1,800 attendees. This year, MakeICT will be held over two days, Saturday and Sunday, July 30-31, again at Exploration Place.

Jan Luth, the director of Exploration Place, anticipates at least double the numbers of makers and attendees this year.

But why stop with just these annual Maker Faire events? Wichita has long prided itself as a manufacturing center.

I know our educators have been living under much pressure and uncertainty due to the chaos in Topeka about school funding. But if our school leaders don’t find a more systemic way of imparting the lessons of makers into our schools, then too many of our kids who don’t head off to college after they graduate from high school will really have been shortchanged.

Even those who do go to college would benefit from having a maker class, picking up skills they can use later in life to become 21st century manufacturers.

Speaking of college, WSU’s Innovation Campus will shortly house the nation’s largest 3-D printer, capable of making all sorts of large-scale objects and parts.

A city-wide effort integrating K-12 and college-level maker activity – plus annual or even more frequent Maker Faires – could help transform Wichita into a 21st century manufacturing center.

Nationwide, I am not as optimistic. Though I could be wrong, it is unlikely there will be enough individual makers to compensate for the continued loss in assembly line jobs. But more makers certainly will help slow the long-term decline in manufacturing jobs.

In addition, some of the more innovative products invented by this generation of makers could drive the formation of more new companies, which have been lagging both at the national level and locally.

Even if the Maker movement doesn’t generate a lot of new firms, events like MakeICT help spark interest in kids and adults alike in the virtues and joy of working with and inventing things with one’s hands.

That alone is worth celebrating and coming out to see.

This story was originally published July 27, 2016 at 4:21 PM with the headline "Can Wichita help lead the ‘maker’ economy?."