9 local communities and 9 international teams

The Fab Island Challenge brought together local and global innovation communities to propose meaningful interventions that enrich, empower and scale Bali’s emerging regenerative economy.

Teams from around the world were invited to focus and learn about a specific local initiative, propose and prototype design outputs to win seed funding for its implementation.

It was a key event of Bali Fab Fest, the largest gathering of digital fabrication communities, the Fab Lab Network and Fab City global initiative.

The Fab Island Challenge addressed the most pressing issues around sustainability and life systems:

Empowering Sustainability with Plastic Exchange

Plastic Exchange is a sustainability movement that empowers communities to change their waste behavior through dignity-based exchange systems that result in cleaner, healthier environments. They have multiple challenges from efficient data collection and digitalization, effective data communication to convey impact, designing a cover for the compost holes, and scaling eco-enzyme fermentation products.

Allison Samantha Perez Escobar, Janvi Gohel, Jorge Montalvo, Bhumika Sukhadia, Kris Spann, Elise O'Ryan, Dhoni Yudhanto, Irene Agrivina, Gisela Maria

Supporting Smallholder Farmers with Kopernik

Kopernik works with agriculture communities in Bali. They have identified two processes that require automation in order to boost efficiency, regenerative efficacy and resilience. One challenge looks at sorting raw harvested coffee and the other, keeping weeds from cocoa plantations.

Maud Bausier, Antoine Jaunard, Angela Barbour, Brunna Ramos, Andrea Barbour, Delia Barriga, Adithyaa Raghavan, Sara Nabil, Pablo Zuloaga, Iane Cabral Mello, Carolina de Souza Marini dos Santos

Making Connections with BambooU

Bamboo U promotes bamboo design, architecture and construction. Over the years, we have found that though bamboo building is beautiful and full of potential, the joinery in round pole construction remains an issue due to the irregularity and diversity of bamboo poles. We already know how to harvest, how to treat, how to design and build. Now how do we design better joints that are faster, cheaper, and stronger and have a positive impact on our craftspeople and community?

Jesus Armando Garcia Contreras, César Alan Solís Domínguez, Eka Prawira, Kirstin Wiedow, Mohan Kumar Verma, Vidisha Goel, Hideo (Haru) Oguri, Gabriel Tavas

Water for Life with IDEP Foundation

Currently, measuring and monitoring a well’s water level is challenging in many parts of the Island due to the high costs of sensors and the fatiguing task of doing the work manually. We are challenging our team to develop a smart sensing solution to contribute to our Bali Water Protection Program.

Syed Arbaz Reza, Syed Eebad Reza, Andri Sæmundsson, Probal Banerjee, Hannah Noëmi Kannenberg, Andrew Gregson, Sonsoles Diaz, Sushmita Rachel Charlu

Waste to Value Communities with Nusa Sentara

Nusa Sentara has been working to develop community hubs across the Gili Islands and Lombok to support the resiliency of local communities and ecosystems. Their challenge takes place across two islands and will focus on developing waste-to-value ecosystems for these small island communities by developing a platform and incentive system that allows the conversion of waste streams into valuable materials that serve the local community.

Paola Zanchetta, Pradnya Kunal Jagtap, Siddharth Arya, Jean-Luc Pierite, Magdalena Mojsiejuk, Kavita Arora, Monica Adriana

1000 Prosthetics with Printridi + FabCare

Can we bring together a distributed community across Bali to design and print 1000 prosthetics in just 10 days? With Printridi, international partner FabCare and our challenge team we will put distributed design and manufacturing to a real-world test for community, creativity and care.

Bio Andaru, Yoga Permana, Olga Trevisan (Micro Galleries), Ika Vantiani, Ayu Maulani, Sachin Farfad Patil, Parag Bagde, Ritvik Sardana, Ramsha Shaikh, Frank Bentum

Looking Closer with Prakash Labs

We are surrounded by a buzzing microscopic world that holds answers to some of the questions we seek in our everyday world that’s visible to our eyes. This challenge will deploy microscopic solutions in water environments to explore questions of resiliency and dependancy. Watch this Space!

Shannon Sykes, Patrick Condevaux, TB Taufiq Ghandur, Rian Satya Wijaya, Thomas Landrain, Victor Sandyawan Pranoto, Dihue Miguens, Susan Long, Elaine Regina, Tafia Sabila Khairunnisa

Floating Hydrogen Pods with Cesar Jung-Harada

This urgent energy-focused challenge proposes to prototype multiple floating solar to hydrogen floating pods, designed in collaboration with local coastal communities mainly with local materials to benefit the local environment and economy.

Adrian Lai, Claire Chaikin-Bryan, Markus Leutwyler, Hong Vu, Aldo Ikhwanul Khalid, Ratna Mardiani Mulya

Precious Plastics

The Precious Plastic Challenge will be developed collaboratively will over 15 members of the Precious Plastic community from across the Island and Indonesia! It will be designed to respond to what the local organisations operating in Indonesia really need with the problem definition being the first collaborative action the of the challenge!

Ben Dobbs, Verena Lindra, Sae Newhun, Ramdhan, Rizal Aziz, Imam Muhsin, Arinta Budhi Nugraha, Mendy Laoda, Marlon Kamagi, Retno Pandansari, Ganesha Andhika Prawiraatmadja, Moch Hasrul, Adityo Sofyandi, Syukriyatun Niamah, MG Pringgotono