DTI launches Fabrication Laboratory in UP Cebu

A laser cutter machine is one of the equipment in the FabLab at UP Cebu. (CDN PHOTO/CHRISTIAN MANINGO)

VARIOUS groups in the creative industry sector will now have access to a facility that will help them produce high quality outputs.

This after the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) inaugurated the Fabrication Laboratory (FabLab) in the University of the Philippines (UP) Cebu yesterday, June 9.

“(The FabLab) is open to the community. It is applicable to everybody and not just our usual sectors. We have tools that they can use to make their ideas come to life,” DTI Cebu Director Ma. Elena Arbon said in an interview during the facility’s launching at the Marco Polo Plaza in Cebu City yesterday.

Arbon said the FabLab gives art and design students, professionals, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), and the public access to advance prototyping, printing, and related equipment as well as training or workshop facilities.

The FabLab, she added, is a DTI-funded Shared Service Facility (SSF) which costs P5.375 million.

The equipment in the UP Cebu FabLab are a 3D printer, laser cutter, printer + cutter, desktop vinyl cutter, CNC router, and benchtop milling machine.

UP Cebu will manage the facility and its equipment for two years before the DTI turns over ownership to the school as specified in any other SSF agreement, said Arbon.

Access to the facility will be free in the next three days, but Arbon said, the DTI and UP Cebu will soon have to come up with usage fees to help maintain the equipment.

The FabLab in UP Cebu is the first one in the province and second to Bohol in Central Visayas.

Lawyer Liza Corro, acting chancellor of UP Cebu, said, “the FabLab in UP Cebu puts us in a very unique and privileged position.”

Aside from the FabLab, DTI also launched a Negosyo Center and Co-Working Space in UP Cebu.

Corro said this completes the collaborative support ecosystem needed by MSMEs that the university can provide.

Corro said that UP Cebu hosts the Cebu Business Incubator in Information Technology (CeBuInIT) and Innovated Technology Satellite Office (ITSO).

She said these facilities all aim to prepare businesses to become viable in the future.

The DTI in Central Visayas (DTI 7), meanwhile, launched yesterday a three-day service caravan dubbed as “Negosyo, Konsyumer at Iba Pa” in Cebu.

Asteria Caberte, DTI-7 director, said the event gathers under one roof the agency’s services, bureaus and attached offices to bring them closer to the public without a fee.

“This caravan showcases DTI’s services and assistance to MSMEs as well as to our consumers,” she said.

The three-day activity, which runs from June 9 to 11, will include a mini-trade fair at Ayala Center Cebu, seminars, trainings, and business counseling, among others.