Feeling totally writer’s-blocked as of late, but if this is not a good excuse to start pouring out words again then I don’t know what is. So here we go:
Ada Lovelace Day 24th or March each year is an international day to celebrate achievements of women in science and technology. It’s good, sometimes, to look up to those who have been there before (to open doors, to serve as mentors or role-models), even if not to take for granted the equal opportunities I’ve personally enjoyed so far. (thanks Scandinavia!)
Sherry Lassiter runs a network of FabLabs worldwide. With years of experience as a science TV journalist, she decided some years ago to become part of the story herself. With no formal engineering training, she was hired to work alongside Neil Gershenfeld, the creator FabLabs as a program manager. She was there to witness the birth of the FabLab movement from its MIT cradle to dozens of labs worldwide, from South Africa to northern coast of Norway and continues evangelizing the idea, pulling the strings and connecting the dots of the developing network.
Why I believe her work needs to be highlighted, besides kicking ass with operations FabLabs worldwide: her role as the connector and organizer is important and perhaps sometimes overlooked in technically intensive fields. And that with inspiration and determination, and even despite formal engineering degree, it is possible to thrive in and pull forward such a technically innovative environment as FabLabs aim to be.
Sherry Lassiter on promise of Fab Labs (Volume #18: After Zero *also credited for the title of this post): “We are often asked about the ‘big’ successes that have come out of Fab Labs around the world. I’d like to reframe the question: if Fab Labs are about local, grassroots invention and about generating small businesses through invention, then it’s not the ‘big’ successes you look or, but the little ones. It’s about the small innovator who has an idea that will help her or a small number of people, or a small business. It’s not necessarily about a big sexy idea. It’s about empowerment on a smaller scale, at the local level. So that means a wind powered lamp that hangs on your front porch, or a small alarm system that warns you when the cows cross the fence into the vegetable garden, or a hair dryer that uses just a little less energy. Sometimes invention may lead to larger successes and solutions, local empowerment. And that’s where much of the magic and promise of a Fab Lab lies. In the small, in the personal, in a market of 1 or 10 or 100 or 1000 items… not necessarily thousands or millions of fabricated items.“
