2026-07-09 –, The Seedbed
In this talk, we will present the LABLAB experience: a participatory prototyping process held in Southeast Brazil that culminated in the LABLAB Camp, bringing together practitioners of agroecology, community technologies, open-source and decentralized approaches to strengthen our practices and networks.
In this talk, we will present the LABLAB process, which culminated in the LABLAB Camp. The conversation will explore the project from its early stages of mobilization, territory mapping, and network building to the participatory methodologies developed throughout the process. We will also present some of the prototypes created during the experience, how they were developed, and the stages they are currently in, as well as a prototype archive gathering mapped initiatives. We will also discuss what took place during the LABLAB Camp, its impacts, and the strategies currently being developed to continue the work. The talk will also highlight one of the outcomes of the process: the transformation of the association into a Science and Technology Institute, in order to better support the practices, research, and methodologies that had already been developed collectively within the association. Looking ahead, we will briefly present the future perspectives of the Institute’s Tech and Agro Program, including possible developments, expansions, and partnerships to strengthen the initiatives that emerged from the process.
Marcela is the current General Coordinator of the PSP Institute. As one of the association’s founders, she has grown alongside the organization, coordinating programs in the fields of community communication and education, while also supporting the development of other projects hosted by the Institute. She is also a researcher whose work focuses on investigating, designing, and facilitating educational experiences that foster meaningful engagement with technology through hands-on and craft-centered approaches.
Hiure Queiroz is a PhD candidate in Innovation and Technology at the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp), where he conducts research focused on the development of social technologies for community well-being. He holds a degree in Physics and a master's degree in Materials Science.
He is a member of the Associação Portal Sem Porteiras (redepsp.org) , where he has been actively involved in initiatives that combine participatory methodologies, territorial engagement, and the development of context-based technologies. He was part of the coordination team of LabLab (lablab.tec.br), a collaborative process that brings together farmers, technologists, and researchers to co-create technological solutions rooted in local realities. Rather than focusing on isolated products, LabLab emphasizes the construction of processes, local capacities, and shared governance models for technology development.
He is also involved in the SEMEA-TEC (semea.tec.br) extension group at Unifesp, which develops low-cost sensing and communication technologies for family farming through participatory approaches, bridging academic research and grassroots innovation.
Hiure works to promote the critical appropriation of science and technology through hacker culture and grassroots innovation. He is a founding partner of Transistir Social Tech, an initiative dedicated to the development of hardware and software focused on social and decentralized technologies.
My family has been settled through MST (Landless Workers' Movement) land reform for 20 years. I grew up in that context, as part of an agroecological farming community. I am a social communication student and a trained social educator through the Paulo Freire Itinerant School. I participated in LabLab and am currently working on the Float-funded project "From CSAs to Bioregional Economy".