Luka Mustafa & Boštjan Vihar
Luka Mustafa (SI) is a founder of the IRNAS institute, a Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow and full-time KORUZA developer, as well as a PhD candidate at University College London. He is actively involved in wlan-Slovenija, the deployment and management of national and international wireless backbones. He actively pursues the development of new and efficient systems by re-purposing mass-produced components.
Boštjan Vihar (SI) is a biomimeticist with a PhD in biology from RWTH Aachen University. He is interested in the structure and properties of living things and how to transfer the underlying principles to new technologies. At IRNAS, he is building an open laboratory for biological and biomedical research, using low-cost and DIY equipment, optimized for research but still widely available.
KORUZA and fab&sciencelab
At the IRNAS institute, young people from various backgrounds have found each other with the common goal applying the advances in science and technology to everyday reality and creating efficient, affordable systems, available to everyone. They currently focus on three areas of interest: fabrication devices for rapid prototyping, which in turn are used for research and development of optical communication systems and open/DIY bioscience. Everything they do is completely open source and made from parts which are either available anywhere in the world or can be cut or 3D printed.
At Ars Electronica 2016, their work will be presented in two parts: an ad hoc mini fab&sciencelab will be set up, where visitors can test and play with the machines, produce their own models, DIY research equipment or do simple experiments. Also an interactive installment of KORUZA—the wireless optical communication system will be presented, where visitors will be able to witness first hand how optical communication works, its advantages and potentials for future networking.
IRNAS: Luka Mustafa, Boštjan Vihar
Tkalka: co-working space in Maribor, where IRNAS is based
Kreatorlab: Fablab, close partners of IRNAS, also based at Tkalka
