STARTUP .. MAKER'S QUEST
A new breed of entrepreneurs
and hardware startups is flocking to makerspaces as the tinkering labs evolve
rapidly into specialized incubators.
Bengaluru-based Anuj
Kushwaha was just another regular Joe--a young man working in the research and
development department of a homeappliance maker. The engineer in him wanted to
build something, innovate a new product, but he found no support or an avenue
to experiment. Kushwaha then heard about IKP-EDEN, a makerspace in Bengaluru's
Koramangala area.Makerspaces are tinkering labs that stock a wide variety of
tools that people can use to build stuff.Sort of like a modern garage with
high-end tools.
Soon enough, the
BITS-Pilani graduate landed up at IKP-EDEN.His idea was to design a rack that
would allow the elderly easy access to things without having to move, bend or
stretch much. After a few months of tinkering, he has come up with a moveable
rack.Kushwaha quit his job recently to concentrate on his product and establish
a startup.
“My mom is old. I thought I
should make something that is moveable. I went to Mahadevapura where a lot of
workshops are there. But they do not allow you to use the machines.You have to
give the job to them.When it comes to prototyping, they are not proactive,“
said Kushwaha.“A guy needs space for prototyping... where you can experiment
and make something.“
THE GENESIS
Tinkering spaces such as
Bengaluru-based Workbench Projects and IKP-EDEN, Mumbaibased Maker's Asylum and
a dozen others across the country have come up in the last threefour years. A
few factors contributed to this. Startup hubs such as Bengaluru, Mumbai and
Delhi were developing a taste for innovation. Globally, the so-called maker culture
was heating up and Indians who had travelled abroad and witnessed the movement
wanted to set up something similar here. Emerging technologies such as Internet
of Things (IoT) were becoming big and several people sought avenues to
experiment in these fields. The enthusiasm for the first few tinkering labs in
the country inspired several others to set up similar spaces.
The idea was to set up
spaces with a range of tools and promote an open culture that would encourage
people to experiment and share ideas so they could build whatever they wanted
to. These places initially attracted curious minds who wanted to build
something for the pure joy of it but now also attract startups and people
serious about innovating new products.
“Engineering students come
for project completion. They need guidance, tools and machines.Second, people
who have retired.They are a houseful of talent. They are high-resource people.
Third, the full-time jobers trying to explore an alternative career. Fourth,
those cannon balls who do not care whether there is Workbench Projects or not,
they will still work.What makes them come here is they get to meet people,“
said Anupama Gowda, cofounder of Workbench Projects.
There always has been an
acute need for such spaces, just that something like this never came up because
hardware experimentation always took a backseat or enthusiastic people figured
a way to experiment with limited means.
“Before IKP or Workbench,
there was a huge dearth. It was a typical problem that a growing hardware ecosystem
faces. The makerspaces came at the right time,“ said Nihal Kashinath, chief
executive of Applied Singularity, a platform for IoT and artificial
intelligence professionals that routinely engages with makerspaces. “Over the
last year, there has been less of community activity (at makerspaces) and more
serious work. Makerspaces have scaled and evolved to meet that as well.“
Allan Rodrigues, CEO of
Maker's Asylum, too, has felt the change.“More people are coming into the fold.
People are coming in saying this is what we would like to build.Earlier, it was
a few hobbyists. Now, people know what they want... and are going beyond the
hobbyist-craft bit,“ he said.
WHAT'S ON OFFER?
For those seeking
alternative careers, the proposition that the tinkering labs offer is too good
to miss--a space to experiment without having to pay exorbitant rents, and the
availability of all required tools, mentoring, and a community brimming with
ideas. Good if your plan works, if not, you have learnt something new.
“Essentially, for a startup
like me, in some regard, a social impact startup, I choose to be operationally
lean. In that regard, it has been hugely beneficial to have such an open
configurable space. At the same time, they have specialties like the laser
cutter and resources as well as extremely resourceful people. It's the space,
the environment, the resource and the people,“ said Arun Cherian, founder of
Rise Legs, which makes cost-effective, lightweight, elastic, cane-based
prosthetic legs.
Cherian quit his PhD in mechanical
engineering at Purdue University in the United States to develop Rise Legs.
Previously, he had been a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley,
developing exoskeletal suits to help paralyzed people walk.
For Nishant Ranjan,
cofounder of Zeuva Technologies, which is building an electric vehicle, taking
up office space at Maker's Asylum was only logical. “The co-working spaces that
have popped up are good for software startups but not for hardware startups. We
needed to park a motorcycle somewhere.(Also, at makerspaces) you also get
introduced to new ways of doing things,“ said Ranjan, who picked up technology
tips from a senior executive he met at the makerspace.“There was a woman who
was a senior leader in a design software company. She started talking about how
we could improve our development process. It gave an idea about new tech.“
Mentorship at makerspaces
is based on open collaboration. You ask for help, you get it. “If there is
anything you want it is one call away. It is just the network. People land up
to help, be it paid or unpaid,“ said Gowda of Workbench Projects. “We have had
mentors come from the Indian Institute of Science, fabricators from KR Market,
and neuroscience scientists from (the National Institute of Mental Health and
Neuro Sciences) willing to give their time.“
INSPIRING GEN-NEXT
The tinkering spaces also
support futuristic ideas, pushing the bracket in terms of innovation.Next week,
Workbench Projects will house around 80 students who will be building the
OrcaPod, a pod prototype that can potentially reach speeds up to 460 kmph.
Hyperloop India is a team
of students from BITS-Pilani, the Indian School of Business, IIMAhmedabad and
the National Institute of Design. The team's OrcaPod has been selected for the
final stage of Elon Musk's SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Design Competition.The team, to
be mentored at Workbench Projects, will have to submit a preliminary design and
its pod will be raced inside a mile-long vacuum tube built by SpaceX at
Hawthorne in California.
“The design phase is done
and the next most difficult phase is the manufacturing stage. The problem with
colleges in India is that they are not equipped with the entire infrastructure
to compete with all these graduate teams abroad. We are competing with teams from
Princeton, MIT and all these colleges have the right infrastructure to teach
their students how to manufacture,“ said Sibesh Kar, team lead of Hyperloop
India.
Kar did a lot of research
before zeroing in on Workbench Projects.“These guys (cofounder Pavan Kumar and
team) were equally enthusiastic about what we are trying to do and they
realized the potential of students.“
Workbench Projects
supporting Kar and team is a classic example of such spaces trying to get in
the upcoming generation into the maker's fold. “I think parents have gotten a
lot more involved. We run a rapid prototyping workshop that stretches over four
weekends, where we train people on using tools. For every monthly workshop we
have parents coming to enroll kids,“ said Rodrigues of Maker's Asylum.
“Toolkits are kid-friendly now. Kids are exposed to these and are already
building robots.“
The government, too, is
convinced about the need for including product-building in the school
curriculum. “The Niti Aayog has come up with Atal Tinkering Laboratories where
students are getting introduced to all of this.The idea is to make India a
hardware product creation country, not simply a software country,“ said
Vikraman Venu Saranyan, Vice President of Hyderabad-based IKP Knowledge Park,
which runs IKPEDEN.
Workbench Projects also
offers internships to students.
WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?
Makerspaces are evolving to
be testing and incubation platforms for new experiments. From setting up tools
for experimenting across more domains to bringing in inclusive innovation, they
are trying them all.
Workbench Projects has
officially incorporated ARTILAB, a social innovation platform. “The board is
being formulated with members from the industry, government, humanities and
technology. (We are) in anticipation of funding from (the Department of Science
and Technology) and (the International Committee of the Red Cross) with
extended support from (the Indian Red Cross Society, Karnataka), and support
from the Government of Karnataka. We are working towards making it a hardware
incubator,“ said Gowda.
At IKP-EDEN, Saranyan is
setting up more labs to bring in crossfunctional capabilities. “We are setting
up a chemistry and biotech lab within our space. We are also setting up an
advanced machining and tooling section. You want to do material science, new
polymers, fluidics, you should be able to do that,“ he said.
At the end of the day, the
idea is to support `ideas', be it a startup's or an enthusiast's. “We need
facilities for hardware (making). Successful or not, it is like an art form; it
a human trying to express himself herself to do something. Getting an
opportunity to express itself is a great help,“ said Abdul Thameem, who is
building a portable, onshore clean ocean energy extractor for the fishing
community and commercial establishments along the seashores. Thameem developed
his prototypes at both Workbench Projects and IKP-EDEN.
J Vignesh
(With contribution from Mihika RD)
ET19MAY17
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