(photo by Cesare Griffa)

Last friday in Torino, Italy a new kind of company opened its doors.

Officine Arduino Torino is a combination of Makerspace, Fablab and an Arduino “office” dedicated to further the development of the platform and open source hardware.

Officine Arduino is born out of the experience of creating the first FabLab in Italy during an exhibition that lasted throughout 2011. We experienced the positive energy that came out of the encounter between the local community of makers, students, designers and our team based in Torino.
After the exhibition shut down we though that Arduino could act as an “incubator” to empower the people we work with to setup a company that would share our resources and equipment with the local community. Luckily we found the amazing people at Toolbox co-working  (http://www.toolboxoffice.it/) who provided us with free space within an old FIAT factory.

Officina means “workshop” and in Italian it has the vintage sound of the name given to those small companies that made amazing products with limited resources and a lot of ingenuity.

We wanted to see what comes out when you connect open source hardware and software, digital fabrication, maker culture, hands-on learning, open design, alternative business models, co-working and a great community.

Torino is the “template” for more Officine Arduino we would like to open around the world so that more people can hang out with us and build amazing stuff.

If you have the chance go to Torino and have fun at the officine.

PS: We’re looking for some people to help us in Torino.
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(please note that the Php developer and Intern position are based in Torino Italy and are open to people who have the legal requirements to work in the EU/EEA)