Welcome to the official opening of the Kista Mentorspace, hosted by KTH in the Electrum building in Kista. Activities have been running for some time, but with a new larger space, more resources and a dedicated commitment from a large group of stakeholders, the time has come to welcome more curious collaborators to visit and get engaged!
The Kista Mentorspace is an environment that uses knowledge sharing among groups of diverse individuals to accomplish goals in education, business, and societal development. It uses elements of the “Maker Movement” or makerspaces which is about discovering new ways to use ideas, technology, materials, techniques, and skills. It is a unique environment in that it uses these elements primarily to address and solve problems shared in community spaces such as formal education support, provisioning for innovation, business creation, community integration and social inclusion. It also serves as an open platform for research into the science of creating and supporting the activities that take place in these new environments. This is in contrast with more common community makerspaces that focus more on individual or group access to equipment and less on knowledge sharing and exchange.
The main driver of the Mentorspace is Professor Mark Smith at KTH and a team of active students. In 2015 a team of EIT Digital Master Students formed Inicio, a nonprofit organization, as part of their Business Development course at KTH. Their concept of involving students in makerspace sessions and combine it with industrial contacts is at the core of how the Kista mentorspace will be run. Now, the Kista Mentorspace is a formal part of the curriculum for the EIT Digital Master students I&E modules. The format has been met with interest also from other Nodes and may expand and become a European feature.
