Hey Ken, glad to see you created this concept! I'm definitely a big fan of FabLab after seeing how it lowered the barriers for enterprising Kenyans to learn the skills to realize their product ideas.

I think you touched briefly on the powerful ecosystem potential that a FabLab can create through training people in skills to prototype their ideas, but I think it would be great if the concept delved more into details of possibilities of how the Fablab can serve as a platform for bring the products to markets.

Some ideas:
Such as volunteer VC/business/legal office hours. Many business schools have these services. And some specialized NGOs focus on this too, such as Technoserve which recuits volunteer consultants to offer their business expertise to build business models. (www.technoserve.org)

Ashoka's Hybrid Value Chain model is piloting models where it combines multinational companies who can help partner with grassroots social innovators in lending their expertise to scale the products and social solutions that they believe can have massive impact. (http://www.ashoka.org/hvc)

As an active designer, I love this idea and would absolutely use it.

I see a lot of potential beyond the obvious first layer of providing designers/entrepreneurs a place to actually fabricate prototypes or small runs of products.

As Ken noted, for example, a Fablab would be a phenomenal place for job training... an incubator for people learning fairly high tech, specialized skills. Skilled fabricators who got training in the Fablab could repay it by training the next round of apprentices.

Also, as Dave noted, making ideas available could really encourage a strong global community of Fablabs. A really well designed interactive experience with a database of open-source designs and searchable forums for all kinds of tips and tricks (Ponoko has something similar) could remove a lot of obstacles and instill a lot of inspiration in users.

Finally, get the community involved and excited about the activity going on there! What are some ideas to do that? Maybe Gallery- or Exhibition Nights that showcase ongoing and finished projects... or periodic free seminars that walk the uninitiated through a project... many people have no concept of how things are made, but could get really excited by having it made so accessible and de-mystified.

I've love the Fablab concept since I first heard of it a couple years ago. I haven't researched them much recently to see how they're doing around the world - any idea what successes or failures they've found and what they've learned in different places?

I also really like that the designs are accessible from any Fablab. So great ideas in one city could spread and pop up in others all over the world. Proliferating designs online is a great way to encourage vibrancy to spring up all over, not just in one city alone.

The intellectual property thing does raise a red flag. Maybe it could take a two-tiered approach? You can use the machinery for free if you keep your designs public, or pay to use them if you keep them to yourselves?

And @Mihir brings up a good point - mechanized processes keep people out of the production loop. In some cases, or maybe most, it would be great to expand the idea to involve paid labor in larger scale fabrication. I'm often reminded where jobs get scarce--just because we can mechanize or automate a process doesn't always mean we should.

Perhaps something like this might even be connected to an online storefront along the lines of Ponoko? http://www.ponoko.com/ (so proud that this great company launched from my native New Zealand!)

A good try but I stay in a India and such an approach would not work.. Instead why not make more jobs for people by making them do stuff instead of using machines to cut it :)