Ilmkubator Lab - Sustainable anchoring of a FabLab as part of the start-up ecosystem at the TU Ilmenau

The Ilmkubator start-up service has been established at TU Ilmenau since 2020. Funding from the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung initiated the Ilmkubator Lab – a FabLab for people interested in founding a company.
FabLabs or MakerSpaces are open spaces and workshops where users inside can work on their projects. They produce and test prototypes and exchange ideas with like-minded people. Thus, FabLabs are an important measure to sensitize students and doctoral candidates to the topic of transfer and entrepreneurship.
The Ilmkubator Lab is specifically geared toward the STEM sector. It is to be further expanded in the coming years and revitalized with innovative practice- and start-up-oriented formats. This promotes cooperation within the start-up community and significantly stimulates the formation of interdisciplinary start-up teams. Technological resources are closely interlinked and bundled with the existing student MakerSpace, the research structures in the faculties as well as technological centers and affiliated institutes. This serves to strategically anchor the entire university and supports the entire "student life cycle" in the long term.