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FAB13 Workshop: Fab Labs and Sustainable Development Goals
(Sustainable Fab Lab Goals / Objetivos de Fab Labs Sostenibles)
1 Initiative description
During FAB13, the 13th International Fab Lab Conference (Santiago de Chile, 31 July - 6 August 2017), we organised a bilingual workshop [WS218] called "Sustainable Fab Lab Goals" about Fab Labs and Sustainable Development Goals.
After "Fab Lab Life Cycle" workshops on setting-up and running a fab lab at four earlier FAB-conferences (http://bit.ly/fablablifecycle) and Fab Lab Safety Game sessions during two (http://bit.ly/fablabsafetygame), it was time for the next level: Fab Labs and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG's).
In 2015, countries of the world agreed on 17 Sustainable Development Goals which have to be reached by all in 2030. Fab labs of the world could use these SDG's as a global framework to identify where we could make a difference. This helps clarify our potential impact on local, regional and global scale. It helps us to align our social activities and makes our labs and the whole more sustainable itself as well. Where sustainable development goals and sustainable fab lab goals coincide, new opportunities for structural cooperation and sustainable funding emerge.
This report describes the format of the workshop, its outcomes, the feedback by participants and our own conclusions on how to proceed.
Amsterdam, 30 September 2017 The Fab Lab SDG team, Pieter van der Hijden (chair) - The Netherlands / Suriname ([email protected]), Enrico Bassi - Italy ([email protected]), Vaneza Caycho Ñuflo - Peru ([email protected]), Neville Govender - South Africa ([email protected]), Yogesh Kulkarni - India ([email protected]), Wendy Neale - New Zealand ([email protected]).
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2 How it works
In brief, the agenda of our 2-hours workshop was:
Check-in
[15'] - Briefing [plenary]
[30'] - Cycle 1 - Fab labs today - Setting our baseline [5 groups]
[30'] - Cycle 2 - Fab labs tomorrow - Identifying fab lab options [5 groups]
[30'] - Cycle 3 - Fab labs together - Assessing global fab lab goals [plenary]
[15'] - Debriefing [plenary]
Check-out
The Facilitators Guide to the workshop (http://bit.ly/fab13-sdg-guide) describes the workshop in detail. See also the presentation slides (http://bit.ly/fab13-sdg).
3 FAB13: first run
The following table describes what happened at run-time during FAB13 and the lessons we learned.
Planned Actual Lessons Learned
Materials Bilingual (English and Spanish)
Bilingual (English and Spanish)
Participants appreciated this service. For us it was easy to realize as most of the materials were available at the UN websites in various languages.
Audience 10-35 plus 6 facilitators, most of them English speaking, one facilitator native Spanish speaker
40 people registered, 10 showed up (almost all Spanish speaking), 4 facilitators. Start was half an hour late.
Chain of logistic issues out of our control hindered the workshop. Next time we should triple check this in advance.
Cycle 1 - Fab labs today - Setting our baseline
Analyzing home fab lab in terms of activities, competencies and target groups. Realizing
Skipped to compensate for late start
Pity to skip as it was meant as warming up for the participants. If this happens again,
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Planned Actual Lessons Learned
diversity in fab labs. the first round should not be skipped.
Cycle 2 - Fab labs tomorrow - Identifying fab lab options
5 groups each focussing on three different SDG's, identifying possible contributions of fab labs in general
One single group (about ten Spanish speaking participants) arbitrarely selecting some SDG's to discuss.
As we had only one group, only a few SDG's could be discussed. Is OK in these circumstances; at least we have a first impression of the way participants react to this topic.
Cycle 3 - Fab labs together - Assessing global fab lab goals (plenary)
15 people from 5 groups reporting the outcomes and building the fab lab agenda summary poster
Participants reporting individually (see below)
The participants indicated the SDG's they want to focus on; some participants came with concrete project suggestions.
4 First outcomes
Picture of the summary poster
Concrete suggestions for fab lab activities were:
SDG 2: Zero hunger: Multifunctional growbox
SDG 4: Quality education: Revamp existing education with instructions of digital fabrication
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SDG 9: Industry, innovation and infrastructure:
Use fab lab to go from unskilled to skilled manpower
Think of local materials; value addition by fab lab
Incubate businesses (start-ups)
SDG 11: Sustainable cities and communities:
Design and develop smart solutions at fab lab to bring down energy consumption
Public involvement in designing cities
5 Feedback by the participants
At the end of the workshop the participants were asked to answer three questions:
What was ok?
What could be better?
Other suggestions?
5.1 What was ok?
What was OK?
Bilingual workshop
Explain the global perspective of a fab lab and the way to make it sustainable
Explanation of the Sustainable Development goals
Interaction with the facilitators
Learning about specific experiences
Meet people from Latin America
Meeting new people
Networking
Organization, working in groups
Share knowledge and benefit from each other
The topics dealt with (2)
Very good
5.2 What could be better?
What could be better?
Everything was perfect
Focus on the problems we all have with our fab labs
Include elaborated ideas for common projects
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More attention to this workshop
More information on the accompanying business model
More specific examples
More time
More time to relate results to larger picture
Post-its right on the table
5.3 Other suggestions?
Other suggestions?
Explain the projects every fab lab is developing
Nothing
More graphics
More interaction
6 Lessons learned
As a team we have some conclusions to share on the content of the workshop as well as on the workshop format.
6.1 Fab Labs and Sustainable Development Goals
Regarding the content of the workshop, our conclusions are:
1. Go on with Fab Labs and SDG's - The workshop team is convinced that the Sustainable Development Goals may act as an important frame of reference to identify, measure, guide and improve the social and economic impact of fab labs. Some other speakers at the FAB13 conference hinted in the same direction and in fact enforced our conviction.
2. The Fab Lab community consists of a wide variety of Fab Labs - Although fab labs have many things in common, each of them has its own identity based on the context in which it operates, the resources it has available and the interests of its staff and visitors. Also each of them may be related to their own specific selection of Sustainable Development Goals.
3. Each Fab Lab can identify its own SDG-profile - We assume that each single fab lab can identify 1-4 Sustainable Development Goals that best fit their identity. When we could collect this type of information, we could gain a lot of insight in the total fab community, i.e. where certain (combinations of) SDG's are found. We assume that as a community we will cover all 17 SDG's.
4. SDG-profiles enable cooperation - When fab labs reveal their SDG-profiles, e.g. in the list of fab labs and on their websites, they easier can find other fab labs with the same interests within the fab community. They also can be found by the outside world easier and more to the point.
5. Cooperation may produce solutions - Once each fab lab knows its 1-4 SDG's it could analyse the official targets underlying these goals (the 17 goals in total have 169 underlying targets).
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The fab lab then can identify its (potential) contributions to these targets and search for cooperation with related ones. For the fab community could bring forward some of these solutions to international fora.
6. A triple win solution - In our view this all helps 1) strengthen the global fab community 2) without sacrificing the autonomy and uniqueness of each fab lab. For the outside world we could become a more coherent organization, with a presence on the ground in many countries, innovative and not profit driven and loved by young people. In other words: 3) an ideal partner to include in consortia for SDG programs.
6.2 The workshop format
Regarding the format of the workshop, our conclusions are:
In our workshop format we tried to cover all (17) sustainable development goals. For many participants this will be rather abstract. In the case of a re-run we could better ask the participants to focus on their home lab and its SDG profile (1-4 SDG's) and to form groups to cover the SDG's involved (and not try to cover all 17 SDG's anyway).
The bilingual (English / Spanish) character of this workshop was highly appreciated by participants who did not feel comfortable when using English. Slides and hand-outs were bilingual and one of the facilitators as well. We recommend it as good practice to future workshop organizers.
Conference participants want to meet new people and some of them want to learn the basics of setting-up a fab lab. Workshop formats should take that into account.
7 Our impact
7.1 Impact achieved
For the moment: our workshop format has been field tested, we learned valuable lessons regarding the workshop content (see above) and our worldwide team is committed to go further.
7.2 Targeted impact Spread the SDG message to all 1000+ fab labs worldwide (6000+ if you include all variants like
makerspaces, innovation centers, etc.).
Let each fab lab develop its own SDG-profile.
Make SDG-profiles visible for the whole fab community and for external parties.
Stimulate bottom-up collaboration on specific SDG's (or SDG profiles).
Position the global fab community as a global player for a range of innovations.
