[hackerspaces] New hackerspace in Bulgaria

[Vladimir Vassilev]

Hello, guys and lads,

I'm from Bulgaria and from several weeks am planning of creating something
that just a week (and so) ago I found out that has it's name, and it's
called Hackerspace. So, ours is called init Lab (focused on programming,
scripting, web-design and 3D design), and was officially born for the public
two weeks ago starting a web site (in Bulgarian language only) and meeting
any enthusiasts, that would help us or at least work in the lab. Anyway, we
got some 30 people who came on the meeting and many others, that said to be
interested in participating. Now comes the difficult part - making something
out of the idea.

As I was on a business trip to Vienna, I had the opportunity to meet the
guys from Metalab, that was something really important for me (yo, thanks
guys!). No I have a pretty clearer idea of what should our lab look like and
what kind of people we should look for.
The reason I'm bothering you all with this e-mail is that we need as many
ideas and suggestions as possible in order to stay focused on the right
tasks in the near future.

What are the issues that bother me right now:
1. How should I prioritize the following tasks - finding a place,
establishing a project repository (with SVN for example), attracting more
people for new projects, founding new projects for attraction of people,
attracting more cash from funs/sponsors, organizing events (tech. seminars,
workshops in universities and so on)?
2. I just registered init Lab in the wiki of Hackerspaces, but... somehow
managed to mistype it's name as Bulgaria... so now the hackerspace is called
Bulgaria :D Sorry being such a dumb ass, but had never editted wikis and it
is a kind weird that I can't find the place to edit the topic (which should
be "init Lab" and not "Bulgaria"). Any help on that will be appreciated!
3. Back on the serious stuff, what kind of internal hierarchy should the Lab
have? I mean, do we have to stick on the formal stuff - chairman, directors
of the board and so on, or it would be better to be dinamic, structured on
paper only. What do you think of meritocracy and is it applyable in our case
(ASF is a fine example).

I will be grateful to any other advice, comment or whatever :)

Thanks for reading the whole thing and hope that after a year or so init Lab
will be a honorable member of Hackerspaces.

Best regards,

Vladimir Vassilev

init Lab
mobile: +359 885 44 84 75
web site: initlab.startup-bg.org
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