Oh wow, it's already near the end of April. At iLab, we are pleased with the start of the year and of course pleased that the nervousness around April 12th and the demonstrations eased out after all. Before looking into the future and some of the exciting things happening later this year, let's see what the first three months were like, in terms of iLab users and numbers.
Trainings and events
ICT-related trainings and events are the "bread and butter" of iLab. In first three months, there were
•8 courses
•12 other events
•25 co-working days (open office hours)
•all in all 690 registered physical visits to iLab (with pretests and "hello"-visits, we're at some 1000 visits)
Courses that we new or had a different angle to it were
•ICT training for future entrepreneurs - the SPARK/BSC business plan competition finalists
•Mastering the Internet for high school teachers
•Social media for women
•Introduction to SQL databases
•ICT careers workshop for high school students
We had a total of 4 guest lectures which were great and very popular - the house was packed or nearly full for all of them. We even had one ministerial roundtable on the ACE cable held in our premises, where we had 26 government ministers, deputy ministers and high ranking officials workshopping about the ACE cable.
Open hours
We have open hours Tue, Wed, Thu 12-3PM. We also started, based on user demand, and open-hour session on Saturdays 10AM-2PM. During this time, iLab computers can be used by anyone for free, for approved projects (work, research, education, etc.)
We had 139 co-working visits in 25 days, and in addition 8 paid visits (outside office hours). On a downside, so far most Saturdays have NOT been very popular, so let's see - if there is not rise in attendance, we may have to rethink the Saturday. Right now the trend is that nearly every office hour except Saturday is nearly full.
Reason to be happy?
In the light of the numbers, absolutely! In the light of other developments and the spirit at iLab - you bet! We are really excited about some of our latest developments. Info on the exciting events in May and June due out soon. Stay tuned!