InternationalFabLabAssociation

Axel Sylvester: – International Fab Lab Association
Session on who is who: lots of people named and introduced: find them at http://fablabinternational.org/ and what has been done so far.
History
Need to find new ways of organizing the community as the number of labs kept growing (at a supposed speed of doubling every 12-18 months). This was discussed – in general – at a session at Fab6 (August 2010) at a session organized by Klaas and Sherry on various community topics.
Pieter vander Hijden brought up the idea of an association and facilitated the process of setting it up as a Dutch "vereniging" (association). At Fab7 the first official board was elected.
Neil did not really realize what happened there. His concerns were that one person should be responsible for the list of Fab Labs. Lindi Mophuti is that person on behalf of the Association; the official list of the Association is located on the wiki of Fab Lab Iceland.
Only individuals can become member of the body; not fablabs as a whole; members area is available on the website
Axel Sylvester  talks about the fablab association...
... Open and democratic group collecting information and connecting people
Lindi Mophuti  setups fablabs in africa...
Neil advises to have one person responsible.. One voice to the official world....But in practical the list of fablabs is held by the island wiki..
The power comes from the power from the individuals...
All meetings are online...
A big question is how to gather the information without reinvent it or become the new owner....
Hard work to set up bank account and paypal ....
Ongoing discussing about charter and self assessment of fablabs..
Problems...environmental output... Security issues...
How to manage a fablab..
Become a member.. Ask your friends.... Make speednetworking about it ;-)

Extension are made by ruby on rails....

If you are lazy... Donate money :;-)

Suggestion about distributed hardware ... 

It would be good to set up a meta - knowledge base about where to find information about fablabs and related issues.

Okfestival.com

Open knowledge festival in Helsinky...

Wiill diskuss this issue in detail...

What is next?
Pieter van de Hijden:
- themes: what to do about safety?
- IP: general booklet on the fablabs position on this
- How to manage a fablab within fab academy framework
However question is first: please become a member and/or discuss the future; 2 positions available on the board to be chosen on fab8.
What do you want the association to do for you?
Harmen: FSF runs "campaign" – e.g. the top ten list of SW that have no good open source equivalent. The FSF site has become the "one place to go" for OS people. Harmen still misses that one place to go that would tell us, what are the priorities. => please feel free to do that. Maybe Fabfuse can produce a list, and Fab 8 (Sherry Lassiter) can pick up un the list, then Toulouse (Nicolas Lassabe), then Open Knowledge Festival, Helsinki (Peter Troxler)
Ronen: distributed manufacturing exchange; network machines, network purchases of machines. Alex Schaub is always a good point of contact.

Peter H.: Meta-Knowledge base of what is going on in the Fab Lab network. It would be fantastic to have a central point to find knowledge. There is a specific stream of discussions on exactly that issue at the Open Knoweldge Festival (festival.org/topic-stream-open-design/)

Bart: The Association has to play a role at Fab9, bringing in the interests and visibility of the small labs.
..
en