Heads On Fire has worked for six years toward bridging the Digital Divide within San Diego, advancing the place of techno-literacy within our community. As a multimedia development and technology-training program, HOF has provided access to skill development for the information economy, and has introduced programs that address empowerment, education, innovation, production and creativity. The result has been a simultaneous focus on individual and community development.

At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT),  engineering students take a very popular class called “How to Make Almost Anything.”  Heads On Fire :: Fab Lab takes the same set of tools, computer controlled machines, software and programmable electronics they use at MIT and makes them available to our community in San Diego.

Recently, a collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has led to the opening of Heads On Fire :: Fab Lab, an advanced digital design and fabrication laboratory where community members can utilize high-tech tools to make almost anything.  The HOF Fab Lab in San Diego is one of thirty in the Global Fab Lab Network, and the only on the West Coast.  Around the globe, people have utilized the tools associated with the Fab Lab to create the things that they desire or need. This has ranged from innovations related to communications technologies to arts and handicrafts.  Most of these have been created by newcomers to such technologies, many by youth. 

HOF :: Fab Lab functions under the concept that many people have the potential for invention, but lack the tools needed to make their invention a reality. The Fab Lab acts as a bridge. It is a place where advanced technology is accessible, and a place where anyone can invent and execute an original design. It is a platform for innovation, community engagement, entrepreneurship and education.

Heads On Fire has been formally honored by the United States Congress, the Connections for Tomorrow Program, and the Mayor of San Diego, and selected by the United Nations as an official delegate for its World Summit on the Information Society. Significant program partners include the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, the San Diego County Department of Education, San Diego City Libraries, San Diego City Schools and MIT.