Local Motors, Inc. to be part of first-ever White House Maker Faire

Local Motors, Inc. June 18, 2014

Local Motors, the world’s leading open-source hardware innovation company, will exhibit its Mobifactory at the White House Maker Faire, a celebration of America’s students and entrepreneurs who are inventing the future. Essentially a highly customized shipping container, Mobifactories are designed to be easily transported anywhere in the world to demonstrate both the making potential and scalability of Local Motors’ innovative approach to manufacturing.

This is a first-ever event taking place today at the White House. Announced by Pres. Obama in February, the Makers Fair will feature makers, innovators, and entrepreneurs of all ages who are using cutting-edge tools to bring their ideas to life.

The intent is to highlight the remarkable stories of “Makers that are driving the next era of American innovation, as well as commitments by leading organizations to help more students and entrepreneurs get involved in making things.”

Local Motors will share its Maker Faire exhibit with FirstBuild, an online and physical community – powered by Local Motors – that is dedicated to designing, engineering, building, and selling the next generation of major home appliances.

“Local Motors and FirstBuild’s presence at the White House Maker Faire is a great way to build awareness on the importance of corporations working with the maker community and startups so that we can all get better at making things. This open collaboration model is critical to pioneering new manufacturing methods that will help us get innovative products to market faster than ever before,” said Kevin Nolan, vp of technology for GE Appliances.

In addition to educating on FirstBuild’s current open innovation challenges, the Local Motors Mobifactory will also feature MakerBot Replicator2 3D printers printing actual Local Motors production components for vehicles including the Rally Fighter™ and the Racer, as well as a scale version of the Company’s planned 3D Printed prototype vehicle.

Founded by US Marine and Iraq veteran Jay Rogers, Local Motors is helping to drive the Third Industrial Revolution by accelerating the pace at which ideas move from mind to market. As a pioneer in crowd-sourced design and distributed micro-manufacturing, Local Motors disrupts traditional product development practices by reaching out to the broader, global community of designers, engineers, enthusiasts and makers in order to deliver innovation literally, at the pace of conversation.

To further empower this community, Local Motors will open 100 new Micro-factories over the next ten years. Micro-factories feature Lab spaces that are open to innovators who are willing to share their projects. Each Lab is also a nexus where the community can pursue STEM education and empower a global community of producers of things, not just consumers of things.

Partnerships with local schools and universities, government labs and industry partners tied to each Micro-factory provide the community with unprecedented access to both making capabilities and a platform for ideation, prototyping, low-volume production and marketing. Within five years, Local Motors Micro-factories will be training over 1,000 students and will have offered over $1 million in prizes for new designs.

“We have been driving a culture of making things since I founded Local Motors in 2007,” said Jay Rogers. “With our global community of like-minded innovators, and with cutting-edge partners like DARPA, the US Army Rapid Equipping Force, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and GE – just to name a few – we are cultivating a community of makers who are delivering next-generation design and manufacturing process improvements today that will lead to a reinvigoration of an industrial-based economy.”

 

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