Description and context

The Women & Youth Eco-Tech Employment and Innovation Project (WomenY-Lab) is aimed at Women and Youth Empowerment, and Employment and Innovation in rural and marginal-urban communities.

WomenY-Lab is a secular, transdisciplinary, inter-sectoral, integral, holistic project for Community-based Ecological and Equitable Sustainable Development.

WomenY-Lab is focused on the creation of Centres for Eco-Technologies: Training-Service-Innovation (CET) for women and the youth, aimed at developing professional and innovation skills:

  • Training: women and youth from rural and marginal-urban communities, supported by Online-Learning services
  • Services: income-generation activities and job-related technical tasks (manufacturing, installation, maintenance and repair; Business Incubator and Co-working spaces)
  • Innovation: minor/incremental innovations regarding small-medium sized pre-production and production/services, energy efficiency, raw-material efficiency, technology transfer, and ecological impact

Eco-Technologies (Eco-Tech): near-zero ecological impact, energy efficient, resource efficient, open source, low cost, cost effective, local materials, robust, modular, repairable, evolutionary and replicable.

CET Workshops are Training-Service-Innovation spaces: equipment and tools; learning/teaching area; commercial services; draft/design/material research desk; projects, prototypes and products.