Last week, I wrote about the new makers. Neil Gerschenfeld was one of the people in the documentary.
This professor of the MIT Center for bits and atoms founded the Fab Labs. According to its website a...
"Fab Lab is the educational outreach component of MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA), an extension of its research into digital fabrication and computation.
A Fab Lab is a technical prototyping platform for innovation and invention, providing stimulus for local entrepreneurship.
A Fab Lab is also a platform for learning and innovation: a place to play, to create, to learn, to mentor, to invent.
To be a Fab Lab means connecting to a global community of learners, educators, technologists, researchers, makers and innovators- -a knowledge sharing network that spans 30 countries and 24 time zones.
Because all Fab Labs share common tools and processes, the program is building a global network, a distributed laboratory for research and invention."
To spread his ideas, he wrote Fab: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop--from Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication and held an interesting TED Talk. Altough it was recorded in 2006, it's still fascinating.
Enjoy!