MIT has established seven so-called Fabrication Labs in places as distant as Norway and Ghana. Each lab has tool sets that, costing about $25,000, would be out of the reach of most fledgling inventors.
Advocates of such “Fab Labs” think they have the potential to vastly expand the creative powers of tinkerers and usher in a revolution in do-it-yourself design and manufacturing that can mpower even the smallest of communities.
“If you give people access to means to solve their own problems, it touches something very, very deep,” said Neil Gershenfeld, an MIT physicist and computer scientist whose is among the movement’s chief proponents. “Somehow it goes back to nest-building, or mastering your own environment.
[...] Neil Gershenfeld is the author of the book FAB: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop — From Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication. He is also the director, Center for Bits and Atoms associate professor, media arts and sciences, MIT, and has been spearheading Fab Labs across the world. [...]