Henk Buursen

Henk Buursen is lab lead of Waag's FabLab and instructor of FabAcademy. Next to this, he is head of system administrations, a position he has filled since the year 2000, when he started working at Waag.

Henk manages the FabLab in the historical building in the center of Amsterdam, de Waag. Here, he also educates tens of participants per year in working with digital fabrication and making 'almost anything' in the worldwide distributed learning-programme Fab Academy.

A Fab Lab is a workplace that offers access to a number of computer-controlled prototyping machines, where users can convert their ideas into tangible products. In this way technology is democratized in order to serve as a place for experimental innovation for a broad target group.

The concept of Fab Lab was developed by Neil Gershenfeld from MIT, and is an abbreviation of Fabrication Laboratory. Since their founding, Fab Labs have developed into a global network of standardised open hardware setups. FabLab Amsterdam is situated on the first floor of the Waag monument in Amsterdam. It was the first FabLab in the Netherlands, and is currently the only place in the Netherlands where Fab Academy can be attended.