MIT - Fab Lab Norway’s story started twenty years ago, when people, technology and sheeps met. Haakon Karlsen Jr., his family and the community around Lyngen (northern Norway) made several projects to improve their sheep keeping activity in the mountains: a broadcasting system with long-range antennes to locate them, a breeding system with mobile phones and heat sensors texting farmers for them to know when female are ready for insemination!
“It was not about the machines, but the community and shared knowledge!” The impressive results and project news were spread. Meanwhile in 1999, MIT came to Scandinavia to discover “real projects from people in real need”. Haakon’s community-built “sheep phone” was elected for the projects presentation in Oslo. He told everyone this very story, which convinced the MIT to cooperate with them.
After a two-year partnership, a question stayed: how can we collaborate further? Neil Gershenfeld thought about prototyping, and building small laboratories where people live and see what they would make. Rapid prototyping laboratories! But the name was too long and complex. And the name “Fab Lab” came up! The “Fab Contrat” was signed within the international group of people gathered in Lyngen. MIT - Fab Lab Norway was Fab Lab n°2 in 2002 (the first outside of Boston and the only one with MIT in its name), Ghana (n°3) and India (n°4) followed.
The main house construction took some time, the great opening happened in August 2005, gathering 1.200 people. “And since, the door is open everyday, we don’t charge people and everyone is welcomed!”