A conceptual exploration in the intersection of crafts, technology and academia for sustainable job and skills development in the 21th century

Since the beginning of the new millennium, the rise of the maker movement has sparked again interest in crafts in academia and high-tech industry. Some attempts at establishing collaborations have been tried, but have not solved the overarching problem of how our economy and society can find ways to cope with the perspective of technological unemployment. In this position paper, we propose a reflection, that leads to a model for a university laboratory that operates at the intersection of the three sectors of crafts, high-tech industry and academia. We outline a vision where each of these sectors contributes with its main strengths to the creation of a laboratory that lies at the intersection between Making, Innovating, and Learning, that we call the MILE Lab, that can aim to address the challenge at stake.