Fab Month 2025 in Review

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Fab Month is a free, online, annual event—held throughout the month of April—offering a platform for knowledge exchange to promote collaboration and drive the continued advancement of the international Fab Lab Network. It’s an excellent opportunity for members of our widespread community to come together and discuss how they’re exploring cutting-edge technologies to tackle local challenges or scale global impact within their unique contexts.

Fab Month 2025 Stats

• 1 month
• 3 sessions
• 20 presenters, representing 14 countries
• 140+ registered participants, representing 47 countries
• 130 organizations represented across the global Fab Lab Network

Open Forum. Bold Ideas. Real Impact.

In the first session of Fab Month 2025, we learned about a number of projects prioritizing Local Impact & Community-Driven Innovation. Speakers demonstrated how Fab Labs can be instruments for social impact; how they can empower individuals and communities to create needed solutions to local challenges; and how they can be the basis for regional and global networks tackling issues related to healthcare, economics, sustainability, and much more. Importantly, they centered people as an essential component of all possible solutions—even when the work relies heavily upon technology. Taken together, these themes dovetail perfectly with the efforts of our partners at the Fab City Global Initiative and their annual Fab City Challenge—an initiative designed to address some of the most pressing social, environmental, and economic issues around the world. It’s no surprise, then, that many of our Fab Month presenters have been enthusiastic participants in those Challenges over the years.

Session two was dedicated to Emerging Technologies and Scaling Impact, with content very much focused on how to involve and help as many people as possible with innovative uses of technology. Presenters shared data-based solutions to promote mobility, access, and inclusion, nature-based solutions to treat chronic health problems, and community-based solutions to overcome persistent societal beliefs that prevent young people from pursuing STEM careers. An underlying theme of the day was a desire to change mindsets, compelling everyone to consider new possibilities.

The final session of the month explored Education for a Rapidly Changing World. Presentations framed Fab Labs as key spaces for the promotion of hands-on, creative, experiential STEM learning with the power to revolutionize digital education and simultaneously break down systemic inequities in technical career paths. With projects that aim to build empathy in learners by demystifying electronics, incorporating game design, and centering both climate change and immigrant perspectives in future urban planning, speakers shared how they and their colleagues are preparing the next generation of innovators to confront the challenges of today and tomorrow.

These deeply informative and engaging sessions add so much value to our ongoing work. We are honored and privileged to have such a knowledgeable group of colleagues who are willing to contribute their voices and experiences to this effort for the sake of growing our communal knowledge.

Our sincere appreciation goes out to Rico Kanthatham, Sarah Dominguez, Jair León, Max Matus, Adriana Cabrera, Mats Derißen, Nils Kreft, Roberto Gallo, Tom Sobolev, Pushpaleela Prabakar, Parshav Sheth, Jessel Irazu Luna Padilla, Dan Mwine, Pradita Pradhan, Saverio Silli, Lamiaa Nail, Léon Reboul, Aniruddh Mali, Tami Belhadj, and Bonheur Itangishaka for sharing their bold, innovative, and impactful ideas with our community.

Thanks also to every one of you who attended Fab Month 2025 and actively participated in these delightful presentations with your supportive comments and insightful questions. We hope to see you all again next year!

Those who were unable to attend the live sessions may find recordings of the full Fab Month playlist on our YouTube channel.