It’s green, it’s digital, it’s made in Bristol by you. Bristol pioneering the New Industrial Revolution
1 Bristol has always 1720 had a great ability to reinvent itself: from sugar 1910 to tobacco to aerospace. 1960 Now green and digital enterprise is the latest manifestation. 2 2001 Industrial change in Bristol in the 19th and 20th centuries meant established industries entered a long and painful decline, ending in liquidation.
The closure of the Imperial Tobacco factory at Hartcliffe in 1990 meant the loss of 5,000 jobs and an estimated further 20,000 jobs in service and supporting industries throughout South Bristol.
3 This had a serious and negative effect on the area as many people in Knowle West and neighbouring areas lost the opportunity for manual and semi-skilled employment.
Six out of eight areas in Knowle West are ranked as being economically deprived.
Most of those in work need to drive to other parts of Bristol and employment opportunities for those without a car are limited. 4 Map of Knowle West 21st Century community enterprises: Knowle West Fights Back The Park Filwood Community Centre In 2007 The Guardian reported Knowle West Health Park about Knowle West Media Centre: Knowle West Media Centre "Fed up with the media’s view of Knowle West Children’s Centre re:work their community as a hub for drug use, crime and antisocial behaviour, Knowle West Health Association the residents of one of Britain’s most notorious housing estates decided Inns Court Centre to fight back."
Other organisations
5 Now the idea of the factory is changing Knowle West Media Centre is industrialising the DIY spirit - this is how the new wave of manufacturing entrepreneurs will be born.
6 Living Lab
Knowle West Media Centre is an Effective Member of the European Network of Living Labs.
A Living Lab is a real-life test and experimentation environment where users and producers co-create innovations.
7 How we shop, work and collaborate is changing
By opening up small-scale workshops to the public, offering access to a selection of digital fabrication tools, we can create sustainable businesses and jobs.
photo: Maker Lab, Chicago Public Library, IL
photo: Maker Lab, Chicago Public Library, IL
We’re calling these workshops Maker Labs. 8
Maker Labs for people, enterprise
and innovation Micro-manufacturing for sustainable self employment
9 photo: MakerPlace, San Diego, CA What’s a Maker Lab?
A Maker Lab is a digital manu- facturing hub, where computer designed objects are fabricated using physical materials.
It’s now possible for anyone with photo: MakLab, Glasgow, UK an idea to create tangible items in 3D: from jewellery, to smart- city sensor devices, to small buildings!
10 "We are all designers now. It’s time to get good at it."
"Soon these early tools will become as ubiquitous and as easy to use as inkjet printers. And if history is any guide it will change the world even faster than the microprocessor did a generation ago." Chris Anderson, Makers, 2012 11 Bristol in the Maker Revolution
Since the 1980s computing, music and publishing have gone from ‘industrial’ to ‘desktop’. Manufacturing is entering a similar revolution.
The reduction in cost and size of 21st century manufacturing tools - laser cutters, 3D printers, DIY circuit boards etc - turns individuals into manufacturers or ‘Makers’.
Open Source culture means that tutorials and designs are readily available online for people to learn by doing. For example: Thingiverse.com
Online market places for digitally manufactured products are growing fast. This means we can be making things locally that suit our customers, when they suit our customers; not mass-produced globally, so fewer costs, less waste. 12 What’s the Maker Economy?
Globally large ecosystem of making spaces, ranging from pay-as-you-go community based workshops to large light-industrial units that are run on a membership scheme.
Small batch, customised products sold in online market places.
Service bureaus that fabricate and dispatch third party designs.
13 Maker Labs for everyone
In the UK most maker spaces are Fab Labs located in an institution like a university and are only used by students and qualified professionals.
A Maker Lab that is open to the public is a novel concept.
We want to create a space where anyone can conceive of enterprises that will make money, where people can design prototypes, make products and run businesses; a place that will attract mentors and those looking to invest in new ideas.
The products made in our Maker Lab will be sold online by their makers.
14 Why do it here?
The exceptional nature of the current climate of change, hailed as a ‘new industrial revolution’, means that hands-on ‘making’ skills coupled with the internet as a global market place allow the people of South Bristol to be innovators at the forefront of change rather than victims of it.
The idea sprang from Knowle West Media Centre’s ERDF-funded Green and Digital Business Programme ‘Do What You Love’.
15 Creativity and culture can be the foundation of business and employment in even the most challenging circumstances.
Our idea of a Maker Lab plugs the old skills and energy of South Bristol into the talent and resources of the city’s thriving creative sector.
We want to encouragethe development of a network across the city with our scalable Maker Lab model.
16 What will Knowle West Maker Lab look like?
photo: MakerPlace, San Diego, CA 17 A making place that’s totally accessible and very productive
• Fully dedicated management • Crêche • Café and thinking space • Experts on hand full time • Selection of Digital Fabrication & Electronic Circuitry Tools • Laptop computers
18 3D and 2D CAD design
3D and 2D product fabrication: laser cutting & engraving, fabric printing & embroidery, 3D printing
Coding, electronic circuitry and robotics : Arduino, Raspberry Pi, sensors & motors
Product research and development
Online markets and community development
19 The Pilot We estimate the pilot will quickly create 10 new jobs, between facilities management The Maker Lab pilot will and supported enterprises, and support an enterprise has potential for sustainable initiative to run the growth. facility and provide bureau services as an income source.
20 Model for enterprises supported by the Maker Lab
Maker style cottage industries invent their own products and e shop website seek to build their own micro brands.
They sell directly to consumers around the world on their websites or through online market places.
They compete on innovation and can charge a premium to discriminating consumers who are intentionally avoiding mass produced goods. B buy now
21 What will Knowle West Makers do?
Attend our Maker Lab workshop Sell online e.g. Shapeways who recently programme and learn by doing. announced that they have shipped over 1 million 3D printed objects. Create prototypes in our OR Maker Lab with expert guidance. Set up business as a print or cut to order bureau service: do all the sourcing and Meet other makers, mentors and investors. manufacturing rather than doing the research and development. Produce small batches for third parties and ship their 22 orders. Members benefit not only from access to expensive equipment that most people are unlikely to own, but also from the connections that form when working alongside others.
A fee-paying structure for workshops and hire of equipment allows subsidised rates for local people, the main target market, with users from other parts of the city and beyond paying full rates.
23 Boom in online services for maker entrepreneurs
quirky.com ponoko.com shapeways.com razorlab.co.uk lasermake.co.uk thingiverse.com
Thingiverse
24 US based maker brands
25 Digital fabrication entrepreneurs have a huge opportunity to create thriving, sustainable businesses. Products are made closer to the customer. Labour costs are low. Quick and smart iterations of highly customised and unique designs are possible.
26 Marketing and community
The most successful makers are the best marketers and the best marketing comes from online community development. Building the Maker Lab community is a full time marketing job.
This will be the first job of the Knowle West community We have begun with the MyKW app. marketing business we will The app markets everything Made In set up with local young people. Knowle West, whilst collecting meta data. It is designed to be franchised across the city of Bristol and in our European partner cities. 27 Bristol needs partnerships to get economies of scale
"Bristol is a pioneering city for partnerships and this is the future. If we can get the growth back and get the debt down the future is good." Simon Cook, Bristol City Council
28 Map of city partners network:
1. University of Bristol - Merchant Venturers building
2. University of the West 8Bristol & Bath of England - Frenchay Science Park 2 UWE Frenchay 3. University of the West of England - Bower Ashton BBC Whiteladies Road 4 4. BBC 1Bristol Uni 5. Watershed Media Centre 9Bristol City Council
6. Bristol Temple Quarter 5 Watershed Enterprise Zone - Toshiba, IBM, BTQEZ - 3UWE Bower Ashton 6 Engine Shed Engine Shed
7. Filwood Green Business Park 7 Filwood Green Business Park 8. Bristol & Bath Science Park - Emerson’s Green
9. Bristol City Council 29 ome to the Maker Welc Age Bristol’s New Inventor Economy
"Technologies derived from the creative industries are faster to market and cheaper than ‘hardcore tech’ development. Bristol is streets ahead in this and the UK looks up to us." Nick Sturge, SETsquared Give away the bits, sell the atoms: Using crowdsourced market research, maker businesses enter a market where customers help them design their products and then buy the products from them. 30 1.0
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0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 ome to the Maker sold online Welc Age
CAD design station
3D printer 3D printed base
Electronic circuitry
the final product
Bio materials Research & Development
Digital fabric printer
Laser cutter the shade Digital embroider 31 Laser cutters in the UWE Fabrication Centre have revolutionised the student experience.
Businessjewellery #3 making One laser cutter at Three fledgling enterprises – one to run Business #2 it as a hire service and produce goods Business #1 for sale and to order; two others hiring phone cases engraving it and producing goods for sale. hire out workshops All able to do customisation consultancy and small batches.
Sell online collectively: use MyKW app and sell together in online shops.
Community development/marketing. 32 1.0 0.8 Grey water 0.6
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Digital fabric printing
33 Bio-Manufacture R&D
Uniquely, our Maker Lab model includes research and development in bio-manufacture and bio-printing. The nearest thing to this is BioCurious.org in California.
We will encourage experimentation with everyday fungus and organic waste, to create new insulation and packaging materials, for example. KWMC has formed a relationship with US company Ecovative Design who are the world leaders in this process.
34 Lockleaze
Easton
Our imagined Maker Lab network:
A city-wide Maker Lab model can be installed in libraries and community centres - even as a mobile maker lab in a vehicle. Bedminster This indicates the ability to scale up coverage across West of England communities following a successful trial and development. 35 Filwood Network, knowledge share, job creation
Developing the Maker Lab will allow sharing of knowledge from the city-wide network of creative technologists, inventors and product designers. From this network we will be employing experts to main- tain the Lab full time; others will be running workshops and courses as guests speakers, and they will be using the space themselves.
This expert support will allow community members – typically those who are socially, economically and/or digitally excluded – to access this new technology and the opportunities it presents, promoting social inclusion, job creation and employment in communities that are experiencing social and economic deprivation.
KW Maker Lab matches the ethos of the Living Lab. With a network of city-wide Maker Labs we aim to see the whole city as an incubator.
36 "The Maker Lab can support the city to address some of the gaps identified in the ELEBCIS report in relation to the provision of relevant training and support for forms of self-employment and the development of creative/social enterprise for young - and older - people in Bristol."
Sam Thomson author of ELEBCIS Report (Entry Level Employment in Bristol’s Creative Industries Sectors) 2013
37 European Network examples
England, Accord Group, Birmingham, A Labs: plans for city wide digital manufacturing hubs, using £10million funding from the Cabinet Office to build the "infrastructure for Birmingham’s next great inventor economy."
Spain, Fab Lab Barcelona: Barcelona’s municipal authority is providing a network of fabrication spaces in the city and has made it a key policy. The city sees it as a way to tackle high unemployment by providing opportunities for creativity, self-employment and invention in its young people.
Scotland, MakLab, Glasgow is working with partners to establish a network that connects geographically spread communities, individuals and businesses through digital fabrication technologies. It will sustain a a valuable peer-to-peer network of shared vocational skills, training and knowledge.
Belgium, TimeLab, Gent and their project partners are opening doors for adolescents to participate in these new industries. TimeLab is a maker lab and social enterprise, working successfully on a very similar business model to the one we propose.
38 Dreams for the Maker Lab network
A localised digital manufacturing network, flexible in nature and providing on-demand access to a broad base of users from individuals to small enterprises.
Such a network, globally connected, bridging the gaps between further education, vocational training and the world of work.
A unique peer-knowledge network, the skills to use advanced digital fabrication technology and a collaborative pioneering spirit that embraces open innovation.
Happy successful people. 39
Knowle West Media Centre and re:work Green & Digital Business Programme
Contact details: www.kwmc.org.uk Knowle West Media Centre Leinster Avenue, Bristol BS4 1NL Call Hazel or Justin on (0117) 903 0444