General Event Details
Date & Time:
Saturday, June 13, 2026
9:00 AM – 4:00 PM CDT
Location:
Central Library Special Events Center
710 West Cesar Chavez Street
Austin, TX 78701
Keynote Speakers: Kids Operating Room - Dave Tipping
Admission Fees
- General Admission - $40 | Starting Apr 30th, 11:30pm (CDT)
- Students/Senior Citizens/Veterans - $15
- Donor - $100
About the event
On Saturday June 13th, Public Invention will host a full day of speakers, live demos, and audience activities focused on the process of becoming Humanitarian Engineers and Public Inventors. Technology should be used for good. Public Invention is a US 501c3 public charity dedicated to open-source engineering and the motto “Invent in the public, for the Public.”
This conference will be devoted to the principle that technology can and should be used for good in the world, and how that relates to you, the technologist who wants to make a difference. Volunteering to work on one of our projects is a great way to boost your career, build your network, author a peer-reviewed paper, learn-by-doing, and be part of great teams working toward impactful goals.
Our keynote will be from Dave Tipping, lead engineer of KidsOR, which has made 140 pediatric operating rooms in the poorest countries in the world—enabling hundreds of thousands of life-changing surgeries for young children around the world. Dave will touch on KidsOR’s cooperation with Public Invention to bring new oxygen generation technology, partially developed by Public Invention working for NASA, out of the laboratory and into the operating room.
The rest of the day will feature talks from Engineers Without Borders, a talk about NASA’s Artemis mission, and live demos of Public Invention’s many projects. Come experience our microscope point-of-care project, our highly efficient cooking pot designed with computation fluid dynamics, our radical new ferrofluid pump that has no moving parts, and more. This will be a fun day for STEM students from high school on up to post-PhD researchers!
Lunch and light snacks options available with ticket purchase.
The venue
Central Library Special Events Center
710 West Cesar Chavez Street
Austin, TX 78701
Speakers
Meet a diverse lineup of inventors, engineers, and thought leaders sharing real-world open-source innovations, offering lightning talks, live demos, and firsthand insights into building technology for global impact.
Milena Petrovich
Public Inventor - GOSQAS/GDT Project
John Gibbons, Solar System Ambassador
NASA's ARTEMIS Project
Lawrence Kincheloe, PhD
Public Inventor - Biochar Toilet and other Projects
Lizzie Francis, PE
Engineers Without Borders, Civil Engineering
Asim Abidi
Public Inventor - Ferro Fluid Pump
Joe Hershberger, PhD
Public Inventor - Passive Ferrofluid Check Valve Project
