Fab Lab Nepal — In the foothills of the Digital Himalayas
[Trumpet Fanfare Sounds] Heralding the first fully equipped Fab Lab in Nepal. A new chapter for Nepal’s manufacturing sector. [Fireworks]
Not kidding — this is worth that kind of attention.
People who’ve followed Nepal’s tech and innovation sector will know that change has been a-brewing in the Himalayas for some time. In 2015 there was one functional 3D printer in Nepal; in 2016 there were four. In 2017 we mapped around 50, in 2018 we knew of more than 100 — and now in 2021 the number is in the high hundreds. Other digital manufacturing tech has become more common too — CNC milling machines, laser cutters, plasma cutters, high-end SLA 3D printers, laser scanners, vacuum forming; the list goes on.
The deficiency identified from Field Ready’s scoping work in Nepal is not actually the tech itself, but in the access to that technology. That’s where Fab Lab comes in…
The Fab Lab concept is great. A Fab Lab — or digital fabrication laboratory — is a place for learning and innovation. As the Fablabs.io website says, “Fab Labs provide access to the environment, the skills, the materials and the advanced technology to allow anyone, anywhere to make (almost) anything.” Fab Labs are also focused outward on community service and engagement.
Field Ready started working in Nepal after the devastating earthquakes of April and May 2015. The aid-volunteer and maker communities coalesced around Nepal Communitere — it became a vibrant hub for community-led disaster response. This informed Field Ready’s Fab Lab strategy as there was a clear humanitarian need for a facility with this kind of versatile manufacturing equipment, not to mention the ready-made network of 2,000+ Fab Labs with standardized machines and tools and 100,000 members across 150 countries.
The Frontier Technology Livestreaming Hub has been with Field Ready on the Fab Lab journey, supporting our scoping of the digital manufacturing sector in Nepal and its early growth from 2017 to 2018. Even after we’d wrapped up our project work in 2019, FTL stayed engaged and saw the opportunity to make a strategic investment in the digital manufacturing ecosystem. The UKAID seed-funding for the Fab Lab enabled an investment of hundreds of thousands of pounds in the Fab Lab and its programming from supporters including Solidworks, Fab Foundation, the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms, Field Ready, the Royal Academy of Engineering and Dassault Systemes U.S. Foundation.
With investment secured, Nepal Communitere and Field Ready spent 2020 getting to work. The site was prepared, made more accessible and the importation of the high-end tech secured over the course of 2020 and early 2021.
After many COVID-19 — and non-COVID-19 — related bumps in the road, and thanks to much hard work and dedication from our fantastic Fab Lab family, Fab Lab Nepal presented itself to the world in a limited “soft launch” on Feb. 18, 2021. Hence the fireworks! Immediately Fab Lab generated significant interest from potential partners including local NGOs, international NGOs, local government, schools, universities, businesses, entrepreneurs and individuals from a mind-boggling range of backgrounds. Fab Lab Nepal will enable local capacity-building projects in digital and mechanical manufacturing skills and brings a fresh resource to local partners and communities. This is the first community-focused, world-class, digital manufacturing/training facility in Nepal. It’s also the world’s first explicitly humanitarian-focused Fab Lab. The buzz has been incredible.
‘How will it be used?’ you ask? Well, good question. Actually, we’ve already used it!
Capacity Building — The Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK has supported a training program based out of Fab Lab called “Engineering X — Engineering Skills Where They are Most Needed” — aimed at training 500 engineering students in practical digital manufacturing skills within one year. The varied curriculum for this exciting program is being rolled out now! Our first cohort of five “guinea-pig” engineers have been fully trained.
Impact for local community members — Using the human-centered design approach, Field Ready and Space A — a local community arts organization supported by Dassault Systemes U.S. Foundation — redesigned and rebuilt a food cart using Fab Lab facilities after the launch. The owner, Reshma, is the sole provider for her family. She experienced a sustained six-fold increase in her income from the massive jump in trade at her food cart, which was truly life-changing for her and her family.
We used this project to train community members in steel fabrication while making the improvements to Reshma’s food cart and supporting the local arts sector, both hard-hit by the effects of COVID-19. Field Ready and Space A will use the Fab Lab to repeat this success with different businesses, learning as we go and co-designing the outputs with the local community. We’re looking for CSR sponsors for each cart, so if you know anyone…
Plans for Future — Field Ready and Nepal Communitere see Fab Lab Nepal as only the start. Nepal has a great need for this kind of facility across the country if it’s to leapfrog analog industrial technologies and 3D-print its own digital-manufacturing future. In five years, Fab Lab Nepal will be the hub at the center of the wheel of 75+ Fablabs across Nepal training young engineers in the technologies of the fourth industrial revolution, meeting community needs and acting as disaster response hubs when necessary.
Without the strategic investment of UKAID funds through the Frontier Technology Livestreaming program, Fab Lab Nepal would have remained on the drawing board — a need unfulfilled. The FTL investment not only unlocked funding and the donation of equipment and materials to Fab Lab Nepal, it also enabled this transformative facility to be made accessible to all both physically and metaphorically. I sincerely believe that Fab Lab will catalyze the “Digital Himalayas” vision. If you don’t believe me, check back in a year. Dare you!
