Fab Futures

Fab Futures teaches 21st century vocational skills.
It is a part of Academany, the fab lab network's distributed hands-on educational program.

Academany (aka The Academy of Almost Anything) grew from the Fab Academy, which was developed to provide hands-on technical training in fab labs. Rather than the traditional educational model of bringing students to a central site, or the online model of students in front of individual screens, it is based on a distributed model: students gather in local learning workgroups in fab labs, with peers, mentors, and machines, and these are in turn connected in a global network with leading experts.

Fab Futures extends this model to vocational education, taken here to mean training in applicable skills that are in demand for employment and for addressing local needs. Rather than requiring a career choice in advance, Fab Futures offers all of them. It is organized as a never-ending series of one month surveys, each leading to an introductory certificate, which can in turn be combined in a one year diploma program. Each monthly cycle begins with a survey of the field, which is followed by an introduction to the tools that will be used, then group demonstration projects, and finally a personal project. Based on demand, selected one-month units may also be expanded into new Academany programs.

Expected Fab Futures units

Rather than being based on the machines that originally defined a fab lab, Fab Futures builds on the culture that emerged of peer-to-peer, project-based, just-in-time learning, and of thinking globally while working locally.

Advanced Manufacturing / Ric Fulop
Artificial Intelligence / Francois Fleuret
Biotechnology
Composites
Metrology
Microelectronics
Quantum technology / Michael Schäfer
Robotics / Mark Yim
Video game development / Alan Gershenfeld / Eli Gershenfeld

Classes will be added as to the list as they develop. Reach out to is if there is a specific topic you would like to see covered. Like all Academany programs, the digital content in Fab Futures will be freely available. Tuition will be charged for hands-on interactive participation, covering local lab costs and central faculty, infrastructure, and assessment.

  • Tuition - 350 USD per student per month central costs, local cost to be determined locally depending on class content
  • Infrastructure - Will be defined per class.
  • Dates - 1 month courses on a rolling basis, students can join as many months as desired

Selected trials during the Fall of 2024

Fab futures will be doing development trials of selected units during the Fall of 2024, then opening up for enrollment in 2025.

For more information contact info@academany.org.