Manic Year
Fab Lab London – open and very busy
Fab Lab London has opened with a bang. Ande and I opened the door on 19th September and have had twelve insane weeks of busyness. Some highlights…..
1. Over 2,000 people have been through Fab Lab London, and our numbers are increasing each week
2. Hosted high profile visits from 10 Downing Street, Cabinet Office, Two FTSE 100 boards, TechCity, overseas ministers and majors
3. Been covered in many media and outlets including Wired and London Tonight
4. Had a wide range of kids and schools visit the lab and deliver classes and education
5. Run over 30 events in the lab from private corporate strategy and innovation sessions to public crafts and creative
6. Increased the machine and tools from opening to include milling, lathe, drills, vinyl cutter, CNC milling, engraving, grinding, saws and much more
7. Welcomed Intel into one of the rooms to run a schools project from the lab
8. Staffed up with a core team of Andrea, Martin, Chris, Toby, Zee, Jana, Zhana and ourselves Ande and Tony
9. Our intern Toby has published our first GitHub code and Instructables
10. We have built too many projects to list but some highlights are:
a. a visitor tracker so we know when people come in and for how long and if they have been before
b. a test card for the laser cutter to save setup time
c. our own alarm system
d. engraved on denim, shoes, leather and shoe horses
e. a laser cut ginger bread house
f. the 3D printed Jet Engine
SBT Ventures New investments:
- Fintech Innovation Program (London) — fintech startup accelerator
- Red Zebra Analytics (London) — card loyalty reward software
- Walkbase (Helsinki) -- personal movement analysis software for airports and retail outlets
- Moven (New York) -- mobile app for personal money management
- Net Guardians (Lausanne) -- internal fraud prevention software using behavioural analysis
- AMP (Hong Kong) -- SME lending platform with algorithm based on borrowers monthly provable electronic cash-flow
- eToro (Tel Aviv) -- social investment platform
- Mobeewave (Montreal) — mobile app for contactless mobile point of sale
- Identity Mind Global (Palo Alto) -- SaaS platform for real time fraud protection/mitigation for financial institutions
My Digital Footprint
Stepped away from this a lot this year and gave time to rethink and consider. Back next year with some fresh views and insights.