Thomas, Fernando and Emmanuel. This is the core and heart team of the place. 3 persons with 3 different backgrounds, stories, and skills: a perfect blend to run and develop the Göra Makerspace. With a family of entrepreneurs in Colorado (USA), Thomas, one of the founder, succeeded to create this space, 3 years after he got the first idea, with the help of 3 Colombians makers including Fernando who is still part of the team now. Emmanuel joined them recently to help them grow the space.

They have a clear organization depending on their skills and predilection activities. Thomas is the fabmanager, in charge of the strategic orientation, organization of the team and communication. Passionate about 3D printing, he also trains and supports people to use this technology in their projects or to build their own machine. Fernando is the artistic director and chief of operations. This self-made man developed his art talent in mural paintings and book illustrations during his studies and projects made for clients while learning how to repair bicycles as sustainable income. Now, the place benefits from his art, maker skills and machines. The space is full of art pieces and he teaches people about drawing, paintings, photography, and carpentry during workshops. Emmanuel, professor in architecture, in the perfect example of the complementary resources the space benefits from. Indeed, he is one of the users who rents a space for his activity. Because of the spirit of the space, these users are also involved as volunteers in the daily life of the space depending on their time and competencies. Emmanuel is so involved that he is considered as being part of the core team. Thanks to him the space has been rearranged and a new space for co-working is designed. He also works on a big project for Göra (cf project description below). David, one of the founders, who runs his own company, uses the space for free and also helps the team to develop their activities.

In practice, all the members are dealing with daily activities and they adapt their tasks to the demand. They lack resources to be more efficient but they are tied by strong values and a clear focus where art and technology are at the top.

People who come in Göra makerspace are interested by the machines but also by the social experience the space offers. Here they find a place where they can step back and develop their critical mindset, start asking questions about what surrounds them (culture, environment, community, job, …). It was the same feeling that Thomas experimented when he came to Colombia from Colorado (USA). Moving made him realize the good and bad sides of both cultures. Göra is for him an opportunity offered to people to create their own culture.

The community of users are mainly artists and entrepreneurs who find in the place the space, the machines and the community support they need for their activity. They also find a good balance between pleasure and work. The absence of codes (no suit, no tie, no control, …), the flexibility of the team and the family spirit are elements that made them stay. Parties (where artists painted the wall of the space, … ), diners, cine-club and Puchi, the dog - mascot, are also elements that strengthen the community. Every day you can find 20 persons working in the space, most of them are regular, paying a rent for a space or to use the machines.

Even if the doors are opened every day, it was hard to attract people in a city where the maker movement is just starting. It takes them between 3 and 6 months to convert people in users and they spend a lot of energy trying to explain the concept and potential of a makerspace. “It’s like explaining what is Coca-Cola to someone who never tasted it”. The situation of the place, in the center, doesn’t help: the district suffers from insecure reputation and the neighborhood doesn’t have the financial means to pay for the place. However, they found in the place “real people living real lives”, workshops, universities which create a grungy and open-minded atmosphere that fits with the space spirit. Artists came thanks to Fernando network and entrepreneurs came with the communication effort achieved by Thomas through events such as TedX and social networks. Some students from Emmanuel’s school are also coming for “conversatorios”, opened talks organized in Göra. Nevertheless, despite the attempts of Thomas, schools, and universities are not interested yet to collaborate with them. Their partners are essentially based on culture (with Casa Morada ) or art (with the foundation Divergente or Hotel gallery ) for campaigns or events.

Building a makerspace without investment was a challenge that the two first founders, Thomas and Mauricio, tackled. Their idea convinced 3 owners, met thanks to their network, who successively offered them a space for free during a limited period of time. This unstable situation enabled them to define their values, vision and to start to grow their community with social networks. The first machines they used were their own (3D printer and manual tools) but they looked for people with complementary skills and machines to join their team. They convinced 2 new funders to join them, an artist with mechanical machines and an electronic engineer interested in Drones and IoT. Their core team started to raise awareness about the maker potential in Medellin but they had to work apart to survive. Once the third owner asked them to leave, they decided to launch a crowdfunding campaign. In 3 months, they succeeded to raise 20 000 $ to rent their own place (70% of the budget), fixed administrative status (15%), buy new machines (10%) and furniture (5%, mainly donations).

After 2 years, the 2 funders and team members are not paid and their activity cover 90% of the running costs. Among them: machines rentals (20%), space rental (40%), workshops (10%), event organization for partners (15%) and design or production services for clients (15%). They decided to invest the incomes in the arrangement and extension of the space to develop their activity and services.

Memberships : - Day: 16.000 pesos - Week: 65.000 pesos - Month: 170.000 pesos