Noisebridge Vision

Learning by doing!

Do cool stuff!

Noisebridge is a space for sharing, creation, collaboration, research, development, mentoring, and of course, learning. Noisebridge is also more than a physical space, it's a community with roots extending around the world.

The Idea

We provide infrastructure and collaboration opportunities for people interested in programming, hardware hacking, physics, chemistry, mathematics, photography, security, robotics, all kinds of art, and, of course, technology. Through talks, workshops, and projects we encourage knowledge exchange, learning, and mentoring.

As a space for artistic collaboration and experimentation, we are open to all types of art - with a special emphasis on the crossover of art and technology. From hardware labs to electronics, cooking, photography, and sound labs, anything that's creative is welcome.

Many interesting things are happening at all times. Sharing is essential to making this work. We believe in starting from a point of respect and trust. We believe it builds a safe community and that this will foster innovation and creation. Our code of conduct is "Be excellent to each other".

Leadership is taken by individual members for specific projects. We call this "sudo leadership" after the *nix command sudo which allows a regular user to do one root-level, or superuser, task. In other words, if you want Noisebridge to do something, start doing it.

Financing it

We self-finance through membership fees ($80 per member/month with $40 "starving hacker" rate), beverage sales, and parties, the way European hacker spaces do it. We also accept donations. Donations and sponsorships will accompany renovation and equipment purchase. Within the first 24 hours of renting a space, we raised over $10,000 for a cool location and meaningful projects. Within our first month, we've nearly become cash flow positive from membership dues alone. Further discussion is happening on the Finances wiki page.

Inspiration

Noisebridge is inspired by similar European clubs like Metalab of Vienna, CBase of Berlin, MAMA of Zagreb, and ASCII of Amsterdam. Many other clubs of a similar stripe can be found at Hacklabs and Hackerspaces dot Org. It would not be out of the question to consider Noisebridge a possible San Francisco Chaostreff. Noisebridge is a hacker space and community that shares a Dorkbot-like ethic, and indeed, many of the members of Noisebridge are long-time Dorkbotters.