Academany "Thesis" or global incubation program for the Fab Lab Network

Education
#1

For those not familiar on the Academany “Thesis”, here you can find some information:

I am moving a discussion with @enricobassi to this forum:

have you already created a discussion dedicated to the topic on discuss.fablabs.io? > doing it now

i missed the meeting during fab13, so i have some doubts…

  • how’s scheduled the year? i’m not sure if there are gonna be any classes, beside the mid term reviews.
    Reply: The detailed schedule of the year is not yet set. We agreed to use some of the Fab Academy recitations and some of the BioAcademy and Fabricademy classes as part of the program. The program should start in September 17 and finish in June 2018, so we can showcase results in FAB14

  • do you have an updated list of the members of the “external body of experts”?
    There is a list in the link out of the meetings during FAB13, you can count that will be most of the people that participated in the design sessions I was part during FAB13: James Tooze, Mara Balestrini, Liz Corbin, Nat Hunter, Giorgi Georgev, Primavera de Filippi, and so on. All pending to be confirmed since we need to have confirmed the participating labs and researchers

  • i’m not sure if company support is appreciated for the first year, considering Neil’s concerning about being influenced too much
    Yes it is appreciated, it is something that Renault, Airbus or IKEA have resonated with, if you find an opportunity this year that would be great. What is important is that companies should understand that this is an opportunity for them to do things differently, not a way to do cheap research for them.

  • are the costs the same as described in the academeny page for this year as well (10k to the lab + 5k central costs)?
    Yes, those are costs that will need to be tested during this first year, but is an initial proposal to run the program.

  • could the results be released under CC BY SA NC or should it be completely opensource?
    I think it shout not be compulsory to be completely open source, again: lets test this first year and evaluate case by case

  • could it be “process oriented” instead of “project oriented” (so in the end there are many working prototype, but not a single product)? this could be more interesting for some companies.
    I think we have enough room to test, as long as it has specific outputs as listed in the FAB13 meeting (written paper, prototype, landing page), in this sense the process itself should be the product of the 9 month research, in my opinion it should be well sustained.

Lets see what other people has to say: @Jani @Gallo @yogesh @nunuromi @fablabmadridceu @kenzoabiko @ohadmeyuhas @Jasonw @romaindivozzo

2 Likes
#2

My only comment is of 17th of September being Sunday. Are we starting on Sunday?

#3

1-I like the idea of cross-overs with Fab/Bio/Fabrica -demies because it grounds the Fab Thesis in the fabled network.

2-The body of external experts should also grow from our first iteration of Fab Thesis. Maybe should we facilitate visits from External Experts to each Node of the program (like 2 or 3 nodes visites per expert).

3-I think we should leave the opportunity open for companies to support and participate since the beginning of the program while avoiding unreliable partnership based on communication goals. France has its own network of, say, “Industrial (fab)labs” and I think it is inevitable to collaborate with it, especially because the ones Tom mentioned - renault, airbus - are french (en Fablabs Digiscope is a french lab). And we are in the same small area on Paris-Saclay.

4-I agree on the cost or even would go al little higher, around 15000 locally.

5-The Fab Thesis is a good lever to promote Open Source and Libre. Let’s remember Ultimaker’s history and compare it to Makerbot’s (again). Renault has released 2 car in Open Source recently I think (POM and Twizy). Let’s not be obsessive with it but proactive.

6-I like the Process Oriented Approach because it fits a lot with the logic of research. I’d say I prefer ProcessOriented but ProjectOriented my work as well. I’d love to see speculative design object coming out of this program as well.

#4

Hi Jani, you are right, miscalculation from my end. I propose we “officially” start on Thursday 28th or Friday 29th, so it means we need all the applications filled by then. I will work on a basic website structure, and will ask @fibasile to have a digital space for project documentation, etc

thanks for the note

#5

On thing I have been thinking is to call this FAB.X, and “steal” the FABX from the naming of Fab Lab Conferences… I like this because is a kind of Fab Next… the next step after you go through the different educational programs

Tomas

#6

Just to add ideas

Why not FabGO?
“Go to live”

Rob

#7

I like also FabDX, Distributed Accelerator… we will try one this year and see how it evolves