Expert guidance: The MakerAcademy promotes digital, sustainable and social skills.
Protohaus
A place for inventors, experimenters and creatives
The Protohaus in Braunschweig offers school pupils, university students and anyone else interested in an excellently equipped workshop and the know-how they need to put their ideas into practice and to acquire and expand their skills.
We humans are blessed with creativity in order to create new things. Ideas are born and are just waiting to be pursued and implemented. Yet what is often lacking is a room with technical equipment, a touch of technical expertise and sparring partners who can make a big impact with a little inspiration.
That is where the Protohaus comes in. Protohaus gGmbH is an open high-tech workshop in Braunschweig’s Rebenpark business center. Since April 2016, it has been the place where techies can come together with inventors, experimenters, creatives and entrepreneurs. From woodworking and 3D printing to smart farming: Members of the Protohaus can test, further develop and implement their own ideas on 500 square meters and in eight different work areas.
“As a mechanical engineering student, I myself faced the problem that there was no suitable workshop for my experiments,” says Chris Töppe, founder and Managing Director of the Protohaus. “I built something myself in my room in a shared apartment. Sleeping next to all the devices in a confined space was not an option for any length of time. I took up the idea of the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and teamed up with like-minded persons. We launched the makerspace ‘Protohaus’ in cooperation with the Technical University of Braunschweig.”
The Protohaus currently has 18 employees. The team is very diverse, ranging from experienced technicians to young digital natives. The members of the Protohaus offer support in word and deed.
In 2018, they came up with the idea for a “MakerAcademy,” which receives substantial funding from the AKB Foundation. The MakerAcademy is a sort of technical classroom with high-end digital equipment. Children, youngsters and university students can acquire digital, sustainable and social skills in courses and workshops under expert guidance. There will be particular demand for such skills in the future. Further funders have been acquired thanks to this concept with its orientation toward education.
“Our team is highly motivated to provide the next generation with the technical means it needs and also offer extracurricular opportunities for disadvantaged groups,” says Chris Töppe. The tasks and projects promote creative and solution-oriented thinking, critical questioning and frustration tolerance. The young people in the group are made more aware of the importance of tolerance and flexibility, and their team spirit and willingness to help are strengthened.
Information
The AKB Foundation
The AKB Foundation was established in 1998 by Carl-Ernst Büchting (1915– 2010), the long-standing Chairman of the Executive Board and later of the Supervisory Board at KWS. Its work centers on the Southern Lower Saxony region, specifically Einbeck, and on Klein Wanzleben (Saxony-Anhalt), the place where KWS was founded. The foundation’s values are steeped in the concepts of sustainability, humanity and future viability. The foundation promotes charitable goals and offers funding in five categories: “the church, Christian faith and ecumenism,” “art and culture,” “education and social welfare,” “science and research,” and “protection of the environment, countryside and nature.” More information: www.akb-stiftung.de |
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