MIT's 'Fab Lab'

"Gershenfeld... envisions a time when many of us will have a 'fabrication center' in our homes. We'll be able to download a description of, say, a toaster -- perhaps one we designed ourselves -- to our computers, and then feed the designs and the raw materials into a personal fabricator. At the push of a button, almost like hitting 'print,' the machine will spit it out.

'...The idea is that they can be empowering, especially in rural, developing communities, by giving people the ability to design and create the tools they want or need to solve local problems. In Ghana, users are trying to find an inexpensive way to build large solar energy collectors to turn the country's near-constant sunlight into power. In Pabal, India, a small community more than 100 miles outside of Mumbai, lab users developed diagnostic instruments to help fix tractor engines with timing troubles..."

"...The labs are relatively inexpensive to create, and so far MIT pays the start-up costs. But after a year or so, the labs are on their own. The ultimate goal is for the labs to be financially self-sustaining."

Thanks to Chris Steins