Aged 4 I was sitting on a floor covered of Lego bricks building everything. Aged 10 my Lego were transistors and wires, aged 16 OR and NAND gates, aged 22 the assembler codes... and I am still creating solution with my Lego made of experience
And here I am, sitting in the electronic lab, typing in the dimmed light of the evening. Another day is closing soon, a day full of new ideas, little inventions, manual work, brainstorming, sourcing components, and good laughter with the wonderful team.
So, what do I do here, at TROUBLEMAKER HQB, in the pulsating heart of Shenzhen Huaqiangbei free-trade zone?
I think the honest answer is "I have a lot of fun and get a lot of things done".
Today I started finding a solution to hang a 3 axis robot to the office glass wall so that it can draw TROUBLEMAKER logo and introduce us to the visitors, then I met with a team to define the preliminaries of a vending system for our internal use, then I lectured my colleagues giving a funny account of my life and how not to chose a life mate, then implemented safety boxes with emergency buttons and safety switches for the equipment in the mechanic lab, then mentored a young designer combining style, feasibility, and budget in the design of a new lamp, and then I revised some php code of my own word-press website to make it available to the community.
It is quite a variety of things, you may say, but what do I do here in general, what is my role?
TROUBLEMAKER is a maker space, a place where makers, start-up enterprises, people with great ideas come and find the perfect substrate to grow their prototypes, products, business, and personal education.
More than a place with shared work space and fully equipped labs, here is a community of highly skilled, talented and motivated specialists who share a common idea of collaborative effort to build a continuously renewing platform of shared knowledge and boost the speed to success of individuals and projects.
We are a large and continuously renovating community of members and a very cohesive team of resident specialist each mentoring individual members, teams and projects either their own, of other members or from customers. And what we have is not only one space in Huaqiangbei, but a whole system including a factory and other facilities specialised in all aspects of product innovation, plus a rich network of highly selected suppliers and partners.
In my LinkedIn profile and in my CV, unchanged for quite some time, I state a few simple things that I am good at, and things that I am looking for. TROUBLEMAKER is the perfect match that I thought was impossible to find. Here is a strong and very capable team, a continuous stream of new challenges, a permanent stimulus to learn more, and a wonderful working environment.
Here I can apply at best my cross-industry experience, broad technological competence and versatility. Here I really am in my element and I am happy to give my contribution to the success of other members and of our operation.
New challenges are approaching fast, the operation is growing at explosive rate, we will move soon to a larger space and we are consolidating a very much needed value proposition for those, individual and companies, that are coming to the area or approaching the maker and product innovation business and need a map to navigate fast and safe avoiding pitfalls and slow learning curve.
Stay tuned folks, very interesting things are happening.
LINKS:
TROUBLEMAKER website
TROUBLEMAKER introduction
My LinkeIn profile