I'm gonna explain a little bit of myself

where I came from

I was born in Hong Kong, and grew up in Macau

and then my family decided I need to get some western education

then we went to the States

and I got undergraduate degrees, I studied biology

I thought I was gonna be a doctor

like a lot of Asians, you knows, kids

Umm, that didn't happen, I failed miserably

and my parents, my mom just really disappointed, so

then I shift, I decided I'm gonna study design

and architecture, and while I was there, I did my thesis

part of my thesis was, I was looking at industrial revolution and aftermath of industrila revolution

and I've noticed that we've all know by now what happened before and afterwards

you know, producing, mass production, machine lines

we were producing things over and over and over again

cookie cutter effect, and that affected our office and environment and our way of working

and also affected our schools, and the way we teach our children

we were repeating the same things over and over and over again

so I started asking myself

well, the change is imminent, we have to do something about it

but how? where do we start?

so after I graduated, I started to looking into ways of incorporating these changes to the way we work

the way we study, the way you live

and then I came up with these four shifts, four changes

and the first one was, in the pre-industrial revolution age

mass production, what do we shift? and think about mass customization

give them the tools, the methods

and each one of you will produce something different

instead of having this cookie cutting method of producing the same thing over and over again

why don't we start changing our mentality instead of so focus into the result

into the end product; why don't we think about the process

how we think about the journey making things

what do we shift? let's just stop thinking about this top-down approach

this top-down hierarchy

where we have a boss, where we have workers, and we have the lower rank, why if we all are equal?

professors, students, employees, boss

why if we are all equal?

that would be ideal

and why don't we shift from being so formal all the time

and just having a really informal environment

where we could all work together, we can all study together, where we can have a surprise discovery

where serendipity can occur

and so I really want to apply this philosophy somewhere

in 2010 I had the opportunity to start up MOB-Maker Of Barcelona

I'll explain to you the making of it

so this is my definition of what MOB is

and MOB is a thousand square meter of pure goodness plus a commmunity of creative geeks

the innovative hipsters

and the business savvy

so I'm trying to mix things up, you know, all three groups together in the same space

so when I'm talking about the creative geeks, I'm talking about designers, artists, innovative hipsters, hackers, inventors, business savys, entrepreneurs

so what is a maker? for me a maker is self-sufficient, someone that is passionately driven

fully capable and highly motivated

so I'm not just talking about people making things, making products, no, anyone here is a maker

shift of mentality, everyone is capable

so for us, maker is someone who can make things happen for themselves

so that is basically everybody, right?

so this is my prototype of a maker, that's teeth, it's fiesty

we have a facility, we have a thousand square meters

and then inside we have co-working, class rooms and we have invent spaces

so this is some of the pictures of our makers hard at work

these are our students, sometimes they are not so hard at work, but they are in the same space with the professionals

this is our caged meeting room, very informal

here is the lounge and he's working very hard

we also want to provide tools, and these tools could be literal tools, places where people can make stuffs

we're actually in the middle of makers' space where we have digital fabrications

sewing machines, vinyl cutters, where people can actually produce

we want to provide contents so we have a lot of workshops

exhibitions, hackerthons, performances, theatres, so this is our event walls

we list all our activities we do during the month

some of the examples of exhibition we have done, we do start up launch party,

hackerthons where people get together and hack things

our supermarkets where we sell Barcelona desin products showcasing our maker design

concerts, and this is a project that is in the making where we are collaborating with another organiation

what we are trying to do is we are trying to match up improbable occurences

so we are trying to match up hackers and designers and see what can be produced within these two marriages

we'll see how that goes

we also collaborate a lot with external organizations, Firefox, with Etsy, to run their events

and finally the most important part is the creative community

we are very proud to have over 120 members within this first year of operation

we have about 50 percent local people and 50 percent of international

we push very hard to create an environment where professional and students are in the same space

so this is our crowds and top of this 120 sort of in house members we also have over 3000 virtual ones

so we are trying to build up this community where people can come to work together

a meet up space, they can do project together

and they can collaborate

so, how do we grow a creative community

I'm gonna give you some instruction, some of the experiences I've learned so far in this year and an half

the person who runs this creative community is the one

you're gonna be the heart and soul of this community, the aura, it's gonna be felt

you gonna be heard everywhere, so you better be passionate about what you do

you have to actively recruit all those members, those movers and shakers in this community

all those people that are interested to participate include them in this part of community

you're going to reach out, there are tons and tons of people doing amazing things in this city I'm sure

not just in Taipei, I'm sure across the ocean, across the other countries

find these people, bring them in

connect, connect corporation, you would think that they would never listen to individual, small communities

but grow your community and they would want to hear your voice

give incentive, to your members to start their own initiatives

it's very important, because they will provide the contents

for your community

grow your community through external and internal events

what we talk about earlier

so whether it's concert for your internal members or big events like hackerthons where you invite corporations

these are your contents, sort of like your food for your community and it's very important

family matters, your members are gonna be your families

and they will be your voices, and if you treat them right, they are goonna be loving you

they are gonna be telling everyone about it and your community will grow

you gotta work it, this isn't a free ride

you are gonna work it, your workers are your families, remember?

and you are gonna promote it, talk it up, tell other people about your members

oh, have you heard so and so, he's amazing

and do you know so and so, he's just so fantastic

and finally, I think there's another point

you need to communicate, if you are doing great things and you are not talkinng about it

then it's kind of a loss case

tell other people, do a Facebook campagin

do a wonderful website, tell the entire world the content of your members and community

and you gotta be the pimp, I don't know if this is translating right

you have to connect people, put people together within the community and outside the community

this is 99.9 percent of my job at MOB

becuase without this kind of interaction, you community isn't gonna grow

collaboration is the key

so, how do we apply this in a larger scale?

like I said earlier, there're tons of creative, talented people, all over the city

but they are all kind of fragment over the place and they don't really talk to each other

what if we start appling this community, what if we just start growing this community all over the place

start making connections between them

and if you apply this in the city level, neighborhood level, in the global level

you can actually connect to the whole world

and that's pretty amazing,

and if you guys build one, and we start communicating with you guys

you gonna have a linke between Barcelona and Taipei

and that's pretty cool

so, if we go back to the shift philosophy we talked about earlier

that was just our sort of way of working

are we really want to apply this methology not only at MOB

not only at the facility

what if we can apply this in another project

so we got very lucky this year, we were working with the city government of Barcelona

and it's a very initial, we just started about couple weeks ago

but we wanted to regenerate the city, the neighborhood at MOB

and we said, well, how do we approach this, we are not urban designers; I study architecture 146 00:11:59,627 --> 00:12:01,492 I don't know anything about urban planning

so, we said, why don't we tab into the resource

why don't we talk to our MOB members, we have 120 of them

to so what we can do

so we got everyone together, and we sort of have a brainstorming session

and we came up with this idea;

we brought mathematicists, we brought our physicists in, we have hackers, designers

we all started talking about how to approach this project

and we decided that we wanted an algorithm; we wanted to provide a tool, not the final product, but sort of a formula...

on how to approach the design of the city

we said we were goonna design the city through an organic, a fluid, a human-centered way

when you see this very short video, we are trying to incorporate the parameter, the open data that we get from the city

so everytime, say, for example, someone opens a shop, that map will alter instantly

and that's a live organism that's being changed depending on what information is being applied on

and so we want to use this tool, not just for Barcelona, not just for a particular place and time

we want to be able to see the changes in a very dynamic way so the urban planners, designers, archetectects and anyone else

who want to use this tools to rethink about what the future of this city is like can use it

it's very excited for us to start this project within the city

and it's very interesting for us to see the city has intrest and initiatives like this

so, to go back to the question

we know about changes are about to happen

the question is "what's next?"

my answer to that is all of you to become a maker

to start your initiative

and to grow your own community, thank you.