NewMan's Prototyping Laboratory

What is it About?

NewMan's Business Accelerator was founded 3 years ago by Irena Chaushevska, a thirty-something female entrepreneur in search for freedom and opportunity one to create and accomplish great things STARTING FROM ANYWHERE only with the resources he/she have. 

She set NewMan's primary offices in her home country - Macedonia. Macedonia is a small country in South Eastern Europe where 90% of the young people speak English, science and technology are among the favourite subjects at school and robotics competitions one of the most attended. However, the number of completed tech products coming especially from the younger generations is very low, primarily due to lack of equipment and funding.

Irena traveled to US for a first time only 1,5 years before opening of NewMan's where she managed to set up meetings with representatives from JPL of NASA and NASA Ames Research Center, and now for the last 3 years she acts as a Local Lead for Skopje (Macedonia) at the world biggest mass collaboration hackathon NASA Space Apps Challenge. The event takes place in around 170 cities around the world with a goal of producing relevant open-source solutions to address global needs applicable to both life on Earth and in Space.

The results and benefits from the event in the country are far beyond anything Irena could imagine. 

Skopje became the city with highest number of projects worldwide in 2014, 3 more cities from the country (Tetovo, Bitola and Ohrid) and 8 more from the region (Belgrade, Tirana, Pristina, Zagreb, Cluj, Ljubljana, Koper and Vienna) joined the event in 2015 and 2016 and this year one of the Skopje teams - AVIS was pre-selected among the TOP 25 by NASA judges in the People's choice category and it is fighting for the 1st place in this moment.

But what is more important is that through this event Irena managed to accomplish her initial idea - a young people from this region to start believe that they can do GREAT & MEANINGFUL THINGS same as their peers from much more developed countries!!! 

Why a Prototyping Laboratory?

 Although the teams are achieving great results they don't have where and with what to continue to develop their projects into real life products in order to offer them to the local and global markets. They need fully functional prototyping laboratory along with tools and materials for research, development and testing.

Irena strongly believes that this young people deserve a creative and functional place where they will be able to come and build together... all with different backgrounds, from different universities and high schools, with different personal stories, to be able to build together around the year same as they do for the 48 hours during the NASA Space Apps Challenge hackathon. 

Irena wants the shine in their eyes and the smile on their faces to sparkle all year long, but also to help them to get off the ground their own start-up projects and companies more easily. This is a project that will benefit many young people from the country on a short run but also the country economy as a whole on a long run. 

Why We Need Funding?

 NewMan's will dedicate its full ground floor and backyard for this cause and will provide technical and initial mentoring and ongoing technical support for the teams, but the funds needed to build and equip a modern and competitive prototyping laboratory are much more than NewMan's or the students can afford. NewMan's is self-funded by selling entrepreneurship and job-specific trainings and it is not using any government or EU funds support.

The products that will be built within the Prototyping Laboratory with the funds received from this campaign will be sole ownership of the individuals and teams that created them and NewMan's will not have any ownership in them coming from the campaign funds.

The campaign funds will be sufficient to cover the costs for equipment, utilities and operating supplies for period of 2 years when the teams should become able to contribute small amounts on a monthly basis toward the utilities and the operating supplies costs. If there is a need for further purchase of a new equipment NewMan's will make sure to identify additional opportunities and solutions in future.

Support our Indiegogo campaign at: https://igg.me/at/prottolab

Here is how the ground floor looks like now:

The Impact

1. Around 1000 young people (mainly High School and University Students) would be able to benefit from the Prototyping Laboratory during 2 years period, to practice Design thinking methodologies, to Research, Prototype and Innovate. 
2. The best 7 of them accompanied by the NewMan's team will travel to the Silicon Valley to meet peers from the School of Mechanical Engineering and d-School at Stanford University and to learn about their Prototyping and Product development practices, but also to showcase their products in front of big tech companies and potential investors, and than transfer the lessons learned back to their peers in Macedonia.
3. Some of all these young people will eventually create fully functional  and profitable products and will build their businesses, their lives and maybe even this country economy around them!
4. NewMan's will involve the users of the Prototyping Laboratory to develop together a business model beyond the 24 months period in order to continue to deliver benefits to the community.

Why Fixed Funding?

We could easily chose Flexible funding and walkaway with whatever we raise. But we don't work like that. We don't want to get into situation of raising only 20.000 or 30.000 $ and being asked by the public to build the Prototyping Laboratory anyway... We don't want to make off with your money with no hope of delivering on our promises neither to you - our contributors, neither to the one for whom we are doing this. It makes no sense to us. 

Here is our Indiegogo budget breakdown (66.000$ in total):

• 5.200$ for Prototyping Laboratory interior and office equipment
• 20.000$ for Prototyping Laboratory working equipment
• 7.200$ for Prototyping Laboratory operating supplies for 24 months
• 16.800$ for 7 people to travel and stay in USA for 2 weeks
• 7.200$ for utilities for 24 months
• 3.600$ for snacks and representation costs for 24 months
• 6.000$ for the Indiegogo and bank transaction fees to receive the collected money

We can not do it with less than 66.000$. So if we raise less in total, we will release all your money back.

NewMan's contribution budget breakdown (32.000$ in total):

• 15.000$ for rent of the Prototyping Laboratory space for 24 months
• 17.000$ for a salary of 1 full-time employee in the Prototyping Laboratory who will provide technical support for the users, will help them operate with the equipment and will manage the operating supplies.

Some of the students current projects

Here you can preview some of the latest students projects:

• Solar Jump Jet - A jet pack which an astronaut can carry with himself on Mars and uses it's power to accomplish obstruction whenever he encounters one.

• Space Monkeys' Route 66 - A virtual reality for the Kennedy Space Centre, giving the unique chance to walk around or fly through it as well as to preview its future look.

• Avis -  A smart wristband and an Android app to help drone operators control the drone, notify them about weather and near no-fly zones. 

Other ways to support us

 However, if you can not contribute financially, it doesn't mean you can't help:

• Share this campaign via e-mail or on social media and ask your friends and peers to contribute
• Create a story around and make it go viral
• Contribute with your knowledge, time and connections
• Contribute with equipment and office or operating supplies and materials

If you have any questions don't hesitate to contact at: [email protected]

Support our Indiegogo campaign at: https://igg.me/at/prottolab

Thank You!

NewMan's BA Team and 

NASA Space Apps Challenge Skopje-Macedonia Team

https://www.facebook.com/NewMansBA

https://www.facebook.com/SpaceAppsMacedonia