Transforming Communities Through Digital Fabrication: "What would, if they had the ability to make almost anything that they could imagine, you know, would this stimulate new business, new entrepreneurship? Would it stimulate education?"

Network Expansion in Community Development: "Well, actually the network built itself, really. I mean, see how can I describe this? As I said earlier, every lab that was established, there was so much interest in the community and in others that were nearby that the network would kind of naturally grow."

Innovative Education Models: "We would offer sort of a technology innovation, a technology survey would online that would allow people to explore all of these sorts of new technologies and capabilities."

Inspiring STEM Education: "And so we started k 12 programs, and really what those are about are giving educators the resources and the tools that they need to teach it in their own fab labs or in their own classrooms."

Global Sustainability Initiatives: "Like we have a really big one called Fab City and it's about how do you make a city sustainable in terms of production and consumption, you know, in its in its lifetime."

Innovative Support in Tech: "There are many many things that you can do with technology that will help you along along your path to success, and so you know projects like that, the community gathers around itself and those projects come to the surface."

Empowering Local Entrepreneurs: "And so they brought people into the lab to teach them basic design skills and fabrication skills. And, you know, one family who had been barely able to support itself after doing packaging within 7 months was able to support 8 people in their business and so this particular project incubated 300, almost 300. It's like 275 or 280 family micro enterprises over 2 years by just teaching those basic skills."

Community Heroes During the Pandemic: "in the 1st year of COVID, many, many, many of these labs stepped up to the plate and they were making PPE, right, for their communities, whether they be shields or masks or, you know, things to open doors, you know, there or whether they were, more sophisticated things like ventilators and respirators and things like that."

Revamping Local Manufacturing Post-COVID: "can we now rebuild a world in which, you know, in which all of this happens locally and it's much better for our planet, in addition?"

Challenges in Funding Social Impact Initiatives: "Right? You know, it's it's kind of, you know, to be an organization that supports, you know, social impact is hard to fund. Right? You know, corporations wanna fund a very certain, you know, certain kind of kind of impact that reflects on them. You know, government, you know, has very specific and narrow interests, you know, and individuals have, you know, our philanthropy is not doing as well right now as it used to be."