FAB LAB Rwanda Provides Education, Community, and Entrepreneurship

FAB LAB Rwanda opens this week providing a shared space for education, community, and entrepreneurship. As the first FAB LAB in central Africa, this new initiative is part of our commitment to the designers and makers in Rwanda.

The FAB LAB concept was started by Neil Gershenfeld, Director of MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA). Fab Lab is the educational outreach component of CBA, an extension of its research into digital fabrication and computation. A Fab Lab is a technical prototyping platform for innovation and invention, providing stimulus for local entrepreneurship. There are now ~1000 FAB LABS around the world.

The operations of the global FAB LAB network is managed by the Fab Foundation Director, Sherry Lassiter. Sherry’s energy continues to amaze me and provides me the inspiration to connect our work in Rwanda to the FAB LAB at so many levels.

FAB LAB Rwanda is also supported by the MIT Fab Lab Team that worked together with the Rwandan team to design the space with equipment and software to “make almost anything”

We are fortunate to have Mark Neil and team that helped with this great effort.

We look forward to future stories FAB LAB Rwanda will bring.

Thank you Mark for the photos and sharing with the SOLIDWORKS community. Marie

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Marie Planchard

Senior Director, Early Engagement, 3DEXPERIENCE Works at Dassault Systemes

Marie Planchard is an education and engineering advocate. As Senior Director of Education & Early Engagement, SOLIDWORKS, she is responsible for global development of content and social outreach for the 3DEXPERIENCE Works products across all levels of learning including educational institutions, Fab Labs, and entrepreneurship.