The First One — Welcome to Culture CoLab

Author: Abhinav Jha

Welcome to the Culture CoLab blog :)

This blog is sort of a big step in the CoLab journey and represents what we truly believe in- failing is important. We started with a newsletter soon after the inauguration of our makerspace in May. We wanted to send them monthly, then decided on quarterly, then figured we just couldn’t do it. Why we decided on an email newsletter instead of a blog in the first place can best be attributed to my dim-witted notions.

“Fail often, fail fast”, though not without its pitfalls, is a mantra we like to follow (worth reading about James Dyson, among many others, for validation). Especially, because most of us don’t realize which of our notions are dim-witted until we have acted on them. And that underlines just about every work we do.

…most of us don’t realize which of our notions are dim-witted until we have acted on them.

Before this becomes a rant about the importance of self-awareness and the various constraints that accompany innovation, let’s talk about how CoLab started. I moved to Ranchi in April, 2016, to work on an interesting industrial project after being quite dismayed by my stints at various ‘social’ organizations. And that had a lot to do with my own failings. CoLab as an idea had been taking shape in my mind for a couple of years and after spending some time in Ranchi, I realized there was no reason that the idea couldn’t be implemented here. Whether starting an organization is a testament to my narcissism (let’s face it, entrepreneurs are selfish beings) or my disillusionment with what already exists, is a debate we can have offline (with some litti).

‘CoLab’ because we believe in experimentation and collaboration as critical to our philosophy. ‘Culture’ because we believe that being cultural (as in becoming a part of the culture of a community) is essential to and should be the aim of any innovation.

After almost a year of brain-wrecking, back-breaking work, we set up our makerspace cum design innovation lab in central Ranchi. And we named it Cuture CoLab. ‘CoLab’ because we believe in experimentation and collaboration as critical to our philosophy. ‘Culture’ because we believe that being cultural (as in becoming a part of the culture of a community) is essential to and should be the aim of any innovation. ‘Culture’ also because the multidisciplinary team that came together for CoLab couldn’t reconcile thinking about technology without the arts, electronics without theatre, mechanics without dance, you get the point.

So, Culture CoLab. And here we are today, 10 months since its inception, having run STEM workshops for over 2000 school and college students; set up tinkering labs in 2 schools; worked on projects ranging from FinTech to medical engineering, requiring skill sets ranging from UX design to mechanical prototyping; and currently working on two social enterprise ideas.

This blog is a big step. Because it feels right. Because now we feel we have good stuff to share. Damn, narcissism!