Fab business

From Fab Lab Wiki - by NMÍ Kvikan
Revision as of 08:43, 19 January 2011 by Trox (Talk | contribs)

Jump to: navigation, search

Here are some ideas about some Fab Lab Business models.

2011 Discussion

18 Jan 2011 (trox)

  • explained additional material
  • agreed on procedure as follows
    • use John's (improved) list of questions for the first interview
    • use Business Model Canvas for analysis
    • fill in gaps in second interview
  • next steps
    • John to refine his set of questions (until end of the week, to everyone)
    • everyone to comment on refined list (until Mon Jan 24)
  • next meeting: Fab 1, 1400 UK time (1500 CET, 0800 Eastern)
    • use Frosti as quinea pig to be interviewed (as a dry run of the questionnaire)

11 Jan 2011 (trox)

5 Jan 2011 (Sherry)

We just had a short Fab Biz meeting online with me, Troxler and Boeck. As noted below, in my fevered fog, I forgot to send out advance notice so attendance was less than usual. We discussed the need to generate case studies in fab lab sustainability for the community, to help guide both established labs and labs coming into being.

We've identitfied four labs that we think we can start with:

  • Manchester (business prototyping),
  • Lyngen Norway (community lab),
  • Barcelona (educational institution), and
  • Amersfoort (new approach to building a sustainable fab lab).

Our next meeting will be next Tuesday at 8:00AM US East Coast time, if we can do this via Polycom/video conference, that would be terrific. But we can also skype in the folks who can't make the videoconfernece. We would greatly like the participation of Kenya (Kamua) and India (Dhananjay) if at all possible, as their experiences can inform our process greatly.

Online Community



Ideas for revenue

Thoughts on how to make Fab Labs more sustainable.

Ideas that can make revenue for Fab Labs

  • Knowledge
    • Solve problems
    • Education programs
  • Fabrication
  • Designs
  • Global meeting point

Showcases

One idea is to organize events or place where the labs can present their ideas. People could join in to the Fab Lab network around the world. Each lab could present few ideas at each time. (2-3)

The purpose of the presentation could be

  • a) to share knowledge
  • b) to seek for knowledge
  • c) to present the idea for possible partners (e.g. technical partners or business partners)

Different meetings could be held around different topics. Each idea should come with some basic information.

Every inventor should write this about his/hers idea:

  • Idea number.
  • Name of idea:
  • Inventors name:
  • Description
  • Collaboration details
  • Type of partner sought
  • Sectors / Categories

These could be events where inventors and possible investors could be led together



Physical Presence

Before trying to start TheUltimateFabLabDirectory I'd rather provide a few links to where such information is already collected:

Labs | map

Minimal conditions for being a FabLab (EN/FR/DE)

Africa Europe North America

Asia

  • USA
    • Mobile fab lab: MIT
    • Massachusetts, Boston : South End Technology Center (SetC)
    • New York, South Bronx : Sustainable South Bronx
    • Ohio
      • Elyria : Lorain County Community College
      • Cleveland : MC2 STEM High School 41.A
    • Illinois, Chicago: Museum of Science and Industry
    • Wisconsin, Appleton: Fox Valley Technical College
    • Minnesota, White Bear Lake: Century College
    • California, San Diego: Heads on Fire
    • Oklahoma, Ponca City: Pioneer Technology Center (Manufacturing Education Training System Skills on Wheels Mobile Lab)
    • Oklahoma, Claremore: Will Rogers Junior High School

South America

Further Reading

A list of near-random readings from the web on Fab Lab business model