Fab Lab Paramaribo Suriname; update 2013; Presentation at Fab9 International Conference; Yokohama, Japan, 21-27 August 2013; Pieter van der Hijden; slides plus text of this 3 minutes presentation; ignite-like format.
Project Team Fab Lab Paramaribo - John Watkin (project manager, Cabinet Vicepresident), Pieter van der Hijden (consultant, Sofos Consultancy), Anand Kalpoe (Anton de Kom University of Suriname), Djoemarlan Kasanmoesdiran (Cabinet Vicepresident) en Reina Raveles (Cabinet President)
Fab Lab Paramaribo Suriname; update 2013; Presentation at Fab9 International Conference; Yokohama, Japan, 21-27 August 2013; Pieter van der Hijden
1. Presentation at Fab9 International Conference
Yokohama, Japan, 21-27 August 2013
http://fablab.vicepresident.gov.sr
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FAB LAB PARAMARIBO SURINAME
UPDATE 2013
Project Team Fab Lab Paramaribo - John Watkin (project manager, Cabinet
Vicepresident), Pieter van der Hijden (consultant, Sofos Consultancy), Anand
Kalpoe (Anton de Kom University of Suriname), Djoemarlan Kasanmoesdiran
(Cabinet Vicepresident) en Reina Raveles (Cabinet President)
2. THREE ISSUES
1. Where on earth is Paramaribo Suriname?
2. What makes Fab Lab Paramaribo special?
3. What can we do together?
http://fablab.vicepresident.gov.sr
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3. WHERE ON EARTH IS PARAMARIBO SURINAME
City: Paramaribo
Country: Suriname
Region: South America
And: Part of Caribbean
Timezone: GMT -3
http://fablab.vicepresident.gov.sr
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4. WHERE ON EARTH IS PARAMARIBO SURINAME
Area Pop. Activity
Coastal
plains
10% 90% Agricul-
ture
Services
Interior 90% 10% Minerals
(gold),
petroleum
Total 400 x 400
kms
530,000
http://fablab.vicepresident.gov.sr
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5. WHERE ON EARTH IS PARAMARIBO SURINAME
From: three initiatives
Creative campus
initiative (commercial)
Innovation center
initiative (government)
Mini Fab Lab (private)
To: one Fab Lab
(Cabinet of the
Vicepresident)
http://fablab.vicepresident.gov.sr
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6. WHAT MAKES FAB LAB PARAMARIBO SPECIAL
Context
System dynamics
Scorecard
http://fablab.vicepresident.gov.sr
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7. WHAT MAKES FAB LAB PARAMARIBO SPECIAL
Context
Suriname is a developing
country
Fab Lab is policy
instrument for innovation
Fab Lab is embedded in
government organization
http://fablab.vicepresident.gov.sr
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8. Acquisition Creation Processing Archiving Dissemination
WHAT MAKES FAB LAB PARAMARIBO SPECIAL
System dynamics
People flow
Knowledge flow
http://fablab.vicepresident.gov.sr
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introducing empowering incubating
flowflowin-
coming
out-
going
9. WHAT MAKES FAB LAB PARAMARIBO SPECIAL
Our scorecard
Vision
Material base
Expertise
Services
http://fablab.vicepresident.gov.sr
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0
1
2
3
4
5
Vision
Material base
Expertise
Services
Planned Actual
10. WHAT CAN WE DO TOGETHER
What do we have to
offer
Access to tropical
rainforest
Plethora of interesting
challenges
Short lines in
government
Sharing Fab Moments
and Fab brainware
Springboard to
Caribbean
http://fablab.vicepresident.gov.sr
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11. WHAT CAN WE DO TOGETHER
What do we need
Online helpdesk
Hands-on help
Fab nomads
Bootcamps
Fab Academy 2014
http://fablab.vicepresident.gov.sr
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Good morning.My name is Pieter van der Hijden. I live in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Most of the time, I am working in developing countries, especially in Suriname.In the Fab Lab community, I have been active for a couple of years in setting-up and running the International Fab Lab Association. Now, I am back on the floor and setting up a Fab Lab in Suriname.
In my three minutes time, I want to address three issues.Where on earth is Paramaribo Suriname?What makes Fab Lab Paramaribo special?What can we do together?
A few days ago, Beno Juarez from FabLat presented a map of South America. The small grey spot in the upper right corner is an area covered by three countries, one of them is Suriname.Suriname belongs to South America; it is also oriented at the Caribbean. Paramaribo is its capital.
Suriname is a country of about 400 x 400 kms. About 90% of its surface is covered with tropical rainforest, full of minerals (gold), petroleum etc. The country has half a million inhabitants, most of them live in het coastal area, especially in the capital city of Paramaribo.
In my update 2012, I mentioned three Fab Lab initiatives in Suriname. 1. A commercial initiative to set-up a creative campus including a Fab Lab. 2. A government interest in setting-up an innovation center. 3. My small informal mini Fab Lab to practice and keep the idea life. The first one has been suspended, the second one has been executed. The Cabinet of the Vice President of the Republic of Suriname materialized its initiative and established the Fab Lab Paramaribo.
Here you see an overview of the machines we have got so far. The Fab Lab Paramaribo wants to be a Fab Lab like all others. There are, however, also some differences. They have to do with the context in which the Fab Lab operates, our systems view and the actual situation (scorecard).
Special for Suriname is that it is still a developing country. The economy is growing for about ten years on a row and the country is even classified as a mid income country now. Nevertheless, especially in the interior, there are villages without electricity, without schools, teachers and doctors.Special is also that the Fab Lab is an explicit instrument of government policy and has to fulfill the corresponding expectations.Further, the Fab Lab is part of the government organization and located in the government building.
Fab Lab Paramaribo applies a systems dynamics view to people and knowledge. Regarding its visitors, the Fab Lab offers them the usual functions like introducing, empowering and incubating. However we explicitly are connecting them into a flow. We try to attract, say, 100 visitors to have a tour or seminar, to "convert" 10 of them into regular users to tinker and learn and to "convert" 1 of these 10 into an inventor / entrepreneur.Our systems dynamics view also relates to knowledge management. The Fab Lab practices the regular way of recording user experiences as Fab Moments. However, we want to embed that into a knowledge management flow of acquiring, processing, archiving and disseminating knowledge.
Our actual scorecard of vision, material base, expertise and services offered, illustrates that we made real progress so far. Building up internal expertise has the highest priority now.
Fab Lab Paramaribo offers the international community a plethora of interesting challenges in all domains of science, technology and innovation, often directly related with the social economic development of the country. Lines to the government are short. And of course, all our experiences and brainware are accessible for the Fab Lab community as well.
We welcome incoming Fab nomads and would like to find some online helpdesk to get support. We will ask support for organizing bootcamps and certainly want to participate in the 2014 Fab Academy.And, thank you Beno, for placing Suriname on the FabLat map now .
To conclude: We welcome you to SwitiSranan. You all know now where on earth it is, what makes us special and how we can cooperate in the near future.And of course, I hope that next year, people from Suriname will attend the Fab10 international conference in Barcelona and give their annual update themselves.Thank you very much!