EAGER: AFN Fab Lab Demonstration Project

Alaska Federation Of Natives, Anchorage AK

Investigators

Abstract

This project, PI Kitka, is a collaboration between the Alaska Federation of Natives and the University of Illinois at Ubana-Champaign's Fab Lab and Institute for Computing in Humanities, Arts, and Social Science to bring a representative subset of a working Fab Lab to the AFN Convention on October 21-23, 2010 in Fairbanks, Alaska. The main goals of the project are: 1) to engage Alaska Natives in new technology, 2) to identify interested Fab Lab partners in rural Alaska Native communities, 3) to prepare a well-informed project to deploy Fab Labs to locations in rural Alaska. The mission of AFN is to enhance and promote the cultural, economic and political interests of the entire Alaska Native community. The AFN Convention is THE main event for Alaska Native peoples; thousands of Alaska Natives from the 178 member Alaskan villages, and some international participants (Canada, Russia, and Greenland), join in this yearly event that includes workshops, demonstration projects, organizational meetings, and administrative governance meetings. The applicant accurately and eloquently points out in the proposal, "Over its 40 year history, AFN has engaged in efforts that focus on human creativity and imagination, encourage Native thinkers, and foster innovation as a means to affect change and improve our lives and those of future generations. AFN considers innovation and risk-taking an integral part of our long history of survival as indigenous people and expects that new and emerging technologies will play a critical role in our ability to create sustainable, vibrant native communities." This EAGER project is exactly that, a project to bring innovation and emerging technologies to Alaska Native communities in order to expose them to the potential for creativity and imagination in constructing a sustainable future for themselves. Fab Lab is an innovation of Neil Gershenfeld at the Center for Bits and Atoms at MIT. The original idea consisted of about $50,000 worth of digital fabrication equipment and materials that allow people to design projects digitally and then have those projects be fabricated by the lab by the creator. The core includes: computer-controlled laser-cutter, a numerically-controlled, high precision milling machine, a sign cutter to produce printing masks, flexible circuits, and antennas, and a suite of freely available, open source programming tools. This minimum amount of equipment has been set up in communities all over the world, from Europe to India, the US to Afghanistan to facilitate inventors of any age, some are as young as 6. Some wonderful examples that can be accessed on the Fab Lab website <fab.cba.mit.edu> are: The lab in Takoradi, Ghana has been used by students at a technical college to create an affordable antenna in areas where the Internet and satellite communication is prohibitively expensive. In India, an electronic sensor to test the quality of milk has been developed that could ensure contaminated milk does not spoil larger batches sold to wholesalers by farmers. This has created a global networked community of inventors that share ideas and skills, get advice, solve mutual problems, and gain inspiration. The AFN wants to connect Alaska Native communities to the Fab Lab network. This is a way not only to inspire a new generation in science and engineering, but to create the potential for economic development in small rural communities through training, networking, and inspiring the intellectual capital of Alaska Native people.