Making Central Europe more competitive by unlocking the innovation capacity of Fab Labs within an enhanced innovation ecosystem
The new phenomenon of Fabrication Laboratories (FabLabs) marks the advent of the 3rd industrial revolution where collaboration, sharing, community & innovation shapes our economy. FabLabs are technical prototyping platforms for innovation and invention inviting the society at large to become innovators. They already demonstrated their benefits in concrete cases around the world, such as the leg-prosthesis 3D printed from $50 instead of the current price of $4,000.As such they can help the EU “regain competitiveness, boost productivity and put the EU on an upward path of prosperity” (EU2020). Easily deployable to remote areas, FLs can also contribute to smart & inclusive growth by decreasing regional disparities in innovation. FabLabNet (FLN), joins CE FabLabs into a Central European network, follows trends set by the European movement that puts emphasis on new forms of businesses, as opposed to trends in the US. FLN provides a significant stimulus for local entrepreneurship and innovation and integrates FabLabs into the local innovation ecosystems, bringing direct benefits to innovation actors and to the society as a whole. FLN will push FLs towards better linkages with other CE FabLabs and local innovation actors and towards specialization in line with regional innovation strategies, to better position them in the policy context. Also, it enables actors within the innovation ecosystems to better understand FLs as a means of grass root innovation, and mobilises them to best use the innovation potentials of FLs, especially in business creation. Finally, FLN uses FLs to reach out to remote areas through innovation & education. The CE network created leads to intensive business exchanges and new product prototypes born in FLs that, mentored by ecosystem actors, can become viable products with access to a larger CE market. This cooperation puts CE FLs on the European, but also on the global map, making CE FLs and Central Europe in general more competitive.