History: Ted Hung, NGM Interview

Ted Hung, NGM interview
Interview host: Shih Wei Chieh
2022.11.22
Fablab Taipei

Please tell us briefly why you started Fablab Taipei, how it was founded and how it interacts with the international community
I started Fablab Taipei in 2013, and the reason was very simple: I was working in the furniture industry in the US, and I came back to Taiwan after living there for about 10 years. I was looking for a direction for my life, and I thought, "What can I do in Taiwan? The whole furniture industry in Taiwan is completely OEM, they don't have any creation of their own, or they don't think we have the ability to make any brand. Why is it that all industries are purely OEM? So I wanted to make some interesting attempts, and at that time, I also saw that there were many similar communities sprouting abroad, like the maker movement was still very new back then, and 3d printing was still very new, and most people didn't have contact with it, so I felt very strange at that time, why was there no organization like Fablab in Taiwan at that time? I think we didn't think about whether there would be government subsidies, or how far we could go, or how big it could grow, but the idea at the beginning was actually quite simple. At that time, I also participated in Taipei Hacker Space, and then I researched a little bit and found out that there were some differences between Hacker Space and Fablab; Fablab is a community that emphasizes cross-country collaboration, while Hacker Space is also very friendly, but it does not have a similar network plan, and each Hacker Space feels like everyone is doing their own thing. At that time, of course, the first thing I did was to build my own local community, and the second thing I did was to connect with communities abroad. In the beginning people would question the value of international networking, or why spend so much resources to go abroad and participate in various events? But after participating in many of them, you will find out that real relationships are very important. Every year, you wouldl get to know more people through such occasions and meet some of these people repeatedly, and have a closer connection to each other’s community, which could rapidly become a productive network.

Later on, by chance we also set up our own Fablab network in Asia. In 2013, at the FAB9 Yokohama, we discussed various issues. The communities in Asia are a bit bigger and nobody speaks English as their main language. The languages we use are also quite different. Another issue was that many Asian countries are not that wealthy, so not all of us have the means to fly all the way to the same place in the world to participate in an international conference, so we thought at that time that we should have another organization to strengthen the connection between Asia. Then we started an annual Fablab Asia event in the Philippines in 2014, then in 2015 it was held in Taiwan, then in January 2017 it was held in India.. Because of the weather in India, we moved to Seoul, Vietnam, and then back to Seoul, and we also started a community in Shanghai. Before the pandemic, we interacted more frequently and had more meaningful collaborations. For example, when we were in Tainan, we came across an incident during our Vietnam annual conference. There was a community for open source prosthetics in Taiwan called Taiwan Gods Hand Project (TGH). There was this Taiwanese guy with a broken arm, who left a message on Facebook asking for help in making an electric prosthesis, and quite rapidly, a group of people got together to make one for him. Later, they created many versions of it. Then in the same year, there was a Vietnamese child who also had no hands, and his family left a message saying that they also needed a prosthetic arm. In fact, this kind of 3d printing is very suitable for children's prosthesis design, because children grow up very fast, but they can't afford to replace the prosthesis all the time, especially the electric ones. At that time, they contacted the Taiwanese God's Hand in Tainan, and then the Fablab Tainan people contacted me, and at that time I happened to be in Vietnam for the annual meeting, and the Vietnamese Fablab Siagon people brought a 3D scanner to scan the part of the child's stump, and finally the Taiwanese side helped finish the design, and then sent the file to Vietnam, and they really made the prosthesis and gave it to the child. Some cases were unintentional, or they were accidental, which led to some interesting cross-country collaborations. In fact, the Fablab spirit is a very concrete realization, because what Fablab wants to do is to replace the flow of material with the flow of data (bits to atoms). This is where I think the real value of Fablab lies, not necessarily in the creation of advanced technologies, but in the creation of things through simple data collaboration that could not be done before.

There was a time when we expected makers to change the shape of the industry, like the prosthetic thing you just talked about. In fact, we all might have a vision that makers would become more industrialized, or that they might replace certain functions in society, but years have passed and the maker culture in Taiwan is still quite dull, what could be the causes?
I think in fact Fablab is still an educational organization and network, and serving a specific purpose is another way of thinking. I think that the purpose of each Fablab, like our lab here, is not particularly education-oriented, because we are more on the Breeding Center side, because after all, this is the base of the Department of Economic Development, Taipei City Government, and what they want to see is more hardware innovation. In fact, the labs in each country are completely different, and there are quite a lot of labs in universities currently, and independent labs like ours are quite rare, and then many labs are government agencies, and there are even labs in libraries and museums, which themselves are burdened with different purposes, or there are labs in Airbus, and there are labs in Ikea, and they also call themselves Fablab, or In fact, the purpose of each lab is not exactly the same.

In fact, because it has become an idea, I think because first of all, it is not difficult for you to register and become a Fablab today, it is actually a recognition of an idea, for example, if you agree with the two things of decentralized manufacturing and digital knowledge sharing, then basically it is the value that Fablab is promoting, there is no strict norm that you must follow upon establishing a Fablab. For example, there are labs in France that specialize in agriculture, like Jonathan Minchin’s lab, they also do agriculture-related work, and the role of these labs in each country is completely different. Like in Jordan, they have labs that are dedicated to helping refugees find their own way of survival (Global Humanitarian Lab), so in fact, this is perhaps more urgent for them, because they do have the need for immediate material creation. In Taiwan we don’t have such immediate needs, so it is more about innovation. People who came out from our local labs actually have had good results innovating. In fact, in this process, I think that the definition of Fablab is not so limited, and what it promotes is only decentralized manufacturing. For example, the Fab City, which is derived later, is mainly promoting local material, local manufacturing, each lab, each country is able to survive on its own. I think in Taiwan to speak about this is a false issue, because we produce more than we need since long ago, we are considered one the leaders of manufacturing, we make things that are sold everywhere in the world. Taiwan relies on exports, but many countries are not like this. In the United States there are a lot of imports, so in fact each country's problem is completely different. I would say that maybe Fablab's positioning might be more appropriate in a R&D base, because our financial condition is different from others, and in Europe manpower is probably too expensive, so you have to automate to do these things.

If the economy and environment here are rich, why are the makers here not as diverse culturally or in the area of research and development?
I don't think that's exactly the case, there are many kinds of R&D. For example, there are people developing electric cars here, which is also considered R&D, but it's not necessarily a new field, it's an existing field, they're doing technical R&D, they're still making a profit, even if we talk about innovative products, so there are indeed many R&D projects, but there are too many fields in the world, whether there are fields related to humanities created here in Taiwan it's another issue in my opinion, and it's not from the point of view of the art world. For example, I think that after meeting so many people in the lab, the only thing we can't give to anyone is motivation. When I went to the lab in India, I was really shocked, because they can make anything, like I saw that they made their own exoskeleton power suit driven by gasoline, they dismantled a bunch of abandoned parts and then modified them, because they are very short on resources, that’s why they have this strong motivation to do things like that. My opinion is that only if creating this thing will immediately make a difference to your life, then people will go ahead and do it right away. Taiwan has an environment that is too comfortable. I think you also need to measure it from the perspective of scale, firstly, Taiwan has a small population, suppose there is only one very creative person in 10,000 people, then you may feel that in countries with a large population you can see more interesting cases, like on TikTok, there are many very powerful Chinese people. Taiwan does not have that much population, compared to Korea we only have less than half of their population, maybe only one third, Japan is also 10 times bigger than us, Taiwan is not that big to have so many creative people, India is not necessary to say, 1.4 billion people.

I think going to the annual conference (FABx) certainly expands one’s personal vision, but I think if you want to explore how much influence and experience you bring back it is not easy to say. We have organized sharing sessions before, but I think it is not easy to ask people to actively make things, he must first find his own internal motivation. I think the most different thing from my life in Taiwan compared to life in the United States is that in Taiwan there are too many things that keep me blindly busy. Even though you are always doing things, these things are actually quite meaningless, and you end up not having much time to explore yourself, nor to sit down properly to think. For example, if you are in Taiwan you feel that we have a lot of information anxiety, people keep scrolling on Facebook, you become worried that you have not watched the news, when you are here you will easily be affected by the environment. Firstly, that everyone's working hours are quite long, and then the distance between people is quite close, so you will be easily influenced by other people. Taipei is so small, maybe I will meet people I know in various activities, so there is less time to think quietly, but in the United States I am quite free every night, and I do not know what to do, because the commuting distance is relatively far, you just go back home and watch a game. You have so much free time, you can read books, you can listen to music, you can be yourself, you can take your time and think about what you want to do, even more so on weekends. In Taiwan it feels like your time is always filled.

What is the next direction for Fablab Taipei's operations? How will the connections change, both locally and abroad?
Talking about connections, I think labs are getting worse and worse now. In the early days, it was better. In 2013, everyone was very keen to talk about the sharing economy, because some of the equipment was very expensive, like a laser cutter or even a CNC, so you wouldn’t have these tools at home just for yourself. But today the circumstances have changed. Of course the production in China has greatly helped. Now the 3D printer is NT$6,000 and the laser cutter is NT$60,000, so anyone who wants to make something can set up a small workshop and do it. The sharing of hardware is no longer a problem. I think the connection between people is far more important than the connection between lab and lab, because the lab itself is not important anymore, which lab has what machines, in fact, you just need to know the right people, you can get everything, or there are many services on the Internet to help you do these things, you don't even need to have these things, instead, the creativity and ideas between people become more important, you will be influenced by people, like who you talk to today, whose work you’ve seen today, then you will be stimulated by him, or you will have new ideas because you see what other people are doing, but the network is the most effective and useful value. That’s why international connections are so important.

About sustainability: Can you tell us briefly about the funding sources and the number of people working here, the expenses, the difficulties?
I think it is the same for all labs in the world, what is the income? Except for the labs in the school system, all other labs have to find their own way to survive. In fact, this issue has been discussed a lot in the lab circle, and there was even a special workshop to organize such a discussion. But I think it is not easy to replicate in Taiwan the models that we see abroad. For example, if a lab cooperates with Airbus and Airbus offers financial support, where can I find another Airbus in Taiwan that is willing to pay me? So in fact, it is the other way around, how to think more flexibly? Which model is suitable for your environment?

Finally, can you talk about some changes before and after the outbreak?
I think it has changed again, that is, the pandemic accelerates the process of digitization, for example, in the past, Fablab courses were unified in time all over the world and it was online. Before the pandemic we have done it for 6 to 8 years already. At that time people would say, why do you do something so tiring like online courses? Fablab's curriculum design is actually very interesting, now the teachings are mostly not unidirectional, there is attendance. If today the teacher’s way of teaching was unidirectional, we would not need an online classroom, the school could just record a good video and then get students to watch it themselves. But schools in Taiwan haven't realized why online classes are useless, because those students are sleeping in class, or opening two windows to watch something else, watching Netflix while taking a class, everyone was just doing because they were forced to take classes online due to the pandemic. Of course a few students with stronger learning abilities have found that they can learn more and faster without wasting too much time on transportation, but 90% of students are probably slacking off. There is no real point in taking classes online now, but instead, you need to think about how you can use online tools to accelerate your learning process. In the old education system, you had to meet good teachers, good universities, and good library collections, and these things were scarce resources that were distributed to the most elite students through exams. But now it is completely different, you can now find all the resources you need online. It is no longer important to have the resources for the textbook, but how to develop independent learning ability is more important. The problem is that the education system is not yet able to accept such changes quickly, because such changes will cause many teachers to lose their jobs, this is a very real problem, this will endanger the work of many people, in fact, having only 20 very good teachers in the country would be enough, just like YouTubers, they can compete and develop their own teaching style, why do schools need so many teachers to prepare the same range of lessons? It makes no sense at all, it's just that we're used to this model because that's how it used to be done. Instead, it is the teacher's experience that is valuable, like when you have a problem, who can appropriately guide you to the right path to solve the problem, this is the most difficult and cannot be replaced by online teaching, because this is a customized service, for example, each student asks a question, the person who is suitable to give the answer to the student is actually not the same person, he may have a different background, or the solution that each person can accept is different. I think the education system in Taiwan still has a very long way to go, including things like Fablab or maker movement, they are an extension of the educational side of Taiwan. It is about how you transform the knowledge you learned into meaningful creation. Lab is just a tool, so you can turn it into something real, you do not necessarily need to do it through the form of a lab, I think the form is not so important.

Links in interview

1. Taipei Fablab
2. FAB9 Yokohama
3. Taiwan Gods Hand Project (TGH)
4. Fab City
5. Global Humanitarian Lab
6. FABx