3DLAB resulted from the need of an educational space where anyone could learn how to use technology and critical thinking to solve our community’s most pressing issues, through both formal and informal education opportunities in design and fabrication. 3DLAB’s mission is to empower Salvadorans to create, and to achieve this from a holistic perspective, 3DLAB has 3 main pillars:

1) Center of Excellence for 3D printing
A large portion of academic activities (research, coursework, projects, day to day operations, etc) are related to additive manufacturing. Focusing on a single technology allows us to be highly proficient in one topic, instead of average at multiple ones.

2) Public Fabrication and prototyping space
Opened for everyone whether they are university students or not, offering workshops in different aspects of digital fabrication and access to tools and equipment.

3) Middleman between academia and industry
This is to close the gap between academia and the industry in the country by creating opportunities for students to solve real world problems in the Salvadoran industry through innovative ideas and commercialization of technology. On the other hand this also positions 3DLAB as a professional talent generator by developing the relevant skillsets in UTEC students with these industrial experiences

Our current goal is to become a Fablab to position us in the global map of Fab Foundation as the first Fab Lab in a university in El Salvador. Next steps include fostering collaborative projects between regional and international fablabs, as well as graduating some members from the Fab Academy to then be able to host the Fab Academy and teach these courses to members from the community to grow the Salvadoran maker community. In preparation for this we are currently expanding our facility to offer more workspace, which will be available by the end of July 2019.

Finally, we aim to be the leading academic fablab in Central America, and a renowned lab in Latin America, in terms of education quality, social impact, and technological research and development.