Fab City Awards 2023 focused on building the foundations of locally productive and resilient cities. The edition highlighted initiatives strengthening local manufacturing and production, expanding education and training, supporting project incubation, enabling grassroots innovation, and advancing policies and governance that make local transformation possible.
17 projects from Africa, Asia, Latin America, North America and Europe
This initiative represents Curitiba’s long-term commitment to food and nutrition security, treating food not as a standalone issue but as a full urban system. It is built on the principle that everyone has the right to regular access to healthy, good-quality food, produced and distributed in ways that are socially fair, culturally respectful, and environmentally sound. The program connects public policy with everyday life, making food security a shared responsibility across the city. The work on the ground combines urban agriculture, public urban farms, community gardens, food banks, affordable street markets, and public restaurants, alongside actions focused on biodiversity and waste management. Led by the Municipal Secretariat for Food and Nutrition Security, the initiative brings together city departments, local producers, community organizations, and regional partners to ensure these services reach all residents, with a strong focus on low-income and vulnerable groups. By linking food production, education, governance, and social inclusion, the program turns urban food systems into a driver for social development and aligns closely with the Fab City vision of more resilient, inclusive, and self-sufficient cities.
Mindfacture Valley is a long-term regional strategy that brings together fab labs, universities, research centers, incubators, and investors to strengthen innovation and entrepreneurship in Guanajuato. It creates a shared framework where students, technologists, entrepreneurs, and businesses can connect, collaborate, and move ideas toward real-world applications. The initiative itself is built as a clear progression, starting with open innovation communities where ideas and emerging technologies are discussed, and moving through hands-on entrepreneurship training, mentorship via a regional network, access to incubators and accelerators, and technical development in fab labs and innovation hubs. This pathway is reinforced by direct exposure to investment through Capital Startup Capital, a flagship venture capital event in Mexico. Together, these elements form a practical, inclusive system that helps local projects grow from early concepts into viable ventures while anchoring innovation within the region.
Pinhão Valley is Curitiba’s citywide innovation policy, created to connect government, businesses, universities, and citizens around a shared vision for a smarter and more inclusive city. Established as a formal public policy, it frames innovation as a tool to improve daily life, support sustainable economic growth, and address urban challenges in a practical, people-centered way. The initiative is structured around five core pillars that guide action across the city: education focused on digital skills and entrepreneurship; reurbanization and sustainability with an emphasis on accessibility and inclusion; legislation and tax incentives that lower barriers for innovation; ecosystem governance that actively connects public and private actors; and technology that strengthens connectivity, services, and infrastructure. Through this integrated approach, Pinhão Valley has helped position Curitiba as a reference point for smart city development, while keeping innovation grounded in social, environmental, and territorial impact rather than technology for its own sake.
This project comes from the team driving the Fab City movement in Montreal, based in a former manufacturing neighborhood in Montréal that now serves as a real-world testing ground for distributed production. Rooted in a local Fab Lab, the initiative shows how open-source fabrication can respond to concrete community needs while rebuilding connections between people, skills, and place. The work unfolded in stages, starting with the rapid, community-led production of face shields during the early days of the pandemic, which proved the capacity of local manufacturing to act at scale. It then evolved into “Remix Your Chair,” a creative project that transformed discarded chairs into new designs through the collaboration of artists, designers, and makers, with the goal of reinvesting value back into the neighborhood. That process ultimately led to the open-source design and distributed manufacturing of public benches, produced by local actors using reclaimed materials from industrial symbiosis and installed directly in public space.
Jana Christine Koppe
Helmut-Schmidt-Universitat
Hamburg
Kirstin Wiedow
Global Innovation Gathering
Berlin
Ryota Kamio
Woven City
Fukuoka
Victor Freundt
Fab Lab Lima
Lima
Vincent Guimas
Ars Longa
Paris
Fab City Awards 2025 centered on climate action driven from the ground up. The edition recognized initiatives that respond to the climate crisis through community-led action, circular and sustainable technologies, and the regeneration of ecosystems and biodiversity.
Fab City Awards 2024 shifted the focus from foundations to impact. The edition highlighted implemented projects that translate regenerative principles into practice by restoring ecosystems, applying sustainable technologies, and strengthening social and community dynamics across urban and rural contexts.
Redesigning the relationship between production and place
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