SZOIL

In September 2017, the lab accounts for 50 members (startups and designers) using the space on a regular basis to benefit from the machines and be connected with the Shenzhen Network. The lab delivers workshops to 300 students per year, without taking big events into account (the National mass innovation and entrepreneurship event of 2016 gathered in one week 100 000 people who wanted to attend the daily workshops…).

Most of the Chinese users know the lab through their wechat channels. They have a lot of groups and keep each of them daily updated of the lab’s activities. The foreigners know the lab thanks to David Li’s notoriety and participation to many events.

Most of the users are joining the lab to learn new skills or discover new areas. Startups are looking to produce their first batch of product (usually a hundreds of units) while some companies located in the neighbourhood are looking for using the machines.

SZOIL fablab has been initially funded by Maker Collider and SIDA. Today this place is a private company. In 2016, 70% of its revenues were linked to workshops provided by the team, 20% came from events organized mainly for the government and 10% from the startups programs. In terms of costs, materials seems to be the largest item of expenditure, right before the salaries and the rent, which is lower as a part of the space is shared with a design company.

The team is now looking to focus on an incubation program for overseas startups to really help them to prototype and manufacture in Shenzhen. This activity is seen as a test, as many startups in the early stage still struggle financially.

Regarding education, the main opportunity is for them to partner with schools (medium and high schools) and include maker workshops as part of the students’ curriculum. The education system seems harder to move than in universities, but it seems to be a trend in Asia.

In September 2017, SZOIL team was gathering 8 full time employees:

• 1 founder: David Li

• 1 managing Director: Vicky Xie

• 1 Project manager: taking care of startup teams projects

• 1 Engineer: developing new technologies to be applied in worshops

• 1 Manager assistant: helping to follow the startup projects

• 1 Accountant

• 1 Bio Academy manager

• 1 Tutor: coordinating with schools and teachers. (They work with 2 or 3 schools today).

The startups pre series monitoring:

Vicky, managing director of SZOIL explained us how they help a startup developing a pet tracker to go from idea to prototype within 1 month. They connected them with independent design companies and independent industrial designers to find out if any existing hardware solution could fit their quality and design requirements. As only a few adjustments were needed, they were able to complete the final prototype for a first batch of 100 units in one month.

The workshops organized:

The focus of SZOIL is to provide educational workshops to universities and students:

• University semester class: SZOIL delivers a 10-week program (every Sunday) to work on AI, robotics… to students in 2 universities

• Summer Camp: 1 full week dedicated to build a project with students. The last one took place in a village near Shenzhen, to build a beehive based on open source plans.

• Fabacademy program

• Maker program for universities: 10 days to build a product and meet with Shenzhen ecosystem for students.

• Exploring program: learning expeditions organized with companies to meet with Shenzhen ecosystem.

• Bioacademy program: started since 2017.

The documentation is not compulsory for the members of the fablab, despite the fact that it is highly encouraged. Every workshop is documented by the participants. They are taught by the team how to proceed, and each student has to make a short video at the end of the workshop to explain what he did and how he felt. All this content is then shared via wechat. Regarding sources of inspiration, they look on instructables and fabacademy projects.