DistInc is a globally distributed incubator. It serves people and projects that come through Academany, the fab lab network's distributed hands-on educational program. Academany students develop portfolios and projects that document their skills and ideas; DistInc can then offer investment and mentorship to develop them.
Academany (aka The Academy of Almost Anything) grew from the Fab Academy, which was developed to provide hands-on technical training in fab labs. Rather than the traditional educational model of bringing students to a central site, or the online model of students in front of individual screens, it is based on a distributed model: students gather in local learning workgroups in fab labs, with peers, mentors, and machines, and these are in turn connected in a global network with leading experts. DistInc extends this model to incubation, effectively bringing the incubator to the innovator rather than the usual converse. Participants are hosted in local fab labs, and mentored by global leaders.
DistInc seeks to expand the impact of the brainpower of the planet. The initiatives that it incubates can be for-profit or non-profit, they can have a narrow focus or multiple bottom lines, but they all must be both financially and globally sustainable. Given this range, the services that it provides are adapted to the needs of each project individually, rather than applying a fixed template. DistInc is itself non-profit; the terms of investments made through it are worked out individually.
Proposal process
Initial Questions
The exceptional collection of mentors have been selected for their diverse backgrounds along with their common characteristics of having achieved significant personal success in building organizations as well as having a deep commitment to the consequences of their work. DistInc serves as a marketplace of ideas, circulating proposals among this influential group. It is currently in a trial phase, accepting selected test cases before opening it up more widely. The brief proposal process asks these initial questions:
- What do you want to incubate?
- How long will it take?
- How much will it cost?
- How will it be sustained?
- What will its impact be?
- What help will you need?
- What is your Academany portfolio?
- Optional: upload a proposal attachment
Initial mentors
DistInc is led by Neil Gershenfeld, and the initial mentors. In addition to the mentors, DistInc connects a number of collaborating programs. More info to come.
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Blair Evans
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Calvin Chin
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Dan Stone
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David Frankel
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Diane Greene
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Eric Paley
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Habib Haddad
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Jeff Bernstein
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Joi Ito
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Neil Gershenfeld
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Paul Cairns
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Ray Stata
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Rich Miner
Submission instructions will follow after the trial phase
For more information contact info@academany.org.