Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Meet the Maker: Gina Lujan, co-founder of HackerLab”.
So we’re at hacker lab in Midtown Sacramento. This is our first hacker makerspace. This is actually the first makerspace in this region and we’re very proud of this space because it was still that community. So it’s a reflection of what we do and who we are. I’M a maker by hobby and also by trade. I actually had a store in which I made things and sold them and then I’ve been coding.
Since I was 26, I taught myself to code and opened one of the first co-working spaces in Berkeley on accident, because my mom showed me a 60 minute article or news thing about co-working and I couldn’t afford a space because it’s Berkeley. So I opened one of the first co-working spaces and I knew nothing about the startup seeing the maker community. I didn’t even know there was such thing as a maker, but during that time I meant mentors and people who guided me and showed me of what was going on there and then some tragedy happened that actually turned into a nice thing.
The house that I was renting went into foreclosure, so I had to move and I got a sticker shock because I was only paying $ 1,800 to live in the Oakland Hills and everything was like $ 3,000. So my choice to move back and I needed to find it another space. We found our first space, which was very small, 750 foot square space, and we had her very first meetup 40 people showed up and we talked about what we wanted it to be and how I learned about community was. I came in with from an idea with from the Bay Area and everybody was doing apps and and software development and in websites and all this stuff, and these guys were like oscilloscopes and soldering irons and drones.
And I’m like, I don’t know what any of these things are, and I said you know what I just in front of them. I said you know what this space isn’t about. What I want this is about what you want.
So let’s talk about what this is. Gon na be, I think that the spirit is really just people helping people. I think it comes from a natural coming in and in appreciating, loving and respecting other people.
That’S really huge here! It’S if we have a very come one come all kind of environment here. It’S very open, extremely non-judgmental and its really embracing and and nurturing people’s talents and their ideas and truly and genuinely being involved in what they’re doing and caring about what they’re doing years ago, there was an incubator in Sacramento called flywheel, and it was an artist incubator And they were funded by the city, it was run by a woman named Michelle, I’ve alexander amazing lady, and so we I’m like. We don’t have any artists and we need that, because now this has turned into a tech hub, which I love, but we need an order for this space to become what it needs to be.
We need that we need those creative artists in here. We need to be able to merge them together, and out of that, will spark some amazing things. So I reached out to them and said we will give you a year free, bring all your people down here. They can use a space for free. We just want their bodies here, so there was like ten of them and one of them stayed and her name was a Mona ba. She runs on Tula in bloom.
It’S a jewelry making company she’s. Absolutely amazing. African-American woman from Nigeria has an incredible story actually because her father wanted her to be in medicine and she was in medicine and she left medicine to become a maker and everybody loved her.
She is truly a creative woman and her presence here, like I don’t choose like a magnet and all the artists started just coming and other women came and prefer you knew it. We had seamstresses and we had other jewelry makers. We had women back there, making woodworking and the guys were just so excited and everybody was helping and it just it just it just became what it was based on. I really I attribute her being here, should to really lysing and changing the environment that was here. I had to be a maker, I’ve had to make and hack my whole life and reason being is because not by unfortunate events. But by the way, my life has kind of taken its path and I’ve had no choice but to be hackers and making and everything that I’ve done and in order for me to live in a way and which was best for myself and my family.
I had to make, and so I I think I think I transformed into a maker based on my life. I don’t know if my Keens transformed me. I think I transformed into a maker based on my life experiences. If I wanted a dresser I’d hope to go. Make it if I wanted to garden, I had to go garden. You know all these different things.
You know I had to be hacker ish and maker ish. I think that the way the maker community has transformed me in a way, as it has made me more community minded it has. It has blessed its grace upon me in which I’m so I feel very grateful and very fortunate to be around such wonderful things and people every day.
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