The Community Production Initiative
The Community Production Initiative is a campaign to turn Jackson into an innovative hub of sustainable manufacturing and fabrication that will help build and expand “community wealth” in the city. The first phase of this initiative is the development of a Center for Community Production. The Center will be anchored by a Fabrication Laboratory (Fab Lab), and serve as a Fab Academy training center, a multi-stakeholder cooperative, a coding and digital programming innovation hub, a maker space and the city’s first hub of community production.
In the effort to build this innovative hub and advance our mission of creating a democratic economy, Cooperation Jackson is conducting a fundraising drive to build the Center for Community Production, which will further the cause of building a dynamic, innovative, technology embracing local economy that will enhance our Sustainable Communities Initiative (SCI). The Sustainable Communities Initiative is an effort to create a Just Transition for Jackson from extractive energy and industries, and to build a model sustainable community in West Jackson anchored by a Community Land Trust (CLT) that will be home to a “live-work” Eco-Village and an integrated network of green cooperative enterprises.
In order to build the “city of the future” we need your help. We need to raise $600,000 to establish the Center for Community Production by mid-January 2017. Why mid-January 2017? Because the next Fab Academy begins at the last week of January 2017 and we want to have our Fab Lab in place by that time so that we can complete the training our three existing Fab Lab interns are currently receiving from INCITE FOCUS, a Detroit, Michigan based Fab Lab,to enable them to become fully certified technicians, and to offer the Academy courses to more members of our community to expand the number of certified technicians.
What is Community Production? Community Production is industrial manufacturing and fabrication based on a combination of 3rd and 4th generation industrial technology, namely the combination of digital technology and automated production with 3-D printing and quantum computing, that is collectively owned and democratically operated by members of geographically and/or intentionally defined communities.
Meet the Fab Lab Interns in Community Production
For three of our members, September 2016 marked the beginning of an intensive digital fabrication and technologically innovative training and internship. Amalya Livingston, Akinola Gonzalez, and Gyasi Williams are working with INCITE FOCUS, a Detroit, Michigan based Fab Lab, to become fully certified technicians, and to offer the Academy courses in Jackson to more members of our community.
Omilade Akinola Gonzalez
Omilade studies civil engineering at Jackson State University.
"I started taking STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematic) classes in High School, which included learning about different fields of engineering. This included studying the functions of the 3-D printer."
Amalya Y. Livingston
Amalya is 20 years old and a native of Edwards, MS.
"My vision, with becoming a certified Fab Academy graduate, is to see upcoming generations utilize the systems and tools necessary to display their God-given ingenuity and inventiveness to PRODUCE the materials and inventions that will redefine their destinies and reshape their futures."
Gyasi Williams
Gyasi (pronounced “Jah See”) has a lifelong interests in community activism, development, engineering design and economic empowerment for Black people.
I hope to help advance the transformative work of Cooperation Jackson by becoming a Fab Lab technician and one of the worker owners of the Center for Community Production that the organization is working to build."
