Fab Lab Workbench Projects

Nurturing the maker-entrepreneurship spirit towards responsible innovation

Workbench Projects Pvt Ltd, 9th Cross Road, Malleshwaram West, Bangalore, Karnataka, India

Fab Lab Coworking space

Space size 460 m²

Opened in December 2013

Structure type Private company limited

Explored in May 2017


Workbench Projects is a Fab Lab, co-working space, public lab and prototyping space for nurturing the maker-entrepreneurship spirit towards responsible innovation.

Main interests

Technology - machines & tools Community Entrepreneurship Mobility & transports Industry & innovation Education Energy & environment Recycling & upcycling Food Agriculture Self-sufficiency

This workshop is great for:

Every single person & organisation!

Interview & guided tour

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

Our workshop

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

Crossing the door of the Workench Projects will bring you into a very dynamic universe of hardware, mostly represented by students building projects, startups or attending technical workshops. The place is defined as a Fab Lab, a co-working space, an event space, a prototyping space and even a café.

Workbench Projects is born as many makerspaces, in the garage of its founders. Pawan Kumar and Anupawa Gowda had this crazy idea in December 2013 to create a space “to make stuff”. Following there success, they get the agreement from the city to start their new space of 460 square meters under the metro station of Halasuru.

The lab is open to anyone, and if its primarily mission is to nurture the Do It Yourself spirit, it is also to bring the next generation of Indian “maker-preneurs” at its best, while fostering responsible innovation. They want to become a hardware incubator fostering innovation all over the country, and then build platforms to drive these maker preneurs to solve locals problems in India.

Amongs the projects we discovered at the place we can quote “Electrosaver”, a startup helping indian citizens to understand and monitor their electricity consumption, “Farm Division”, building the next generation of indoor urban farm, and the Hyperloop India Team, participating to the world’s competition Hyperloop Pod.

Today, the lab counts 47 active members, coming every month to work on their projects. 60% are students, and 40% are active professionals (15% of technological startups, 20% architects and 5% hobbyists).

Most of the members are working on startup projects in the lab. A big part of the space is today occupied by the Hyperloop India’s team, and its 20+ members, working days and nights to build their Hyperloop Pod prototype. Lab’s users are also institutions, schools and enterprises attending workshops and “flagship events” organized and executed by the lab team outside its walls.

Most of the users discover the lab through social networks, as the team is communicating a lot on the projects developed in its walls. It has already built a strong community, and word of mouth plays a big role in bringing new makers.

According to the team, 80% of the users who started their first project in the lab are coming back because the place fosters inspiration and meetings.

Members are involved in the lab’s life. They can start their own workshop or event and use the space for it, or even help to improve the lab itself by giving their opinion on how it could better serve its purpose.

The Workbench Projects is a 100% home made lab, fully funded by its 2 co-founders, for an amount of 150K€ to establish the new place in February 2015.

In 2016, the lab was generating profit, and 30% of their revenues were provided by membership, 40% through flagship workshops co-organized with partners, 20% came from workshops and 10% from events.

Regarding operational costs, 40% were linked to rent, 40% to salaries, 10% to marketing and 10% to maintenance and others.

The vision and main challenge of the lab it to build a model which would allow to provide a free access to tools and resources to non-profit activities (they already offer free space for events organized by non profits), which would be financed by the for profit ones. This model is not yet achieved, but the team sees opportunities for makerspaces in India, and looks forward to develop other workbench projects makerspaces across the Karnataka state first, and then across the country.

The team of Workbench Projects is composed of 10 members from different backgrounds and age (between 20 and 61 year old). There are 2 co-founders, 1 space manager (a retired colonel from the Indian army), 1 Chief Operation Officer and Sales, 1 marketing officer, 5 technical experts with their own specialization (wood working, 3D printing, electronics, bio hacking, mechanical design).

The team provides a wide variety of workshops to build the skills of its users. Monthly workshops take place in the lab and provide technical skills on 3D printing, woodworking, electronics… and are open to all. Specific workshops are also co-organized with several partners such as Asset Program, an educational summer program for children, or the “Ctrl Alt Make” event with Intel.

When members want to start a new project at workbench, they can e-mail it directly to the team, and Pawan (co-founder and CEO) will help them to define their needs and make sure they can get the right support and skills from the lab. According to the team there is no official process to follow up the projects born in the lab, but it provides them support with their network.

The lab is playing a strong in the gathering of the hardware startups and maker community by organizing event such as Bangalore Mini Maker Faire.

So far no official documentation process has been put in place and members are the only one to decide. The lab helps them to establish a project management road map.

Internally, the team is documenting internal processes, inventory, using google drive documents.

Crossing the door of the Workench Projects will bring you into a very dynamic universe of hardware, mostly represented by students building projects, startups or attending technical workshops. The place is defined as a Fab Lab, a co-working space, an event space, a prototyping space and even a café.

Workbench Projects is born as many makerspaces, in the garage of its founders. Pawan Kumar and Anupawa Gowda had this crazy idea in December 2013 to create a space “to make stuff”. Following there success, they get the agreement from the city to start their new space of 460 square meters under the metro station of Halasuru.

The lab is open to anyone, and if its primarily mission is to nurture the Do It Yourself spirit, it is also to bring the next generation of Indian “maker-preneurs” at its best, while fostering responsible innovation. They want to become a hardware incubator fostering innovation all over the country, and then build platforms to drive these maker preneurs to solve locals problems in India.

Amongs the projects we discovered at the place we can quote “Electrosaver”, a startup helping indian citizens to understand and monitor their electricity consumption, “Farm Division”, building the next generation of indoor urban farm, and the Hyperloop India Team, participating to the world’s competition Hyperloop Pod.

Today, the lab counts 47 active members, coming every month to work on their projects. 60% are students, and 40% are active professionals (15% of technological startups, 20% architects and 5% hobbyists).

Most of the members are working on startup projects in the lab. A big part of the space is today occupied by the Hyperloop India’s team, and its 20+ members, working days and nights to build their Hyperloop Pod prototype. Lab’s users are also institutions, schools and enterprises attending workshops and “flagship events” organized and executed by the lab team outside its walls.

Most of the users discover the lab through social networks, as the team is communicating a lot on the projects developed in its walls. It has already built a strong community, and word of mouth plays a big role in bringing new makers.

According to the team, 80% of the users who started their first project in the lab are coming back because the place fosters inspiration and meetings.

Members are involved in the lab’s life. They can start their own workshop or event and use the space for it, or even help to improve the lab itself by giving their opinion on how it could better serve its purpose.

The Workbench Projects is a 100% home made lab, fully funded by its 2 co-founders, for an amount of 150K€ to establish the new place in February 2015.

In 2016, the lab was generating profit, and 30% of their revenues were provided by membership, 40% through flagship workshops co-organized with partners, 20% came from workshops and 10% from events.

Regarding operational costs, 40% were linked to rent, 40% to salaries, 10% to marketing and 10% to maintenance and others.

The vision and main challenge of the lab it to build a model which would allow to provide a free access to tools and resources to non-profit activities (they already offer free space for events organized by non profits), which would be financed by the for profit ones. This model is not yet achieved, but the team sees opportunities for makerspaces in India, and looks forward to develop other workbench projects makerspaces across the Karnataka state first, and then across the country.

The team of Workbench Projects is composed of 10 members from different backgrounds and age (between 20 and 61 year old). There are 2 co-founders, 1 space manager (a retired colonel from the Indian army), 1 Chief Operation Officer and Sales, 1 marketing officer, 5 technical experts with their own specialization (wood working, 3D printing, electronics, bio hacking, mechanical design).

The team provides a wide variety of workshops to build the skills of its users. Monthly workshops take place in the lab and provide technical skills on 3D printing, woodworking, electronics… and are open to all. Specific workshops are also co-organized with several partners such as Asset Program, an educational summer program for children, or the “Ctrl Alt Make” event with Intel.

When members want to start a new project at workbench, they can e-mail it directly to the team, and Pawan (co-founder and CEO) will help them to define their needs and make sure they can get the right support and skills from the lab. According to the team there is no official process to follow up the projects born in the lab, but it provides them support with their network.

The lab is playing a strong in the gathering of the hardware startups and maker community by organizing event such as Bangalore Mini Maker Faire.

So far no official documentation process has been put in place and members are the only one to decide. The lab helps them to establish a project management road map.

Internally, the team is documenting internal processes, inventory, using google drive documents.

Technologies & processes available

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

Services offered

Coaching & project mentoring Coworking space Classes & workshops Startups & projects hosting Startups & projects incubation / mentoring Workshop memberships Open moments

Our best practices

The inspiring things we do here to run our collaborative space

The ability to support big project beyond the lab's walls

What is it?

Workbench Project’s team hosts and accompanies ambitious and complex projects, such as the Hyperloop India team, that needs a big support in term of funding, technical skills and network.

What does it mean concretly?

If we take the example of the Hyperloop India project. The team of Workbench Project (especially its founders), dedicates a substantial amount of time to help the project to find investors (they organize meetings with their network, even actively participate in the prospection phase), and find the right network of suppliers to allow them to build their working prototype.

Why is it interesting?

By being actively involved in the development of the project, the fablab increases the chances for an ambitious product to succeed.


Our makers projects

Get inspired by the DIY projects of our team & members

Electrosaver

What’s the project story?

Electrosaver has been motivated by an observation: electricity is unequally distributed over India. 60% of India do not receive regular electricity supply, and 30% don’t have electricity at all. In the meantime, a few cities and industries are wasting a lot of its energy. They want to reduce waste of electricity and send it where needed.

First, they are building an IOT device that will help Indian citizen to track and understand their daily consumption in their houses. Moreover, they want to integrate machine learning and artificial intelligence in their devices to help machines to optimize electricity consumption.

How do they interact with the workshop?

The 3 students team launched their startup at Workbench Projects, and use the lab and expertise from the team to build their first working prototype. They also benefit from their network to attend startup contests.

What’s next?

The startup has been selected to present its project at RISE event in August 2017!


Farm dimension

At Farm Dimension, we are passionate about solving hard problems of food quality and agriculture. We want to bring back the goodness of fresh food that is long lost.

We are hard at work developing agricultural models that will soon open doors for sustainable farming amid the harsh times of changing climate. We are on a mission to create a local food ecosystem and we believe in strong communities built around a deep love for fresh food. Like all good habits, our first product ‘Fable’ starts at your home.


Hyperloop India

A crowd-sourced, student-driven, cross-campus Hyperloop think tank aiming to bring the Hyperloop to India!


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