Raspberry Pi's digital making festival comes to Cambridge's Big Weekend 2020

Thursday 12 March 2020

Announcing Raspberry Fields at the Big Weekend 2020

  • The Raspberry Pi Foundation and City Council are partnering to bring Raspberry Fields, the Foundation’s digital making festival, to the Big Weekend in 2020
  • On 4 and 5 July, Raspberry Fields will be part of the Big Weekend, one of Cambridge’s best-loved, free outdoor events taking place every year on Parker’s Piece in the heart of the city
  • Raspberry Fields is the chance for visitors to get creative with community-run coding and technology activities for all ages

Cambridge City Council are working with the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a Cambridge-based, international charity, to expand the Big Weekend in 2020 by integrating Raspberry Fields, a festival of digital making.

On 4 and 5 July, Raspberry Fields will run within the Big Weekend, providing free, fun, educational tech activities for visitors of all ages. Supported by the Foundation, young people, educators, hobbyists, and tech enthusiasts from the local community will provide tech-focused performances, show-and-tell stands, interactive installations, and drop-in workshops, allowing visitors to get hands-on with tech. Whether it’s writing your first line of code or finding inspiration in the amazing, home-made tech projects on show, at Raspberry Fields at the Big Weekend everyone can discover how exciting and creative making things with digital technology is.

For the Raspberry Pi Foundation, bringing Raspberry Fields to the Big Weekend means connecting with the community in which the organisation started. Foundation CEO Philip Colligan says: “Raspberry Pi was founded in Cambridge and it remains our home to this day. I am absolutely thrilled that Raspberry Fields is going to be part of the Big Weekend. It’s one of my favourite community events of the year and a great opportunity for us to say thank you to Cambridge.”

Anna Smith, Executive Councillor for Communities, says: “The Big Weekend is one of Cambridge’s longest-running summer events, free for everyone to enjoy. With a huge variety of performances and live music, plus games, markets and family-friendly activities, it’s a weekend-long festival with something for everyone. We are so excited to welcome Raspberry Fields, which will take the Big Weekend to a whole new level and allow young people from all over Cambridge to get hands-on with tech.”

 

To find out more about Raspberry Fields, visit www.raspberrypi.org/raspberry-fields. And if you have an idea for how you’d like to contribute to Raspberry Fields at the Big Weekend, let us know by filling in this form: rpf.io/rf2020-ideas

 

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The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a UK-registered charity with a mission to put the power of computing and digital making into the hands of people all over the world. We do this so that more people are able to harness the power of computing and digital technologies for work, to solve problems that matter to them, and to express themselves creatively.

We engage millions of young people in learning computing and digital making skills through a thriving network of clubs and events, and through partnerships with youth organisations. We enable any school to offer students the opportunity to study computing and computer science through providing the best possible curriculum, resources, and training for teachers. We work to deepen our understanding of how young people learn about computing and digital making, and to use that knowledge to increase the impact of our own work and to advance the field of computing education. We make computing and digital making accessible to all through providing low-cost, high-performance single-board computers and free software. Find out more at www.raspberrypi.org