KSUM to establish 50 fabrication laboratories

Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) will establish 50 Fabrication Laboratories at various technical colleges in the state to train students to design and manufacture any products using advanced manufacturing machines, a senior official said here today.
KSUM CEO Jayasankar Prasad said 20 such laboratories will start functioning by the end of February this year and work order for another 30 laboratories have been given.
Its installation works will start soon, he said, inaugurating the second leg of the third edition of the FabLab Asia Network conference (FAN3) at Mattancherry.
"KSUM has earmarked Rs 10 crore for the project which will be a fabricating platform enabling students to come forward and develop their ideas in the lab.

The training for teachers at the colleges have been completed and once the installation is completed, students can utilise the facility", a release quoting Prasad said.
The maker culture should benefit the common man and technology should meet with art for achieving the goal.

In the days to come, people can design and manufacture any product using advanced manufacturing machines linked to a computer, he added.
Ted Hung, Director, Fablab, Taipei, made a presentation of Fablab Asia Foundation, a network of 81 Fablabs located in 21 countries in the Asia Pacific region.
The first leg of the conference was held at Mumbai and the second leg at Kochi was hosted by Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM), Vigyan Ashram and Research Innovation Incubation Design Labs (RiiDL).

Fablabs also serve as a knowledge sharing network that connects a global community of learners, educators, technologists, researchers, makers and innovators.
The FAN3 conference is part of such an exercise. Around 80 international delegates and 200 local makers are participating in this year's conference, the release said.