Announcing our new radio season

After summer holidays in August, we are back on Restart Radio.

From this month, we have a new slot with Resonance 104.4FM at 5pm on the second Tuesday of each month. We will also keep producing a monthly podcast with Dave Pickering, which will be published on our website.

This means podcast subscribers can expect two episodes a month, one every two weeks.

Restart Radio begins again on Tuesday 11th of September, with a show where we interview Lauren Crilly and Jon Dawes from Repair Cafe Glasgow. We will be discussing summer tech news from when we’ve been away, and learning more from the activity of this young community repair group.

We hope you are looking forward to the new radio season, as we will be discussing all things related to repair: from the value of fixing to the materials that make our gadgets and to the right to repair the stuff we own. Among others, we will have a show on this year’s Fixfest (if you still don’t know what Fixfest is, why not check last year’s episode?), we will get into Rico Cerva’s phone repair studio and we will learn about ‘critical’ materials that make up our smartphones, with Jessika Luth Richter.

Also, let us know if there is anything you’d like us to talk about on the show!

Looking back on the last season

While we were away, we’ve had the chance to review what we’ve been up to so far during this year:

We started running ‘volunteer takeovers‘, where Restart volunteers own the show. Their stories have made these episodes some of the most popular ones – they’ve talked about their motivations to repair, about people’s relationship with gadgets, connected devices, and they have also shared some of their most extreme repairs. So massive thanks to all volunteers involved in takeovers, and generally in the shows!

Big thanks also to our podcast producer Dave Pickering, who has already produced more than 30 podcasts with us.

Through all our formats – live shows, podcasts and takeovers – we talked about many themes related to fixing, sustainability and tech. We interviewed guests about topics ranging from e-waste, repairable devices in conservation and medicine, or the importance of tinkering and repairing from a young age, especially girls.

We also talked about the importance of repairing in community. We have learned from cultural approaches to repair, and the value of creativity in making things last longer; we chatted to people analysing repair in the past, present and future; and we reflected throughout on the importance of steering the maker culture to social and environmental benefit, not just innovation for innovation’s sake.

We also raised our voice for our right to repair: if we really own our gadgets, we should be able to fix them. We aired conversations with frustrated participants from our Restart Parties (our community repair events), with our experienced volunteers and with various academics and policy people.

Finally, we talked about radio itself. From our love for radio and the station that makes our show possible (Resonance FM), to the analogical and amateur ‘ham’ radio community.

While we wait for the next show, why not catch up with some previous episodes?

 

[Featured image from Unsplash user chuttersnap]