Hello my name is Maria Melo Bento and I am a young architect from Azores islands, Portugal. I am 28 years old and about 2 years ago I got introduced to the Fab Lab Lisbon and staff and, suddenly, my perspective on what I wanted to do in my field changed dramatically.

Until then I was working as a junior architect for some architectural offices and private clients but somehow I had reached a barrier on how to express my ideas and test them in a fast and effective manner. So I found an answer to that in my researches.

With Digital Fabrication knowledge things would definitely become reachable. Easy for me to rapidly give shape to an idea and clear for others to grasp the concept of a project.

So about a year ago I moved to Barcelona in order to improve my skills. And during that time I've got the opportunity to be evolved in the FAB10 - Barcelona event where I became staff member of the FabKids Scanning and 3D printing workshop. That brought me amazing knowledge on how Digital Fabrication is progressing and how FabLabs are this incredible network of highly

motivated creators and thinkers, entrepreneurs and technicians all working in parallel and sharing their ideas and achievements.

Still trilled with the experience it definitely got me thinking - I want to be part of that! And so I joined Fab Academy in the hopes that one day I can add another connection dot to this network, building Azores islands First FabLab!