About me¶
Greetings! I am James Stewart, an aspiring maker. I hail from South Africa but am currently residing in South Korea.
My background¶
Born in the Eatern Cape of South Africa (the poorests province in the country) access to technology was seen as more of a privelege than a necessity. That being said I have always had a fascination with technology and how things are made.
Previous work¶
I have been in Korea for nearly 3 years now and the investment into education in this country is truly astounding. I came here to teach English and somehow ended up teaching 3D printing at my school which I thoughrouly enjoyed. Ever since then its been a mixture of teaching and making.
Fab Lab¶
With time the 3D printing program I ran became one of the most popular classes on campus and the school decided to set up a Fab Lab in order to build on this success and pivot from the English village moniker that the school had come to be known for. The problem was nobody really knew what a fab lab was and as the 3D and tech coordinator this eventually became my responsiblity. I spent the next few months researching fablabs and traveling to some of the Labs in Seoul where I discovered not only that these labs were doing amazing things but they were also a comunity of like minded individuals. Individuals who not only were willing to help me with this project but also with learning the skills necesary to actually become a maker.
Following this I was invited to a robotic 3D printing workshop put on by the precious plastics initiative and IAAC. This workshop was pretty intense but really changed my perceptions about what is possible within this network of fablabs. We hijacked a giant robotic arm and modified it to be used as a 3D printer in order to create large scale
The potential for fablabs to facilitate change is truly immesurable. The theme of sustainability and empowerment from labs like Vigyan Ashram is truly inspiring and I hope to one day set up a fab lab in an african community that could benifit from such knowlege and skills and use digital fabrication to educate and inspire African people and give people alternate career paths and futures. Giving the african people the tools to create their own futures.