Fab Futures / The Academany
Fab Futures teaches 21st century vocational skills. It is a part of The Academany, the fab lab network's distributed hands-on educational program.
Explore the possibilities
Fab Futures / Course
Cybersecurity provides a practical introduction to securing information in an increasingly connected world. Over four weeks, participants explore the principles and tools for protecting comm
Schedule
Mid-June to Mid-July 2027 · 9:00–10:30A EDT
Faculty: Radia Perlman, Charlie Kaufman, Ralph Droms, Hamed Okhravi, Vincent Ulitzsch, Mengjia Yan, Mike Specter, Etay Maor, Keri Pearlson, Jean-Jacques Quisquater
Fab Futures / Course
Data Science introduces the essential methods for working with data, building from first principles to practical applications. Over four weeks, participants learn how to collect, organize, a
Schedule
March 2027 · 9:00–10:30A EDT
Faculty: Neil Gershenfeld
Fab Futures / Course
Participants will learn about the complete chip development cycle, be familiar with key open-source tools (e.g., SPICE, Verilog, Yosys, OpenROAD, KiCad), and gain insight into the opportunit
Schedule
Mid-April to Mid-May 2027 · 9:00–10:30A EDT
Faculty: Jennifer Volk, Andreas Olofsson, Alexander Wynn
Connected by curiosity
Connect with leading experts through the Academany’s distributed educational model.
Work with peers, mentors, and machines in local fab labs.
Put ideas into practice through group demonstrations and a personal project.
The learning model
The 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 21st century vocational education, taken here to mean training in immediately 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.
Meet the faculty
Senior Staff Member MIT Lincoln Laboratory
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