FAB5: The Fifth International Fab Lab Forum
and Symposium on Digital Fabrication

This event will gather both field practitioners and laboratory researchers for a week of hands-on workshops and a one day symposium on the principles and applications of digital fabrication. It is being hosted in Pune, India, from August 16-21, 2009, by a team including the College of Engineering, Pune, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, Symbiosis Institute of Technology, Vigyan Ashram, the National Innovation Foundation, the Fab Foundation, the MIT-India Program, and MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA), with support from DSIR and NSF. FAB5 follows earlier events in the US, South Africa, and Norway; there's background on fab labs and digital fabrication here.

Just as communications and computation have made the transition from analog to digital, laboratory research is leading to the development of fundamentally digital fabrication processes in which programs don't just describe things, they are things. Like those earlier digital revolutions, the digitization of fabrication enables its personalization, allowing anyone to make (almost) anything, anywhere. Fab labs began as an outreach project from CBA, to provide access to prototype tools for personal fabrication. They've since grown into a global network, with the number of labs doubling roughly every 1.5 years (here is the current lab list). To keep up with this growth, a non-profit Fab Foundation, for-profit Fab Fund, and educational Fab Academy are being established.

The FAB5 workshops will bring together fab-labbers from North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia for tutorials, hands-on projects, program discussions, and research planning in areas including field fabrication and application of analytical instrumentation for healthcare and the environment, communications infrastructure, energy, housing, and rapid-prototyping of rapid-prototyping machines. These workshops are limited by available space to 100 participants, admitted by application to fab5@fabfoundation.org. The daily cost of accommodations, meals, and materials is $100, with support available to assist unfunded participants.

The symposium on August 20th will survey the science behind digital fabrication, and explore its social, economic, and educational implications. It will feature presentations from academic, government, and industry leaders, as well as grass-roots inventors and organizations. This can accommodate 1000 attendees; registration is also through fab5@fabfoundation.org, with a $100 cost and assistance available for unfunded participants.

The draft agenda is:

Sunday, August 16

Monday, August 17