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Wade Shepard


Grassroots hardware innovators from around the world have been drawn to Shenzhen for one reason: its capacity to produce. Prototypes and products are easier and cheaper to develop and roll out here than anywhere else on the planet, and a vibrant international community of hardware innovators have formed around the city’s electronics markets, startup incubators, and factories.
“It's become [the go-to place] for people who make hardware projects that they want to make into products,” says Mitch Altman, the founder of NoiseBridge, one of the first makerspaces, or innovation houses, in the United States.
“In the old days, if you wanted to be innovative [or] have the latest technology, you would go to Silicon Valley for electronics ... But today it’s Shenzhen. Because of all of this open innovation, it's becoming the new place for everybody to gather,” says David Li, the co-founder of China’s first makerspace, XinCheJian.
Shenzhen became a global epicentre of hi-tech design and production by combining all aspects of the supply chain, design, and manufacturing processes in one place. It is the world's largest manufacturer of electronics, being the home of huge contract manufacturers such as Foxconn; big companies such as Tencent, BYD, Huawei, and ZTE; as well as a vibrant grassroots manufacturing ecosystem that is full of tens of thousands of smaller factories, design houses, and product integrators.
In 2014, The Economist declared southern China as the best place in the world for a hardware innovator to be, and successful companies such as Coolpad, Dingoo, and G'Five International all got their starts there. Silvia Lindtner is a professor at the University of Michigan who has researched the maker movement on the mainland. She says Shenzhen is so unique and effectual because it has various models of design and production sitting side by side and feeding from each other.
“Shenzhen didn’t create a uniform. 'This is what making means here'. Instead, the city embraced the many different forms of production that had evolved there and function parallel to each other," Lindtner says. "So Shenzhen is a city characterised not only by large scale, big brand forms of mass-manufacturing, but also small, independent factories.” These small manufactures are a boon for makers.
The makers are a global community of hardware designers dedicated to an open source and do-it-yourself ethos that has made Shenzhen one of their epicentres. Many makers have been lured into the city by the colossal electronics malls, incubators, and workshops where they can access almost everything they need to design, build, and get support for their projects in one place. Components that would take days or even weeks to source in the US can be had in Shenzhen within a day — often by simply walking down the street to the nearest electronics market.
“Every step along the way, from an idea to just getting a proof of concept to getting a prototype; to getting manufacturing put together; to getting manufactured is in Shenzhen,” Altman says. “People from all over the world go there to get their projects into reality and start a small business around it. So there's just a great community for getting things done.”
Shenzhen also has a manufacturing system that is not opposed to working with startups looking to do smaller production runs of a few thousand units rather than demanding orders in the hundreds of thousands or millions.
“It is easy to approach a manufacturer in Shenzhen,” Lindtner explains. “Even if you're a small startup, many of them will take an interest because it's like, 'That could be a business opportunity'.”
Prynt Cases is one such start-up that took advantage of Shenzhen’s kinetic design and production environment. The French company did four months in Shenzhen with an incubator called Haxlr8r, developing its Polaroid-esque device that allows users to print out digital photos instantly with a case that attaches to their smartphone.
“Shenzhen is a great city for hardware start-ups: you find all the tools, suppliers and contractors that are required to go through product development,” explains its chief executive, Clement Perrot. “Being in that environment allows you to iterate quickly [with next-day delivery, for example] and at a very low cost [and no intermediary].”
The Kickstarter campaign for the company's Shenzhen-developed product initially aimed to raise US$50,000 but has so far topped US$1.1 million.
Other successful Shenzhen startups include PetCube, Palette, Fabule, Helios, WearVigo, and Notch.
Shenzhen’s start-to-finish supply of everything that is needed to manufacture electronics means that it takes much less time and money to acquire materials, create prototypes, and get products onto the market than anywhere else in the world. This has ... turned Shenzhen into the “Maker’s Dream City.”


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Forget Silicon Valley: Innovators drawn to ‘dream city’ Shenzhen to make things happen

Can-do and innovative infrastructure spirit draw world's manufacturers to 'Dream City'


Grassroots hardware innovators from around the world have been drawn to Shenzhen for one reason: its capacity to produce. Prototypes and products are easier and cheaper to develop and roll out here than anywhere else on the planet, and a vibrant international community of hardware innovators have formed around the city’s electronics markets, startup incubators, and factories.


Forget Silicon Valley: Innovators drawn to ‘dream city’ Shenzhen to make things happen

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Can-do and innovative infrastructure spirit draw world's manufacturers to 'Dream City'

Can-do and innovative infrastructure spirit draw world's manufacturers to 'Dream City'