Fab business

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Here are some ideas about some Fab Lab Business models.

2011 Discussion

Uploaded next version of interview questions for meeting with Tomas: http://www.fablab.is/w/images/a/ae/Documenting_Lab_Sustainability_-_Apr_4_2011.pdf

1 Feb 2011 (John)

NOTES FROM INTERVIEWING FROSTI TO UNDERSTAND THE BIZ SIDE OF THE ICELAND LAB

HISTORY OF EVENTS LEADING UP TO THE LAB LAUNCH Frosti & 2 partners saw lecture on TED – called Neil Went to boot camp in Norway Began raising funds for the lab Around the same time, govt. lowered the catch quotas for cod, placing jobs in jeopardy and triggering govt programs to generate innovation and jobs. Govt provided funding – thru the “Innovation Center of Iceland / Entrepreneurship Dept.”, within the Ministry of Industry Opened in Sept. 2008

STRUCTURE OF INITIAL FUNDING Two-year grant by the Ministry of Industry’s ““Innovation Center of Iceland” Mission (self-defined): raise technical knowledge of general public Requirements (not strict) by funders : provide prototyping for industry for cost of materials The lab is treating school classes the same way, providing classes for the cost of materials One year of costs to operate the lab is currently 75,887 euros / year

SCOPE OF THIS INITIAL FUNDING Buy equipment, operate the lab

ADDITIONAL FUNDING BEYOND THE INITIAL ROUIND 2nd round of funding to have a second setup for Smarmi – to support teaching schools

USAGE PATTERNS Mon – FabAcademy - all day Tue – Secondary school – 4 hrs Wed – FabAcademy – all day Thu – High school – 4 hrs Fri – working session for FabAcam & high school Boot camps every 3 months Open access all the time (5 days a week) 200-300 visits per week, including Excluding students, 8-10 per day (innovators & public, mostly users) Innovators come in around the others schedule – especially mornings.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP ACTIVITIES Notable recent product - “Map of Iceland coat hanger” Many artists like to use the facility Expecting to see coming out of Fab Academy - First one ? - Improved Assemble line sensors - Electricity load balancers & usage sensors – smart grid

Participating in making energy policy for the town the lab as electricity is currently cheap in Iceland, but costs are rising.

WHAT DO THE LAB LEADERS SPEND THEIR TIME ON Frosti Most of his time is teaching Would like to spend more time on learning machine & programming FabAcademy was an essential experience Maintaining and prepping computers & machines Energy projects

CURRICULUM USED IN CLASSES Frosti wrote it Teachers of children taking classes are encouraged to do a “boot camp” so they can help design and operate lessons

BIGGEST CHALLENGES Getting money from govt – convincing them of the long –term benefits of the lab Funders are short-sighted how many jobs have been created ? how many products have been launched ?

FUTURE & OPPORTUNITIES Frosti Believes the future of the lab is in the electronics Sees opportunities in : Wearable electronics SmartGrid / electricity Need to lower the entrance cost for electronics – Ardwino Entrepreneurs do not have time to program electronics themselves – need service FabLab geared more towards entrepreneurs and less so the big companies Entrepreneurs don’t have the time or want to do the full product dev / prototyping – would be happy to outsource to Fab Lab for help Entrepreneur is often NOT the inventor

FUTURE FUNDING THOUGHTS Other funders- Received grants for individual product development - most of the funds go to the companies. Intend to reach out to the EU for grants – the EU/ educational projects FabAcademy, Boot Camp, Secondary and High school – Do not charge tuition Education is Iceland is free – so charging for Fab does not fit the social structure. FabAcademy students taken from the public. Not many 20-30 year olds on the island. Most leave to pursue education and career opportunities elsewhere. Many of the students are returning from overseas, after university

FUNDING RISKS How would he fund it if govt grant lost ? Isolated island with only 4,000 people

. OTHER THOUGHTS Business skills vs. innovation skills ? Innovation Center has courses on biz skills – “biz plan”, “starting a company”

Solo inventors ? Yes – arts & crafts people. They use it for cutting, etc. – production facility

FUNDING SOUGHT / LANDED BY OTHER LABS IN ICELAND Getting funding from the municipality and local companies Northern Iceland – 25%-50% from the Innovation Center, municipality, and local companies.

Eddie –need software to test the product Finite element analysis Stress testing

Only commercial software – PathWorks. All others Open Source. Loves InkScape

Health, Safety & compliance issues:


1 Feb 2011 (John)

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

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