Funding

Copied from https://docs.google.com/Revs?id=affksjj52vrz_277ckvqrwd2&tab=revlist

License: Most content is under the license here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ I’m not so sure about the distribution terms for the grant proposal template, but our group is free to remix/edit, and send it off as a proposal for money with no attribution to the original authors

Related Link:

  • http://www.collegeofthedesert.edu/students/ss/ce/Pages/Vocabulary.aspx

What other organizations or types of businesses would be interested? What can we offer businesses they won’t be able to refuse? Maybe some type of contract can be worked out where they initially give us so much tax-deductable bootstrapping money, and we in turn provide cheap costs on constructing or cutting parts for them for a set period of time. Potential Business Partners:

  • a
  • b
  • c

Potential Organization Partners:

  • Art Hive
  • Big Brothers and Big Sisters
  • Boys and Girls Club
  • Children’s Museum of the Shoals
  • Lauderdale Chamber :: www.lauderdalecountytn.org/chamber_whoweare.html
  • Habitat for Humanity
  • Killen and Florence libraries
  • Safeplace?
  • United Way?

All NPOs in… Florence Killen Muscle Shoals

Schools: I’m thinking it may be best to team up with just UNA. There are only four of us right now, and there is no guarantee that we will significantly expand, tend to think that we will, but I propose we keep it simple until the opportunity arises to partner with more schools, otherwise , if we partner with too many from the start, it may become too troublesome to maintain. And also, high schools already have technical schools of their own, even if they are training them for a life of meh. Florence City Schools :: http://www.fcs.k12.al.us/System_Site/Our_Schools/index.html Muscle Shoals City Schools :: http://www.mscs.k12.al.us/Our%20Schools/our_schools.html Lauderdale County :: http://www.lcschools.org/Default.asp?L=0&LMID=&PN=Schools2&DivisionID=&DepartmentID=&SubDepartmentID=&SubP= NWSCC :: http://nwscc.edu University of North Alabama :: http://www.una.edu

How far do we want to expand? There’s also: Athens :: elementary, high school, athens state uni Clements Cherokee Colberty County Courtland Decatur Leighton Red Bay Russelville Town Creek ..without getting into Huntsville/Madison region, and there’s even more if you take into consideration all schools in the blue:http://ybit.ath.cx/images/schools.png

Tennessee Valley Career Technology Center when it’s available, headed by Gary Dan Williams

Seeing as though we might become a NPO… Discounts: ASC :: http://www.asc.edu/network/erate.shtml —cheaper conxn rate… other places which may give us discounts for tax write-off purposes since we are NPO

Pros/Cons of going NPO:

  • +Tax write-offs
  • +Share the space with multiple Universities
  • -Not so sure if the education grants would be available, even if you are an education related 501(c)3

Pros/Cons of joining UNA:

  • +Possible tax-write-offs
  • +Probably still able to share with high schools
  • -Possibly not able to share the space with multiple colleges
  • -More bureaucratic BS
  • -less member control

List of Related Local and State Organizations to Contact:

Sites to look for grants:

  • UNA: ask in-person or through phone. Most grants that come to them are through the state from what I gather.
  • ACM :: not seeing anything related to grants||funding directly from ACM
  • NSF :: http://www.nsf.gov/funding/ ..in particular the EHR
  • http://www.grants.gov
  • U.S. Department of Education :: http://www2.ed.gov/fund/grants-apply.html
  • NIST :: http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/grants.htm
  • NIH :: http://www.ncrr.nih.gov/research_funding/funding_opportunities/ :: no requests for grants atm for research infrastructure programs, oh those RI programs aren’t us

State and County:

  • Alabama Department of Education
    • 2010 - SAC - Tech Prep Consortia RFP.docx :: 8 $50,000 grants every year
    • 2010 Enhancing Education Through Technology ARRA Competitive Grant :: er…
    • Grant money is on the federal level, it would not hurt to make contact with the people listed in the following link though:
      • http://www.alsde.edu/html/sections/section_detail.asp?section=57&footer=sections

  • Alabama stimulus money

    • “The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provides that the Secretary of Education has discretion to award innovation grants to local education agencies or partnerships between non-profit organizations and local educational agencies or schools, so that grantees can expand their work, partner with private sector and philanthropic community organizations, and document best practices. Specifies that the $200 million be used for a national evaluation of performance-based teacher and principal compensation systems in high need schools.”
    • this site is an overview of the stimulus money available and what government agencies are offering it

  • TVA: best to call

Possible Grants to apply for:

  • http://www.arts.alabama.gov/grants/index-grants.html :: have to be 501(c)3
  • If parterning with UNA: Academic Research Infrastructure Program: Recovery and Reinvestment (ARI-R²)
  • National STEM Education Distributed Learning (NSDL)
  • Cyberinfrastructure Training, Education, Advancement, and Mentoring for Our 21st Century Workforce (CI-TEAM)
  • EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement Program: Track–1 (RII Track–1)
  • EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement Program: Track–2 (RII Track–2)
  • EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement Program: Inter-Campus and Intra-Campus Cyber Connectivity (RII C2)
  • hrm, $100k - $4mil for one instrument Major Research Instrumentation Program
  • Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaison with Industry (GOALI)
  • Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE)
  • Science and Technology Centers: Integrative Partnerships
  • Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research: Workshop Opportunities (EPS)
  • Cyberinfrastructure Training, Education, Advancement, and Mentoring for Our 21st Century Workforce (CI-TEAM)
  • Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC)
  • Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers Program (I/UCRC)
  • Engineering Research Centers (ERC)
  • Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST) and HBCU Research Infrastructure for Science and Engineering (RISE)
  • National STEM Education Distributed Learning (NSDL)
  • High Growth Job Training Initiative
  • Investing Innovation Development Grants :: last row of the table, Date Available: TBD
  • http://www.nist.gov/director/ncgp/
    • “The Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) today announced a new competition for grants for the construction of new or expanded scientific research buildings at institutions of higher education and nonprofit organizations. NIST has $50 million available for the cost-sharing grants and anticipates funding 3 to 5 projects with grants of $10 to $15 million each.”
    • Not so sure we are eligible after reading the second paragraph (quoted below) at the following link: http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/ncgp_022510.html
    • “The NIST grants will fund new or expanded facilities for scientific research in fields related to measurement science, oceanography, atmospheric research or telecommunications, the research fields of the Commerce Department’s three science agencies: NIST, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). Candidate projects could include laboratories, test facilities, measurement facilities, research computing facilities or observatories.”
  • A bond for construction of public school facilities :: http://www.irs.gov/irb/2009–17_IRB/ar08.html
  • Learn and Serve America Higher Education FY 2010
  • Rural Business Enterprise Grant Programs (RBEG)
  • EDA Recovery Act Funding
  • Social Innovation Fund FY 2010
  • Learn and Serve America Higher Education FY 2010
  • Small-Scale Infrastructure Program
  • Education Technology CFDA 84.305A

Plugs: “Our county has ranked high and even lead the state in unemployment rate, there’s a lack of decent tech jobs, and an exodus of qualified individuals after graduation. It’s at the point now that something has to be done.”

I’ve asked for statistics from Smari McCarthy and Sherry Lassiter on the number of start-ups that began at a fab-lab.

Grant Proposal Template:

Dear XXX:

It’s so nice to hear from you. Thanks for your note. We’ve been overwhelmed by the passionate, personal, thoughtful inquiries and comments we’ve received. Because there are so many of them it’s been difficult for us to handle each individually, please excuse this somewhat impersonal note with some follow-up information.

You are on the front wave of a new, international movement in personal fabrication—and therefore you would be considered an “early adopter. The cheapest and fastest method to get a fab lab is to buy and assemble it yourself. This approach does require that you have some good expertise on hand to help you set up, install, debug and train. There are a few other ways to get a lab, but they are more expensive and not yet ready for the public. Here’s the road map:

  • The evolving specifications and software are freely available at http://fab.cba.mit.edu/fab; a fab lab currently comprises from $25-$50k in capital equipment and about $5–10k in consumables.
  • We have an International Fab Foundation forming in the US. The Fab Foundation will be an umbrella for funding, software development, training and deployment, our international web presence, and more. But it’s not ready yet, so that avenue will have to wait.
  • The Fab Company is investing in the sustainable creation of fab lab businesses and providing commercial support for fab labs; it can be contacted at info@fabcompany.com. This avenue is for more commercial versions, for instance, if the nascent fab store needs something made and shipped from your part of the country, you would do that and share in the cost/profits of the sale.
  • MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms is entering into institutional partnerships for fab lab installation, training, and research. These $100k-$200k/yr agreements fund the development and deployment of enabling processes and projects. CBA will also continue to informally collaborate on establishing exceptional individual fab lab sites. Its address is info@cba.mit.edu. (This avenue isn’t realistic for a community lab. It’s more appropriate for research agreements, or for large networks of labs, say for a country like India.)

At this time we do not have a manual for set up or for training, but there is a growing online body of information which addresses many questions, and a growing archive of tutorials online. (http://fab.cba.mit.edu— look under “tools”, “classes”.) Unfortunately our website is under construction and the forum is nonexistent at the moment. So live help is harder to come by unless you have a way to teleconference into our MCU online videoconferencing unit, where we all hang out during the day and can help one another.

The inventory of hardware, software and materials that we deploy in a full Fab Lab can be found at: http:fab.cba.mit.edu/fab. Click on “inventory” for the list of equipment, tools and consumables. For training, once a year we hold a Fab Boot Camp for training new lab managers. This usually happens in Norway as they have the facilities and the technical expertise to handle it. Boot camp this year will happen in June. It costs you your airfare to get to Tromso Norway, and then about $800-$1,000 per week for room, board, materials and the teachers. (It’s on a small horse farm in the Lyngen Alps, so accommodations and meals are communal. ) Also there are some good experts in the network now that you could contact directly to see if they would be interested (for a fee) in coming and helping you set up and train. I can connect you to those people if and when the time comes

The best background on fab labs and the digital fabrication movement is Professor Neil Gershenfeld’s book: FAB: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop—from Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication. (available on http://www.amazon.com). It contains a wealth of information for you and is a good read.

Please also see: http://fab.cba.mit.edu/about/faq/

Another good resource for you that will give some background is Neil’s talk at the Library of Congress, as seen on CSPAN. See this link: rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/digital/digitalfuture032805.rm or try http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=3725

as well as a few links to other information:

  • http://cba.mit.edu/events/05.07.Norway/
  • http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3786368
  • http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_18/b3931027_mz005.htm .

As you are trying to jump start a fab lab there are few more things we’ve found that are helpful when trying to start a lab:

  1. Identify a host agency to host and take ownership of the Fab Lab.

The host agency could be any organization ranging from Govt. agency, community

organization, educational institution etc. The Fab Lab needs to be hosted, housed and owned by the right

agency to ensure success.

  1. Identify the right champion to lead this Fab Lab.

Very important. The successful Fab Labs are driven by the right

champions. The champion needs to have passion for community

development through technology deployment and should be respected by

the community.

3.Finalize partnership/ contractual agreements Contracts and agreements-

including if appropriate Fab Foundation/ MIT, local partners, funders,

service providers need to be put in place.

  1. Secure funding for this Fab Lab. Secure appropriate partnership for

this Fab Lab. If you are interested in developing a network of fab labs—in

South Africa there is a good model evolving around Public -Private- Partnership.

Government funds equipment, host agency funds space,

running and management expenses and firms pay for projects. Having said that this is a

cumbersome process. The best would be to find the funder for a first Fab Lab and later

pursue the SA model. If you get to this point the Fab Foundation/ MIT team can assist

in budgeting, proposal writing etc.

  1. Identify and prepare site. Site selection is critical- in that it should be

accessible to the community and should not deter potential users.

  1. Procure, install and commission the Fab Lab.

7.Train the trainers.(technical and management) Proper training and handing over

of the Lab is crucial for the success of the Lab. Trainers will be trained to

train users and with our help you can put together a crash course of

‘How To Make (Almost) Anything’ with the early users.

  1. Identify projects. Starting with local problem solving, the Fab Lab will be integrated

into the bigger Fab community and will have access to and participate in projects worked on

globally and in a distributed manner.

9.Launch the Fab Lab. Key community, govt and private stakeholders can attend the launch to

not only understand the Fab Lab concept but also witness the demos of project outputs.

For general information I have included a draft description of the Fab Lab program below.

Once you’ve had a chance to look this over and think about your options, please don’t hesitate to contact me for more info. I’ll be glad to guide you in any way that I am able.

I do have a few sample lab layout schematics, as well as some very rough sample budgets for stand alone fab labs. Our labs are primarily community oriented, so TechShop isn’t our model. However, the TechShop approach—that is, a membership approach with hours set aside for community access is a idea that some of the labs are exploring for sustainability. No one has the golden answer for you on that front. It’s a wild frontier.

Best,

FAB LAB

Fab Labs are the educational outreach component for the Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2001 the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C. funded MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms, an ambitious interdisciplinary initiative that is looking beyond the end of the Digital Revolution to ask how a functional description of a system can be embodied in, and abstracted from, a physical form. CBA’s laboratory research on technologies for personal fabrication is complemented by the field “Fab Lab” program that brings prototyping capabilities to under-served communities that have been beyond the reach of conventional technology development and deployment. By making accessible engineering in space (down to microns, through precision machining) and time (down to microseconds, through RISC microcontrollers), these facilities have been uncovering what can be thought of as instrumentation and fabrication divides, and suggesting that they can be addressed by bringing IT development rather than just IT to the general public.

The engineering capability for design and fabrication at length and time scales described above opens up numerous possibilities for innovative solutions to common problems. Since local communities themselves foster this innovation, it can lead to sustainable solutions. High-end technological solutions have not been addressing problems faced on the local level as yet; therefore, we believe fab labs will provide a thriving incubator for local micro-businesses.

In the life of CBA Fab Labs have been opened in rural India, northern Norway, Ghana, Boston and Costa Rica. Fab Lab outreach projects are being explored with a growing group of institutional partners and countries including Panama, Trinidad, South Africa, the National Academies, the Indian Department of Science and Technology, and the Africa-America Institute.

What exactly is a Fab Lab? Fab Lab is an abbreviation for Fabrication Laboratory. It is a group of off-the-shelf, industrial-grade fabrication and electronics tools, wrapped in open source software and programs written by researchers at the Center for Bits and Atoms. Currently the labs include a laser cutter that makes 2D and 3D structures, a sign cutter that plots in copper to make antennas and flex circuits, a high-resolution milling machine that makes circuit boards and precision parts, a plasma cutter and welder for large metal objects, an NC embroidery sewing machine, and a suite of electronic components and programming tools for low-cost, high-speed microcontrollers. MIT has additionally written a Computer-Aided Machinery (CAM) program that can read all of the different kinds of ways that people describe things digitally and turn them into tool paths for all of the different ways it’s possible to make them. Researchers have written another program for Fab Labs which helps users share their files and experiences as they work, so that users can teach each other rather than relying on a fixed curriculum.

Fab Labs are evolving as our research evolves. A full Fab Lab currently costs about $25,000 - $50,000 in equipment and materials without MIT’s involvement. It is a rapid prototyping platform—and as such is meant to encourage local entrepreneurs to take their own ideas from the drawing board to prototypes to starting local micro businesses, Fab Lab also teaches users critical skills in computing, electronics, programming, and CAD/CAM fabrication techniques—a set of internationally recognized skills. It is additionally a platform from which a community’s technical challenges can be shared with an international roster of engineers, who can help problem solve and design solutions for the community. In return for the involvement of trained engineers with the community, engineers have an opportunity to work on real life design problems faced by large, under-served communities at the lower end of the consumer market.

A Fab Lab can give its users around the world the ability to locally conceptualize, design, develop, fabricate and test almost anything—for example a Fab Lab puts communication technologies within reach of almost anyone, anywhere. Currently Fab Lab partners are working on creating mesh wireless, ad hoc networks in the Lyngen Alps of Norway to allow shepherds to keep track of their flocks from afar, and to allow fishermen to keep track of their boats at sea. At the Ghana Fab Lab, situated at the Takoradi Technical Institute, students are working on low-cost designs for mobile refrigeration and TV antennas. In Pabal, India Fab Lab users are making replacement gears for out-of-date copying machines, reliable tools for testing milk content and for diagnostics on human blood. At the Costa Rica Fab Lab young people are learning basic electronics and fabrication—by making functional objects with an array of sensors and actuators. In Boston Fab Lab users make jewelry, toys and crafts using recycled materials from the community. The projects are picked by the community based on urgency of needs and/or group interests. All the labs have the same equipment and capabilities so it is possible to share digital designs and fabricated solutions between labs, forming a network of intellectual property and idea exchange.

Fab Labs have been highly acclaimed by the international press, with articles appearing in The Economist, Forbes Magazine, Wired Magazine, and NewsWeek International to name a few. Additionally the Fab Lab initiative was a high profile topic of discussion on the agenda of the 2005 World Economic Forum in Davos.

For more information about Fab Labs and how you can get involved, please contact: