Fab Lab Hanoi

Digital innovation hub

2 Tôn Đức Thắng, Hàng Bột, Đống Đa, Hà Nội, Vietnam

Fab Lab Coworking space

Space size 80 m²

Opened in March 2016

Structure type Private company

Explored in July 2017


Fab Lab Hanoi is a Digital Innovation Hub focusing on Digital Fabrication. Their mission is to build the Innovation Ecosystem in Vietnam.

Main interests

Technology - machines & tools Social initiatives Community Entrepreneurship Robotics Music & sound devices Health & well-being Education Electronics Design

This workshop is great for:

Every single person & organisation!

The closest workshops nearby are:

Interview & guided tour

Meet someone from the team & discover the space by yourself!

Our workshop

Learn more about our space, members, machines & services!

Since Phuong and Vinh started with the idea of Fab Lab Hanoi, the mission of the lab evolved a lot. Before opening the space, Fab Lab Hanoi was aimedat being a makerspace including a fabcafé open to makers willing to create their own products.

But in March 2016, once the lab was launched, they instead decided to start with a co-working space for start-ups and to develop innovative products focused on healthcare, education and smart-home by themselves.

Since then, Fab Lab Hanoi’s team stepped back and settled down its model. From Monday to Friday, their co-working space is open to start-ups. In the future, they’d like to focus on hardware start-ups to which they could provide services, machines and consulting. Every Saturday, Fab Kids workshops take place in the lab.

Then during the evenings or on Saturday afternoons, workshops for adults are organized. Simultaneously, Phuong launched another activity, Fab Shop: Fab Lab Hanoi displays and sells products from the online electronic component retailer MME and gets 20% of margin.

If we look at the raw numbers, since Fab Lab Hanoi creation, 1,193 makers participated to workshops and 7 start-ups worked in the co-working space (including 1 hardware start-up). Basically, 40% of them are adults, 40% students and 20% children. And most of them have an IT background. Usually, those makers discovered the lab thanks to word-of-mouth, social networks and events. When users participate to a workshop, they are eager to develop a specific skill. Then, between 30 to 40% of the users come back to study further.

To stimulate its community, Fab Lab Hanoi organizes workshops for makers to present the project they developed thanks to the lab. Moreover, workshops are moments dedicated to networking and community sharing.

Currently, the maker movement is still very young in Vietnam. With only 6 official makerspaces, most of the makers are sparsely connected to high technology. One of Fab Lab Hanoi’s challenge is to democratize the maker culture to increase its numbers of users.

When Phuong kickstarted Fab Lab Hanoi as a private company, she received a grant from the Innovation Partnership Program (IPP) to cover 70% of her human resources during 1 year. The rest of the Fab Lab was self-funded thanks to 28 000€: 75% for the equipment and 25% for the place, knowing that she doesn’t need to pay the rent.

Monthly, Fab Lab Hanoi earns 1520€ from IPP, 400€ thanks to Fab Kids and 200€ via machine as a service, workshops and Fab Shop.

But those revenues can hardly cover the 2000-euro-monthly costs that include 1 520€ for the employees, 80€ for electricity and water and 400€ for the rest.

The main challenge for Phuong today is to sustain her model. To do so, she aims to develop the Fab Shop activity, target hardware start-ups for her co-working space, divide by 2 the human resources costs but also develop products for disabled people in partnership with other organisations. To equip her future hardware co-working space, Fab Lab Hanoi has just applied to the BIPP grant.

In order to track her activity, Phuong follows the number of products launched by the Fab Lab’s start-ups, of participants to the workshops and of revenues per month from the Fab Shop.

The composition of Fab Lab Hanoi’s team drastically changed. Formerly 8, the team went down to 4 full-time people: Phuong as director, Hoang as Fab Lab technician, Tam as operation manager and Giang Thi as administrative operator. To compensate the absence of the 3 fab masters and the co-founder, 6 students work as volunteers to help on different projects and think about education tools.

To manage her team, Phuong uses Trello for task management, Facebook for chatting and Google Drive for document sharing.

Different classes and workshops punctuate the Fab Lab day-to-day life with kid workshops every Saturday and adult classes every month on different topics: how to use digital tools (3D printers, CNC machines, PCB designing, Arduino tools, …), training for hardware start-ups, …

Fab Lab Hanoi gets also involved in the Vietnamese maker movement. That’s why for example they co-organized the SEA MakerThon with the SEAMNET in 10 cities across 6 countries last year.

To grow bigger, Fab Lab Hanoi set up several partnerships. They work with business organisations such as Kiss Start-up for workshops or some schools who want to bring the Fab Lab methodology to their classes. Moreover, they are mentored by MIT Five.

Currently, at Fab Lab Hanoi, all documentation is realized on google drive. It includes the equipment, the workshops but also the projects developed by the lab.

Once a maker’s project is finished, it must be documented on Fab Lab Hanoi’s google drive.

According to Phuong, their next step is to think about the opensource documentation of projects. To build its workshops and enrich its projects, Fab Lab Hanoi team uses Coursera and Instructables.

Since Phuong and Vinh started with the idea of Fab Lab Hanoi, the mission of the lab evolved a lot. Before opening the space, Fab Lab Hanoi was aimedat being a makerspace including a fabcafé open to makers willing to create their own products.

But in March 2016, once the lab was launched, they instead decided to start with a co-working space for start-ups and to develop innovative products focused on healthcare, education and smart-home by themselves.

Since then, Fab Lab Hanoi’s team stepped back and settled down its model. From Monday to Friday, their co-working space is open to start-ups. In the future, they’d like to focus on hardware start-ups to which they could provide services, machines and consulting. Every Saturday, Fab Kids workshops take place in the lab.

Then during the evenings or on Saturday afternoons, workshops for adults are organized. Simultaneously, Phuong launched another activity, Fab Shop: Fab Lab Hanoi displays and sells products from the online electronic component retailer MME and gets 20% of margin.

If we look at the raw numbers, since Fab Lab Hanoi creation, 1,193 makers participated to workshops and 7 start-ups worked in the co-working space (including 1 hardware start-up). Basically, 40% of them are adults, 40% students and 20% children. And most of them have an IT background. Usually, those makers discovered the lab thanks to word-of-mouth, social networks and events. When users participate to a workshop, they are eager to develop a specific skill. Then, between 30 to 40% of the users come back to study further.

To stimulate its community, Fab Lab Hanoi organizes workshops for makers to present the project they developed thanks to the lab. Moreover, workshops are moments dedicated to networking and community sharing.

Currently, the maker movement is still very young in Vietnam. With only 6 official makerspaces, most of the makers are sparsely connected to high technology. One of Fab Lab Hanoi’s challenge is to democratize the maker culture to increase its numbers of users.

When Phuong kickstarted Fab Lab Hanoi as a private company, she received a grant from the Innovation Partnership Program (IPP) to cover 70% of her human resources during 1 year. The rest of the Fab Lab was self-funded thanks to 28 000€: 75% for the equipment and 25% for the place, knowing that she doesn’t need to pay the rent.

Monthly, Fab Lab Hanoi earns 1520€ from IPP, 400€ thanks to Fab Kids and 200€ via machine as a service, workshops and Fab Shop.

But those revenues can hardly cover the 2000-euro-monthly costs that include 1 520€ for the employees, 80€ for electricity and water and 400€ for the rest.

The main challenge for Phuong today is to sustain her model. To do so, she aims to develop the Fab Shop activity, target hardware start-ups for her co-working space, divide by 2 the human resources costs but also develop products for disabled people in partnership with other organisations. To equip her future hardware co-working space, Fab Lab Hanoi has just applied to the BIPP grant.

In order to track her activity, Phuong follows the number of products launched by the Fab Lab’s start-ups, of participants to the workshops and of revenues per month from the Fab Shop.

The composition of Fab Lab Hanoi’s team drastically changed. Formerly 8, the team went down to 4 full-time people: Phuong as director, Hoang as Fab Lab technician, Tam as operation manager and Giang Thi as administrative operator. To compensate the absence of the 3 fab masters and the co-founder, 6 students work as volunteers to help on different projects and think about education tools.

To manage her team, Phuong uses Trello for task management, Facebook for chatting and Google Drive for document sharing.

Different classes and workshops punctuate the Fab Lab day-to-day life with kid workshops every Saturday and adult classes every month on different topics: how to use digital tools (3D printers, CNC machines, PCB designing, Arduino tools, …), training for hardware start-ups, …

Fab Lab Hanoi gets also involved in the Vietnamese maker movement. That’s why for example they co-organized the SEA MakerThon with the SEAMNET in 10 cities across 6 countries last year.

To grow bigger, Fab Lab Hanoi set up several partnerships. They work with business organisations such as Kiss Start-up for workshops or some schools who want to bring the Fab Lab methodology to their classes. Moreover, they are mentored by MIT Five.

Currently, at Fab Lab Hanoi, all documentation is realized on google drive. It includes the equipment, the workshops but also the projects developed by the lab.

Once a maker’s project is finished, it must be documented on Fab Lab Hanoi’s google drive.

According to Phuong, their next step is to think about the opensource documentation of projects. To build its workshops and enrich its projects, Fab Lab Hanoi team uses Coursera and Instructables.

Technologies & processes available

3D printing CNC milling Electronics Laser cutting Traditional tools Wood working tools Robotics

Services offered

Classes & workshops Coworking space Workshop memberships Pay-as-you-go machines & tools access Open moments

Our best practices

The inspiring things we do here to run our collaborative space

Fab Shop

What is it?

Fablab Hanoi displays and sells electronic components and products from the online retailer MME.

In concrete terms?

Concretely, by selling those components and products, Fablab Hanoi gets 20{fd4c470d9b935926e3cb2dc10d222a0a7b07290bd30f0fbaac6a685b358b7df2} of margin on each sale.

Why it’s interesting?

This Fab Shop activity is an easy source of revenue. Moreover, it helps makers to find the right component and/or electronic product to develop their projects.


Our makers projects

Get inspired by the DIY projects of our team & members

Helping Hand

Helping Hand is a project that Fab Lab Hanoi would love to join with the E-nable community to give the world a “Helping Hand“.

It is a non-profit project targeting to all people without hands in Vietnam!


Hazang - handcrafted bamboo speakers made in Vietnam

To create speakers with an incomparable rendering, Hazang combined Vietnamese crafts, natural materials and high quality components.

Each speaker is hand-made and requires several weeks to be created. The manufacturing process requires very few tools, only a watchful eye and a deft hand of craftsmen with centenarian know-how.

Hazang gives you the opportunity to discover the art of Vietnamese craftsmen, while appreciating music as it should be, lively and unique.


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