Innovation Lab, Cochin

Success of technopark sparked interest in entrepreneurship all across Kerala. Innovation lab positioned as pre-incubator is a link in the chain. Beneficiaries of technopark technology business incubator have taken the lead to provide this platform to young entrepreneurs . This is an intermediate stage on the journey from college to technopark- develop and test your ideas with mentors, physical space, bandwidth and a live telecom lab.

Automated invention machine

Economic Times (registration required) carried an interesting article on `Evolutionary Design'. This tantalizing hypothesis is based on work of John R Koza and others on `genetic programming'. Koza's quote " The fact that genetic programming can evolve entities that are competitive with human-produced results suggests that genetic programming may possibly be used as an "invention machine" to create new and useful patentable invention".
For those interested an ocean of resources are placed on Koza's blog.

Fab Lab

Fablab is basically a collection of set of computerized high-tech tools, which can be used to fabricate instruments of any utility and configuration. A place that empowers innovators to make almost anything. Fablabs have been developed by Centre of Bits and Atoms of Masssachusetts Institute of Technology, (MIT), USA. One such a lab exists at Vigyan Ashram, Pune finded by MIT at a cost of $200,000/-. VA trains school drop outs to use FABLAB equipments. The students undergo a diploma course of one year where they work in different streams of engineering and get trained in various fields. Engineers at the Ashram train these students. R&D takes place at the Fablab where the students are asked to work on a project of their choice using the Fablab equipments. Interested- read on:

Here are background links on fab labs:

articles:

http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060821/full/442862a.html

(copy at http://cba.mit.edu/~neilg/dist/nature.pdf) http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3786368 http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2005-11-06-fab-lab_x.htm interviews:

http://www.sciencefriday.com/pages/2005/Nov/hour1_111105.html http://audio.theworld.org/wma/2005/09207.wma

book:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_18/b3931027_mz005.htm

talks and presentations:

http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=n_gershenfeld http://cba.mit.edu/events/06.06.ZA/symposium.html http://cba.mit.edu/~neilg/dist/fab.pdf

CBA:

http://cba.mit.edu/events/06.10.review/

http://cba.mit.edu/docs/06.09.NSF/

demos:

http://cba.mit.edu/~neilg/demos

hardware:

http://fab.cba.mit.edu/about/fab/inv.html

software:

http://fab.cba.mit.edu/about/fab/

videoconference:

http://fab.cba.mit.edu/content/processes/video/index.html