Bali Fab Fest 2022 — the Highlights!
The first-ever Fab Fest which brought together the Fab City Global Initiative and Fab Lab Network on the island of Bali to accelerate the transition to a regenerative economy was the place to be! The convergence of the annual Fab17 event, global Fab Academy graduation, and the 8th Fab City Summit including the Fab City Pledge for new cities, is a historic moment to review the state of this powerful international network.
Overview of the Event
The Bali Fab Fest was a gathering and celebration of digital innovation and social impact. It was a ten-day event of inspiring activities held from October 12 to 22, 2022 at the Jimbaran Hub in Bali, Indonesia. The event was organized by the Fab Foundation, the Center for Bits and Atoms at MIT, the Fab City Foundation, and the Meaningful Design Group in response to our post-pandemic reality and the need for meaningful connection. This was a collaborative effort by local and international partners to join new ideas together with tradition to design and prototype possible paths for Bali towards a regenerative economy as the first ‘Fab Island’ that produces everything it consumes. We invite you to read more about the Bali Fab Fest here.
The Bali Fab Fest catered to participants from diverse backgrounds and of all ages interested in designing emergent futures. This event was the first of its kind held in Bali, Indonesia in the ASEAN region. Joined by seasoned expert speakers and 1589 international participants from 52 countries, we gathered to embody the theme of the event, ‘Designing Emergent Realities’ and to immerse ourselves in the Bali context, understanding the rich culture, knowledge, and craftsmanship of the local communities while collaborating through multidisciplinary talks, workshops, field trips, and the Fab Island Challenge.
The Highlights
The event was filled with different learning moments composed of conversations over coffee, talks, workshops, hands-on activities, pop-up labs, the first pop-up Fab City Hub, and social activities at the Locca Sea House. The talks and workshops were focused on emerging technologies and topics such as circular economy, digital fabrication, distributed design, the internet of things, frugal science, open science hardware, and other interesting concepts. Below are details of some activities of the Bali Fab Fest event.
Fab Island Challenge
For ten days, 9 teams convened in Bali to prototype and design outputs that addressed local problems identified by local initiatives. These challenges align with themes that address the most pressing issues around sustainability and life systems in Bali, like waste management, water conservation, food security, regenerative materials, sustainable mobility, new learning models, preserving natural ecosystems, and new systems of value and exchange.
A total of three awards were given including a special mention. See here the list of the Fab City Challenge 2022 winners.
- Plastic Exchange
- Kopernik
- IDEP Foundation (The Helium Award)
- Floating Hydrogen Pods (Special mention)
Congratulations to all winners and special thanks to all challenge teams for their participation! Read more about the winners and how the challenge transpired in this blogpost.
Symposium Day
In addition, the event’s agenda included a symposium curated with the Fab City Full Stack and included talks from 32 experts leading meaningful projects who shared insights, and resources and inspired us to continue working collaboratively on local and global issues to provide solutions to worldwide challenges in waste management, energy, education, and global learning. We invite you to experience the symposium in this blogpost and in this video.
Implementation Guide Workshop
The Fab City Implementation Guide has been devised by the Fab City Foundation team from a four-year engagement coordinating the Fab City Network. The guide supports making local Fab City goals implementable, by providing guidance through recommendations of objectives, key actions, and knowledge-capturing strategies. Read this article to see the outputs from the implementation guide workshop that occurred during the Bali Fab Fest.
Master in Design for Distributed Innovation Kickoff
On Monday the 17th of October, we launched the first edition of the Master in Design for Distributed Innovation at the Bali Fab Fest. Find more details about the launch here.
Fab City Pledge
Bali pledged to become the first “Fab Island” in the world together with other Indonesian and international pledgers have joined almost 50 other cities, regions, and countries that are part of the Fab City Network, launched in Barcelona in the Fab10 event in 2014. “By declaring itself as a Fab Island, Bali becomes part of the global network of technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship to empower Balinese people to the grassroots” — Fab City Network grows to 49 in Bali.
Fab Academy Graduation
Congratulations to all Fab Academy and Fabricademy Graduates. We celebrated 95 graduates from over 16 locations.
The graduation ceremony is in review.
- 33 graduates in person
- +65 Fab Labs Running the course
- +250 students taking the course
- +50 participating countries around the world
- 100 graduates
- 126 new final projects
Key Outputs for the Network
- Fab Island Challenge Documentary, experience the hands-on, collaborative, and exciting projects challengers had to prototype during the Bali Fab Fest.
- Symposium Youtube Video, 32 expert talks on science and technology, education and innovation, networks, communities and territorial strategies and bioregions, and global knowledge.
- Fab Island Challenge Publication, provides an in-depth understanding of what the Fab City Challenge is about: who participates, what they do, the solutions they create, and the impact these solutions have in the local community and globally.
- Fab City Book, focuses on the advancements that the Fab City Global Initiative has made since 2018. Along with key articles from expert contributors, it presents an updated version of the Fab City Full Stack and recent case studies from the Fab City Network members.
Reflections
The Bali Fab Fest demonstrated that the Fab City Global Initiative is anything but exclusively technological. The event was a place for connecting creative dots between different cultures, networks, projects, and thoughts. The Bali Fab Fest showcased the power of people merged with technology and innovation. We left traces of projects, relationships, tools, and knowledge from the network in Bali to continue to empower the local community even after the event and to fuel the growth of the maker movement.
Through the event, we amplified and explored projects and innovations of people to inspire the network to implement ideas and to collaborate with other network members. What brought us together was the common goal of building an inclusive community and promoting approaches for a regenerative economy globally. The watchwords of the Bali Fab Fest were connection, hands-on, circularity, and innovation.
The Fab City Foundation believes that gatherings like these should be prioritized and valued for driving the global agenda of shifting from a linear to a circular economy while creating opportunities for connecting and collaborating. The outputs of the Bali Fab Fest transcended the tangible and supported cultural awareness, glocalisation, and knowledge sharing.
Stay updated on the next Fab event happening in Bhutan in 2023 from July 23 to August 1st.
