Startup
Emporio
Inventors' Village
MakerSpace
Inventors' Village is a MakerSpace, which is a college community centers established within a college campus. Combine that with hardware & software resources, community, and education for the purposes of enabling community members to design, prototype and create products that wouldn’t be possible to create with the resources available to individuals working alone. They are a fairly new phenomenon but are beginning to produce outcomes with significant impacts.
The Inventors' Village Makerspace is a collaborative work space inside a school, college, library or separate public/private facility for making, learning, exploring and sharing that uses high tech to no tech tools.
These spaces are open to kids, students, adults, and entrepreneurs and have a variety of maker equipment including 3D printers, laser cutters, cnc machines, soldering irons and even sewing machines. A makerspace however doesn’t need to include all of these machines or even any of them to be considered a makerspace.
It’s more of the maker mindset of creating something out of nothing and exploring your own interests that’s at the core of a makerspace. These spaces are also helping to prepare those who need the critical 21st century skills in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). They provide hands on learning, help with critical thinking skills and even boost self-confidence. Some of the skills that are learned in a makerspace pertain to electronics, 3d printing, 3D modeling, coding, robotics and even woodworking, Makerspaces are also fostering entrepreneurship and are being utilized as incubators and accelerators for business startups. There have already been some amazing success stories that have come out of makerspaces to date.
”Inventors' Village MakerSpace has been conceived with a vision to open all vistas of learning, imbibe a culture of exploring, probing and experimenting to transform the student force into Industry ready workforce - Thought Leaders / Innovators / Entrepreneurs”.
An enabling environment with right mentoring and rekindling aspirations amongst the students can do the magic!!!
Based on the very specific requirements, the cost of establishing a Inventors' Village Makerspace ranges from 3L to 2 Cr.
Programme Structure
A mere establishment of Maker Space in itself does not guarantee the onset of a culture of Innovation/entrepreneurship. A stage-wise approach has been conceived and a standard set of activities have been identified to be conducted as part of the Makerspace in a hub and spoke model where some of the activities will be conducted in a centralized place and most of the activities will be conducted on college campus (Spokes). The complete programme is broadly divided into three phases as described below:
Phase 1: Maker Space Structured Activities
The Phase 1 of Maker Space initiative includes a series of activities listed below which will be conducted primarily on the college campus. In addition, there will be some centralized activities as well.
The Exploration Phase
In most cases, participants need inputs on the approach to identify problem/opportunity and present it in a structured manner. It also helps in learning how to be focused on a specific issue than trying to solve all the things in one attempt. The whole objective of this phase is to help them refine their approach towards Ideation. This activity shall end with an Idea contest.
The Learning Phase
Technology Workshops on IoT/Android, product engineering, Innovation, Design and other allied areas will be conducted to build the required skillset amongst participants. More importantly, their approach to learning has to change to a more rapid and self- learning approach.
The concepts learned in these workshops will be backed up with assignments, projects and assessment in every semester.
The Building Phase
Once the participants are good at identifying problems/opportunities and familiar with the technology, there is no stopping from building solutions. Hackathons will be conducted in every semester with proper checkpoints to challenge the participants and give them an opportunity to show their prototypes. A detailed feedback will be provided at the end of these hackathons.
A lot of learning can happen by a critical analysis/feedback of what they built.
The Showcasing Phase
A mega hackathon with participation from winners of college-level hackathons will be conducted as a centralized event. This will also serve as a platform to showcase the activities completed conducted on campus. The participants will have an opportunity to interact with Industry Mentors and share and learn from each other’s experiences.
Phase 2: Internship and Placement Drives
Startup Emporio along with all partners will conduct exclusive placement drives for the participants of Inventors Village Maker Space initiative with a focus on product development companies and startups.