teaser: 'Started as a grassroots movement, now a global movement: From August 3 to 9, around 800 makers met at the FAB24 conference in Puebla, Mexico.'
author: Niels Boeing
type: article
---
It was wonderful to meet so many enthusiastic people who are working on a better future at the annual conference of the nearly 3000 Fab Labs on all continents.
This global movement was started by the US physicist Neil Gershenfeld, who set up the prototype of a Fab Lab for his students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1998. His idea: to make the production of things accessible to the general public thanks to computer-controlled manufacturing machines such as 3D printers, laser cutters and CNC milling machines.
FAB24 was the 20th conference of the Fab Lab movement and showed how people all over the world are using this technology creatively and sensibly today. In numerous workshops, they presented creative materials and designs, recycling methods, robots, software hacks, spectacular data visualizations, approaches for their own distributed energy supply and projects that support disadvantaged communities. A few decades ago, this would have been unthinkable.
Everything that was presented in Puebla can be viewed on the Fab Foundation's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@fabfndn. There are many inspiring presentations and reports to discover.
“Fabricating Equity” was rightly the motto of FAB24: to fabricate new, own foundations for the future, beyond the many helpless policy concepts that are unfortunately just business as usual, painted green. At the end of the conference, Neil Gershenfeld said that what impressed him most was the diversity of the participants, but that they were working towards a common goal in their diversity. This is probably difficult for quite a few people at the moment: imagining a different future and then joining forces with like-minded people and taking the first steps towards it.
In the end, it is no coincidence that the global Fab Cities initiative emerged from the spirit of the Fab Lab movement. It took the well-known saying “There's no such thing as can't” seriously from the outset.
However, 800 participants need a lot of space. The IBERO University in Puebla provided it on its campus and was a great host. With the Instituto de Diseno e Innovación Tecnológica IDIT, it offered a building for the afternoon workshops that was impressive in terms of its facilities and spaciousness. We would have loved to get started on all the machines ourselves and get an idea off the ground. Puebla as a city also impressed our Fab City delegation with its architecture in the historic center, which shines in all colors.
We are now looking forward to next year's FAB25 in Prague to meet this diverse community again.
