Full coverage: Summer Davos Forum 2016

A new industrial revolution, the Maker Movement. The trend perfectly combines DIY ingenuity and tech entrepreneurship, revolutionizing the way individuals and industry approach innovation. And it's spreading across China in a big way.

This is F.PET, an electric mobility aid that’s designed to help senior citizens cover short distances. The innovative device is the brainchild of Chinese Maker Song Wenhui. He first hit upon the idea in 2009 and spent the next five years perfecting his prototype. Foldable and convenient, with a top speed of 6.5 kilometres per hour, this is the final result.

Maker Yue Heng takes pride in shrinking down robotic arms, in terms of both size, and cost. His product, uArm, works on a desktop and is affordable for most households. Operated by a mouse or mobile phone, or by using simple hand gestures, UArm is designed to grip and move small objects like this box, regardless of the smooth plastic facing.

Products pioneered by other makers include this dancing robot, and a piano keyboard that operates on paper.

Across China right now, tens of thousands of makers are on the move; designers, artists and inventors sharing space and resources to turn their fresh ideas into new devices. For some, being a maker is a fulltime job. For others, it’s just a hobby. Irrespective, these young and talented minds are leading a trend that is bringing changes to both lifestyles and business models in China, and beyond.

Born in the US in the early 2000s, the Makers Movement has gone on to produce big names and big selling products worldwide. One of the most successful among the ranks of its US pioneers is Chris Anderson. A former editor-in-chief of tech magazine Wired, Anderson now works as the CEO of 3D Robotics, the largest US-based drone manufacturer.

“People have been making things for ever, in the garage, in the workshops, in the basement. The web is about making things together, in communities online. What the maker movement does is combine the two. It combines the DIY spirit, traditionally being an isolated act, with the web spirit, which is a collective act. Put them together, and that became the maker movement,” said Chris Anderson, CEO of 3D Robotics.

The ethos behind the maker movement – sharing resources and spaces – lends itself to a communal working environment that sits somewhere between a business incubator and a manufacturing plant. In China, where the movement is still relatively new, there are now scores of these so-called makerspaces, mostly in first tier cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.

The Chaihuo makerspace, the first of its kind in Shenzhen, was set up in 2011 by 27-year-old Pan Hao. The name, Chaihuo, means firewood. Pan chose it from an old Chinese saying: "If many collect and put the firewood together, even a little fire can grow and spread." It says something about his dream: everybody working together to make the Chinese maker movement grow.

The five-year-old Chaihuo makerspace is now home to nearly 1000 members who visit from time to time to network, hold conversations with fellow makers, and enjoy access to industrial tools. Pan and his team also invite professionals and organize small lectures that might appeal to the maker community.

Inspiration and training aside, makerspaces provide members with cutting-edge tools they otherwise might not be able to access.

“What the maker movement came with was tools that were easy to use. Very sophisticated tools that didn’t require sophisticated skills. So, 3D printing used to require a university degree and cost thousands of dollars. Now, 3D printing is something my children do. The electronics used to require four-year college degree, and now is something my children do in school. Same for CNC, laser cutting, CAD,” Chris Anderson said.

Often based in small basements or garages, so called makerspaces are places where the not-so-serious can indulge their interests and have fun. But for those keen to make serious products and profits, something bigger is needed. And that’s where incubators come in handy.

HAX is one of them. The Shenzhen and San Francisco based company runs what it bills as "a new kind of accelerator programme". An application to join is needed, but once accepted, makers enjoy seed funding of US 25,000 dollars, office space, and regular mentorship on a variety of topics including building products and how to pitch them to potential investors and buyers. Most importantly, the programme offers an opportunity to live and work in Shenzhen, interacting directly with manufacturers who have the ability to take the product to scale.

“Shenzhen, for us, is the silicon valley for hardware. It’s really about critical mass. The supply chain has reached out when it comes down to be able to do things a lot faster. When we do electronics, for example, if you’re abroad, it’s gonna take you two weeks to get it, whilst when you move over here, you can almost have anything in 3 or 4 days,” said Cyril Ebersweiler, founder of HAX.

For successful applicants like Song Lei, HAX is a game changer. While studying in Singapore two years ago, he and a group of maker friends developed a smart cushion which is able to monitor the user’s sitting position and heartbeat. But despite his excellent engineering skills, Song Lei was at a loss when it came to marketing and mass-producing his product. He decided to apply to the HAX programme and, after several rounds of evaluation, was accepted.

After graduation, Song Lei and his team raised US 220,000 dollars through presales on Kickstarter, the world's largest funding platform for creative projects. They also secured US 5 million dollars in an initial round of venture capital financing. Now, his company is operating at full speed.

Support for the maker movement in China comes not only from private investors, but also from the government. Before attending the Summer Davos Forum in Dalian, Liaoning province, Premier Li Keqiang visited a local makerspace, where he was impressed by a web platform to upgrade and fully utilize some 30,000 machine tools in the country’s northeast region.

The premier said the government pins high hopes on makers starting their own businesses and creating jobs. He also promised stronger support and less red tape for makers-turned-entrepreneurs. Some of the proposed measures he has floated include simplified business registration procedures, tax reductions or exemptions, and an increased level of government funding for venture capital projects.

While the maker movement looks set to grow rapidly, some makers are taking it slow, cautioning against the challenges ahead.

They say at the top of that list of challenges is strategizing to mitigate risk and deal with failure.

36-year-old maker Guo Lie is the founder of China’s hottest app MYOTee. In Mandarin it’s called Lianmeng, which translates roughly as “cute faces”. Users can custom-make their own cartoon profile pictures by choosing different kinds of faces, hair styles and clothes, and add decorations and speech bubbles containing text. It’s proven so popular, the app has already been downloaded tens of millions of times.

Guo Lie says his success was hard won.

Even if young Chinese makers are well prepared for risk and failure, they face another, possibly even greater, challenge: How do they bridge understanding across the generation gap, and secure support from their parents?

In China, most parents expect their sons and daughters to succeed in the traditional way, attending a top university, landing a risk-free job, and getting wealthy by being promoted inside a safe and stable company. And in tradition-steeped China, young people often have to follow, or at least respect, advice from the older generation. This is part of the reason why many makers hesitate over taking such a radically different path.

The younger generation want their parents to be more open-minded when it comes to being a maker and starting their own business. Some say that a change in mindset is just around the corner.

"A lot of parents in China, it is definitely true they still want their kids to have a stable job, have an apartment, have grandchildren etc. It does not necessarily dovetail well with an entrepreneur lifestyle but I think that stigma is lessening and that it is going to change very quickly in the next couple of years. China as you know, changes very quickly," said Rui Ma, venture partner of 500 Startups.

Family factors aside, makers face another challenge, this one posed by the traditional Chinese education system, which relies heavily on rote learning, with little emphasis on thinking laterally outside the box.

"In China, we are good at doing things from 1 to 100. It is so familiar with us, we can do it very well. But from 0 to 1, that is the most difficult thing in China because of the education system, the way we grow up, the way we learn," said Wang Shenglin, founder of Beijing Maker Space.

The traditional Chinese way of learning pays more attention to memorization, repetition, tests and scores. As a result, some experts believe young Chinese people largely lack the cognitive tools for mental creativity; and that natural tendencies for innovation, experimentation and creativity are suppressed.

Experts say schools and colleges need to set up their own makerspaces and adopt the maker way of learning. Some pioneering schools in cities like Beijing have done just this, launching experimental programmes where students share ideas and tools to make something with their own two hands. This shift to "making" is generating a perfect storm of new technologies, expanded opportunities, learning through firsthand experience, and utilizing the basic human impulse to create. It has the potential to make China’s classrooms more child-focused, relevant, and able to harness the incredible capacity of young minds.

But even if makers in China are well-prepared for the risks and failures, enjoy full support from their family, and have received an education that lends itself to innovation, they still have one thing to worry about. And that is: how to find and embrace the open source model of the West.

“There’s very little tradition in China for real open source, to give away something for free. You know, fully documented, enable other people to make it, without asking anything in return. It’s easy to embrace the spirit of making, it’s easy to embrace the spirit of innovation, it’s easy to embrace the spirit of entrepreneurship, but can China embrace the spirit of openness, of sharing, of building communities that based around participation, not around money?” Chris said.

Besides being the founder of the Shenzhen-based Chaihuo Makerspace, Pan Hao is also an activist promoting open source hardware in China. He established a company in 2008 which focuses on the design and distribution of microchips and circuit boards that can be bought and used by anyone, lowering development costs and R&D barriers for many entrepreneurs that would otherwise have to develop these basic components from scratch. His company has now developed more than 700 kinds of these open source components in just seven years.

Despite the challenges, makers are already having an impact in China. And with attitudes towards openness and sharing changing as government support rises, all signs point towards these innovative Chinese entrepreneurs making it to the next level, and soon.