Technology is perhaps the
single most important force driving progress for the human race, and for those beings yet to evolve that will one day be our evolutionary successors. While we distract ourselves with the linear implications of everyday events, major technological developments bring about exponential, framework-altering shifts that re-define the contours of our reality. Exactly such a new revolution is afoot as I write these words, and it promises to change the economic landscape of the world. Like the agricultural, industrial and information revolutions that came before, it will fundamentally alter the dynamics of production and democratise access to resources that were previously concentrated in the hands of a privileged few. I’m not referring here to the Internet, the web or even smart phones, but to a technology that finally marries the digital and the physical: 3D-Printing.
Some 10 years ago, a professor at MIT, Neil Gershenfeld, developed the idea of a “Fab Lab.” He saw that computer controlled fabrication technology was becoming relatively inexpensive. Originally invented in the 1980s by Scott Crump of Stratasys Inc, 3-D printing had been expensive and thus restricted to large corporations. But things were changing. It was becoming possible to fabricate almost anything you could build in a factory in the confines of a small room, solely with a few machines connected to a computer. An object would be designed on-screen with a CAD (computer aided design) application, and with some additional software and hardware magic, the computer controlled fabricators would actually build, cut or construct the desired object. Pixels on screen would be converted to instructions directing lasers, drills and plastic extruders so that what was imagined as an image would appear in the real world with the click of a mouse. Professor Gershenfeld wrote about these ideas and their potential in his 2005 book Fab, and launched pilot labs in India, Africa and other developing nations. Since then, the list of Fab Labs has grown, with a facility even operating in Afghanistan!
In 2005, the cost to assemble a Fab Lab ran anywhere from $100,000 to $200,000. Some of the hardware was not particularly easy to use, and good CAD software was pricey. As an infant technology with a limited user base, adopters did not have many places to turn to for the advice they needed. But today, things could not be more different. Personal, small-scale fabrication technology has become a major trend with high profile backers. Tim O’Reilly, the founder of the famed O’Reilly press, is one of the leading proponents of this movement through his Make magazine and Maker Faire franchises. Chris Anderson, former Editor-in-Chief of Wired magazine, has been another evangelist. His recent bestseller Makers sheds light on the grassroots DIY movement and the role fabrication technologies are playing in allowing physical product innovators to overcome the capital intensive nature of the traditional product development process.
But let’s connect this revolution to what’s happening in our own backyard. The reason this moment in time when 3-D printing is taking off is particularly exciting to me is because I’ve nurtured a long-time passion for this space. I remember eagerly awaiting Gershenfeld’s book when it was announced in early 2005. I bought a copy as soon as it arrived at my local Barnes and Noble and became enthused with the possibility of applying these ideas in Pakistan, particularly within the educational context. On a trip to Lahore, I shared the book with Raza Kazim, Founder of the Lahore-based Sanjanagar Institute. We discussed its applications in the work he was doing at the time. Sanjanagar had invested in an extensive machining facility for the purpose of producing Bhulley, a high quality audio system that cost more than two million dollars, and is a privately funded R&D project. In the 2003-4 time-frame, in collaboration with Hasan Rizvi at the Lahore-based software company, FiveRivers, I became involved with an open hardware project; architecting a tri-processor handheld computing platform called Sirius, which ran on the locally developed AlephOS operating system. This project generated a lot of community interest and won the support of academic luminaries such as Professor Muhammad Afzal at the Centre of Information Technology, Arid Agriculture University. The project received coverage in several newspapers, magazines, conferences and was pursued with interest by members of the academic and open source communities when we made the design openly available.
Given this exposure to open source hardware and my interest in 3-D printing, it was natural for me to be intrigued by RepRap, a self-replicating 3-D printer project being worked on by Adrian Bowyer at the University of Bath in the UK. Bowyer developed his project under a completely open model, providing designs on the project website and encouraging anyone to download and replicate his team’s work. Making use of the opportunity, we funded an experiment to see if a prototype could be built with parts and materials sourced locally. I figured this would be a wonderful resource to provide to colleges and universities, especially if such a device could be built, understood, maintained and eventually improved upon leveraging local skill. The first iterations did not meet with the success we had hoped for; we had numerous sourcing and fabrication challenges, which prevented a reliable unit from being completed. But giving up wasn’t an option. With technology, as with most other things in life, persistence is the name of the game.
Almost eight years after I put Professor Gershenfeld’s book down with a glint in my eye, fully convinced that computer controlled fabrication was destined to be the ‘Next Big Thing’, that reality has come to pass. Today, pundits everywhere agree that personalised manufacturing will change the world. When Chris Anderson claims that 3-D printing is “bigger than the Internet” it is not just technologists who pay attention, analysts on Wall Street do too. As for our story, I am happy to report, things have turned out well. Earlier this year, we launched OpenWorks (www.openworks.cc), a company focused on the ‘Internet of Things’ market. Fuelled by exciting technologies like 3-D printing, embedded systems and sensors, and staffed with an incredible team of engineers led by LUMS alumni and Chief Architect, Azam Shahani. The company has already completed delivery of innovative products to the Singaporean, Australian and US markets. Through the company’s TechJango.com online store, we have made a vast array of products available. And this list will soon include the JangoBot 3-D printer, manufactured by OpenWorks.
In years to come, advanced manifestations of personal fabrication technology will make physical objects almost as easy to replicate as bits and bytes have been in the Internet age. Designs will be shared, shipped across the wire in the blink of an eye, modified by communities, downloaded and ‘printed’ at a moment’s notice. Inexpensive devices, already available for a few hundred dollars, will produce a mind boggling array of objects that represent a substantial percentage of the inventory of today’s department stores. With increasing precision and choice in materials usage, personal fabrication will become an integral part of our lives. As this happens, many businesses will be displaced. Just as MP3s killed off the Walkman, the CD player, record stores and much of the recording industry, personal fabrication will likely take out huge swaths of traditional manufacturing, retail and its associated supply chain. But in doing so, it will create a new way, a far more interesting, dynamic and compelling way, of doing things. New technologies displace the old, but we are adopting them faster than ever before. New innovations become such an integral part of our lives that we soon wonder how we ever got by without them. 3-D printing will soon be in that category. And it will be a shift worth watching closely.
The writer is an inventor and technology entrepreneur involved with businesses in the US and Pakistan