This ‘Asylum’ In Mumbai Is A Hub For Innovation

People bitten by the creativity bug yearning for the right tools and expertise to turn their ideas into reality may have an outlet.

Maker’s Asylum, a startup that calls itself a “makerspace and hackerspace”, is providing a place equipped with tools and machines like 3D printers, wood and laser cutters, and expertise in the form of engineers, artists and designers for those with a creative bent of mind.

The startup, located in a 6,000 square feet space in Mumbai’s industrial hub of Andheri, enables learning through collaboration with people from other backgrounds. Vaibhav Chhabra, and eight DIY (do-it-yourself) enthusiasts started Maker’s Asylum in 2013 as a hobby to “make, break, create and innovate”.

Today, it focuses on fostering innovation through hands-on learning and provides for an ecosystem of stakeholders—including governments, businesses, investors and experts. The startup conducts courses for different age groups: a personalised learning programme called "innovation school" for teenagers aged between 13 and 18 years; certification courses under woodwork, metalwork, electronics and digital fabrication; and workshops for corporates.

“Maker’s Asylum is called an asylum because it’s a madhouse where it allows people from different backgrounds to brew something completely new,” Vaibhav Chhabra, the startup’s founder, told BloombergQuint.

Watch as BloombergQuint takes you through some of the innovations at Maker’s Asylum: