ATHENA has launched the “Co-Creation Hub,” an initiative that allows FabLabs, makerspaces, and Design Factories from the ATHENA Alliance to open their creative workshops for joint projects and collaboration. This innovative platform aims to foster collaboration among various stakeholders in the ATHENA ecosystem, including university students, staff, industry, and wider society.
The “Co-Creation Hub” provides a unique space for these diverse groups to come together and collaborate on new ideas, products, and solutions. The creators of the “Co-Creation Hub” believe that “together, we start the ATHENA Alliance Maker Movement.”
The innovative platform for international collaboration
The platform is designed to enable cross-disciplinary collaboration and co-creation at national and international levels. The working spaces, instructional content, and equipment for the FabLabs, makerspaces, and Design Factories will be shared going forward, making it easier to form groups for tasks like applied research on joint projects.
Researchers will have the capability to generate prototypes at a particular university and subsequently have them evaluated and utilized by researchers from another university. In certain scenarios, remote process control is already feasible.
Ruger Winnegge, the University of Siegen’s coordinator for the ATHENA University Alliance, says, “When you start working with the potential remote creation of products, you can say that science is becoming tangible across borders in the truest sense of the word.”
One of the key objectives of the “Co-Creation Hub” is to create a network of creative but diverse ecosystems at the international level, where students, industry, and other stakeholders can access the resources and support they need to turn ideas into reality.
Leading the way to exchange knowledge, people, and resources
The “Co-Creation Hub” also promotes knowledge sharing and collaboration between different stakeholders in the innovation ecosystem, including researchers, investors, and industry experts, who can share their knowledge and expertise with students and startups from the ATHENA Alliance to help them grow and succeed.
The ATHENA Alliance has brought together a team of experienced professionals from the Alliance’s makerspaces, FabLabs, and Design Factories to lead the “Co-Creation Hub” initiative.
This initiative comes at a critical time, as the world faces a range of challenges and opportunities in the innovation and entrepreneurship space. Through the “Co-Creation Hub,” ATHENA can provide collaborative opportunities such as joint programs, workshops, hackathons, open-source databases, networking possibilities, and other solutions to students, university staff, industry, and broader society.
