FAB labs Rural propagation ‘Local communities solving local problems ‘ the mantra of the big society agenda The vision- Three FABlabs across North Cumbria and the Penrith and the Border constituency, augmented by a roaming FABlab - enabling ordinary people to have access to the skills and the tools to create and make almost anything, a digital sculpture and manufacture facility that in allowing the creation of ‘almost anything’ with associated business support, facilitates and sparks innovation in Eden’s businesses large and small. That, in the use of a globally collaborative networked approach enables access to new markets, the creation of new business, the uptake of new jobs, the integration of creativity, science, engineering and life long learning in the community including the young and the marginalised and the development of a community that can together make and grow a new kind of rural economy… 1. Strategic Fit

1.1. FABlab can form the backbone of the Eg. Dispersed resources network, tapping in to an established working model and adhering to the foundations charter and charitable aims, FABlab can deliver real benefits to the communities and businesses we work with, in keeping with our company values and vision.

1.2. An expanded FABlab and Eg. Network contributes to the

creation of a ‘full service offer’ for entrepreneurs and industry and undertakes all of the recommended interventions to enable growth and support the Creative Industries (http://creativeindustries.cbi.org.uk/).

1.3. A FABlab can give its users around the world the ability to

locally conceptualize, design, develop, fabricate and test almost anything---for example a FABlab puts communication technologies within reach of almost anyone, anywhere. Currently Fablab partners are working on creating mesh wireless, ad hoc networks in the

Lyngen Alps of Norway to allow shepherds to keep track of their flocks from afar, and to allow fishermen to keep track of their boats at sea.

1.4. We consider FABlabs not only the ‘killer Ap’ and the next

step towards edge of the digital revolution, we also consider FABlab an essential component of Rural Cumbria’s broadband connection drive.

1.5. In the context of this constituency with its high numbers of

cottage enterprise and self employment we can see the potential uses for FABlabs as expansive; local inventiveness, coupled with the drive for austerity will give rise to fascinating innovations and creations. Going beyond make-do-and-mend culture, FABlabs enable ordinary people to create almost anything. Facilitating engagement in manufacturing on a scale that has never been seen before.

1.6. The FABlab vision is of a ‘Killer Ap’ of personal fabrication –

products for a market of one person, we don’t need this for the products we can buy in supermarkets, we need this for what makes you unique. The long game, the big picture is a fan out of a community augmented network of fabrication laboratories, world wide, responding to the needs of humanity, beyond consumption.

1.7. The short term is reduced costs for creating customised

components, a Public Relatons officers dream that harnesses the energy of the JFDI campaign, giving local communities the tools to solve local problems, while also understanding the big picture and protocol regarding investment and strategic infrastructure..

2. Potential

The regeneration potential for FABlabs is immense, FABlabs can engage people who due to social exclusion are not engaged in the market economy, worklesness and lack of education does not impede FABlab users, in fact ‘skills’ gained through vehicle self modifications (pimp my ride) can be put to constructive use in a fabrication laboratory. Moreover, fablabs do not purely create inventions, they create inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs, fablabs build businesses, build communities and build economies.

2.1. FABlab started as the outreach arm of a 20 million dollar

MIT research program, it was not designed to start a revolution! Each FABlab equipped by around 30ks worth of equipment approximating and replicating in miniature the aims an exploration of the 20m research.

2.2. Closing the digital divide, there is a fabrication and

instrumentation divide bigger than the digital divide and the way you close it is not IT for the masses but IT development for the masses.

2.3. FABlabs can build houses, can build widgets can build

computers, can build machines. a) Fab labs contain; Laser cuter to do press cut assemblies 3d

from 2d. b) Sign writer to plot in copper to work in electro magnetic c) Micron scale numerically controlled building machine to make

precise structures, d) Programming tools to make less than dollar 100th nano second

micro controllers, nano controlled micro controllers. A fabrication laboratory it lets you work from micron to microsecond on up.

2.4. FAB lab is about social impact- it’s about creating a culture

of innovators – social – economic – environmental. Its about ideas – skills – making, about direct realisation and actualisation, enabling new products and businesses products etc Its about stopping talking and giving people the skills and the tools.

2.5. High access internet, ability to share innovation and

achievement, we already know that social networking in these areas is well used and regarded as essential, the FabLab network is an international network with vast potential to support life long learning. There is also a soon to be relaunched FAB academy – international, training, global lecturing video, online, part of the developing culture of ‘just in time’ education, creating a culture of problem solvers.

2.6. FABlabs equip ordinary people to create rather than consume technology, The ultimate invention coming from this community, is the social engineering, in the far north of Norway the lab outgrew the little barn it was in, it was there because they wanted to find animals in the mountains, but outgrew it, so they built this extraordinary ‘village’ for the lab, this is not a company, not a university essentially a village for invention, village for the outliers in society.

2.7. Those ‘villages of innovation’ have been growing up around

these fablabs around the world. Clusters of offshoot businesses and micro-enterprise drawing inward investment into an area and upskilling and employing those local to the land.

3.Economies

3.1. There is a sea change in aid from top down mega project to bottom up, grass roots micro finance, a fresh interest in investing in the roots. FABlab suits that mood, Each FABlab gives at least 2 days per week to free access for all, the remaining time is revenue generating, People pay for use to FABlab per day for – IP developing, training, corporate training, profit making enterprises, (advantageous being tapped into the manufacturing institute).

3.2. FAB lab Manchester expects to reach their tipping point mid

to late autumn – this is a working as a business model, 15 months self-sustaining! The positive economic and social impacts of FABlabs are evidenced across the world.

3.3. Money wise – there is pricing flexibility in house, and

knowledge sharing is incentivised.. (Free use has a simple rule – Share – it’s free, Don’t share –you pay) Manchesters rates are - £2000 corporate use per day £1000 SME £500 per day individual 3.4. FABlab has grown into a NGO foundation to support the

scaling, and the propagation of the modal across the world, a foundation that can ensure quality assurance and standards are

maintained, it is a foundation with a charter and a globally synced list of compatible equipment and tools, ensuring that what someone designs and fabricates in quala lumpa can be printed out by a collaborator in new Mexico, a foundation that holds it all together in global FAB network, reflecting back research to MIT and their bits and atoms.

3.5. A falab is a rapid prototyping platform, and as such is

meant to encourage local entrepreneurs to take their own ideas from the drawing board to prototypes to starting local micro businesses, Fab Lab also teaches users critical skills in computing, electronics, programming, and CAD/CAM fabrication techniques--a set of internationally recognized skills.

3.6. It is additionally a platform from which a community's

technical challenges can be shared with an international roster of engineers, who can help problem solve and design solutions for the community. In return for the involvement of trained engineers with the community, engineers have an opportunity to work on real life design problems faced by large, under-served communities at the lower end of the consumer market.

3.7. There is also room for corporate sponsorship of laboratories

and of individual machines, room for running a roaming FABlab workshop scheme and community pilots, room for trying FABlabs as a part of a wider strategy, and ultimately, in Cumbria there is room or more than one!

3.8. The unscheduled self replicating activity of the FABlab

network globally is to explore the impact on personal and community empowered fabrication, enabling consumers to become creators, the vision is of a 1000 Fablabs across the UK, the challenge, to see what happens when the reach a critical mass, when everyone is within 20 minutes of a fabrication laboratory, or when everyone has a desktop 3d scanner and printer as a standard aspect of modern appliances.

3.9. In North Cumbria we can trial that model, give the residents

of this constituency and its boarders access to a Fabrication

laboratory within 1 hours of their home, to do this demands a minimum of 3 FABlabs, scattered across the district, potentially one near irthington associated with Carlisle Airport, One near Appleby associated with the engineering bias of the heritage centre, one one the west coast, energus site, accessible to outlying areas and the marine and energy coast – the locations will be arrived at in consultation.

3.10. This may seem greedy, but we consider in actually this

recognised the challenges and the potential of a connected and forward thinking digital infrastructure, the campaign for rural broadband goes so much further than ‘Facebook for Farmers’, provision of broadband doesn’t benefit communities, application and use benefits communities and economies. Once we’ve gone that final mile, once we’ve connected up the landscape and the ether with fibre, fi wi, or satellite and found fusion the effective and engaged inclusive application of our new-found connectivity is what will grow businesses, connect individuals and make us a very relevant part of digital Britain.

Relationship between fab labs and EG Although FabLabs are able to create the backbone of the Eg. network the relationship is deeper than that, more symbiotic more integral. EG was developed as business strategy a business model to propagate resources for the creative industries across rural areas. Fablabs have never been propagated across a region before and there is no one business model associated with Fablab. In simple terms a Fablab is barn full of kit, a shed where you can make stuff, a way of delivering the product,the precise product that people want. Products for the market of one. The US senate just passed a bill establishing a preferred ration of one FabLab per 750,000 people; we should pilot a denser propagation than that. For Britain moving out of the recession we need a model that can make it possible for this network to become part of the infrastructure of Britain. The EG business model does this. FAB lab may be the backbone but EG defines the full organism.

By using the EG model to trial how a local network of resources can support innovation and growth, by the end of the pilot we will end up with a franchisable model which can not only be applied to any region nationally or internationally but also a way of ensuring that the benefits of this propagation comes back to Cumbria, the UK (and it’s shareholders). This vision is what makes it possible for this opportunity to create high growth in the sectors of the next generation. The franchisable aspect of this model is what will allow this model to expand very quickly, spreading innovation, new business opportunities, and economic growth. Based on the vision of the Neil Greshenbeg, who developed the Fablab concept 'the next step will be star trek replicators, which can create this, to that...' and if that happen Fablabs will be part of the utilities infrastructure. If that happens we won't need high fiber optic broadband to replace old telephony; we will need it to replace trucks transporting objects…