The Golden Age of Wireless

I'm spending a rainy week in Chicago at "Fab 4: The Fourth International Fab Lab Forum and Symposium on Digital Fabrication.

A few weeks ago, folks from MIT's "Center for Bits and Atoms" because they thought Heads On Fire and San Diego might provide a good home for one of their Fab Labs. These are advanced centers for digital design and fabrication that they've been creating in cities around the world, including some very remote sites and sites in the developing world. I agreed and began the whirlwind tour that's led me here. See what it's all about here: http://fab.cba.mit.edu/.

One of the aspects of the Fab Lab that I'm most excited about is also my justification for writing about it in a blog dedicated to community wireless networks. Community networks that aren't primarily about connecting people to the Internet , really emphasize the possibility of community advancement that can come about through a network. The Fab Labs are both a physical network, connected by a video conferencing system, and conceived as network for "distributed" inventing.

Labels: community, FabLab, ict4d, technology