Are you someone who wants to build something new and innovate a new product? Are you lacking support and the avenue to experiment? Well, a makerspace can come to your rescue!

Makerspaces are nothing but a fast-growing network of collaborative communities inside schools, colleges, libraries and other public or private entities. Makerspaces serve as platforms for engineers, hobbyists and enthusiasts to come together and make something new, something that they always dreamt of or something that solves a problem. They can even come together just to exchange ideas and offer mentoring services to students in a variety of domains like robotics, 3D printing, coding among others. Makerspaces such as Bengaluru-based Workbench Projects AND Mumbai based Maker’s Asylum and many others have come up in India in the last three to four years. Emerging technologies such as 3D printing and IoT have developed the enthusiasm for makerspaces in India where people sought avenues to experiment in these fields. They promote an open culture where people can share ideas and make whatever they want to.

Makerspaces attract startups, students who want to complete their projects and need the space and tools to do the same. Retired professionals and full-time employed people who want to explore an alternative career are also attracted by the makerspaces. Makerspaces are certainly attractive because enthusiasts get a space to experiment without having to pay exorbitant rents, they even get all the resources, mentoring and exchange of ideas and contacts. Makerspaces are also filling an important need gap in Indian higher education. Our students are seldom taught how to innovate and manufacture due to which our graduates cannot compete with the graduates abroad. However, makerspaces provide college students with the infrastructure to match up to their counterparts abroad.
Government initiatives have also helped to develop the culture of makerspaces. The Niti Aayog has come up with Atal Tinkering Laboratories where students are being introduced to new technologies like 3D printing. This will enable India to become a hardware product creation country. Eventually, makerspaces be it public or private are simply acting as platforms to support ideas, enthusiasm and an open culture driven towards innovation.