Fab Lab Aachen and RWTH Excellence Startup Center Collaboration
In 2019, RWTH Aachen University received 23 Million Euros of funding from the Ministry of Economic Affairs of the state North Rhine-Westphalia to create Europe's largest Technology Incubator, the RWTH Excellence Startup Center.NRW.
Prof. Jan Borchers' chair of Media Computing and Human–Computer Interaction at RWTH Aachen University has established a collaboration with the RWTH Excellence Startup Center (ESC), in which the chair's Fab Lab Aachen, an open digital fabrication workshop and Germany's first Fab Lab established in 2009, provides access to rapid prototyping machines and processes for the university startups supported by the ESC.
Through this collaboration, ESC-supported entrepreneurs at RWTH Aachen University can use a host of machines in the chair's Fab Lab Aachen, from various high-end 3D printers to UV plotters, laser cutters, PCB mills, electronics prototyping facilities, to industrial robots, to prototype their product's hardware and user interface. This makes the Fab Lab Aachen an early key component of the ESC's Collective Incubator space and accelerator program.
Prof. Borchers' team adds to this their expertise in user experience design, user interface technologies, digital fabrication, and iterative hardware and software prototyping of interactive products, to help ESC startups on their way.
Contact: Anke Brocker (Fab Lab access), Oliver Nowak (startup support)