How fab labs help meet digital challenges in Africa

The Conversation ; theconversation.com Fab labs serve at the same time as production, creation and prototyping workshops, hands-on training spaces and facilitators of social ties. They contribute to reducing the traditional head-on opposition between “knowing” and “doing”.The wave of fab labs came about in the United States in 1998, under the impetus of Neil Gerhenfeld, professor at MIT. They are workshops designed to be open, shared and collaborative. Their objective is to provide a physical space comprising digital tools (laser cutters, 3D printers, etc.) for everyone to use, which allows an individual to create and invent. They therefore make it possible to design, prototype, build and test a wide variety of objects.These spaces take on a particular meaning in Africa, where they are becoming relays for the development of educational Commons.