Job Summary
The Hackspace Skills Development Manager is a key new role focusing on delivering world-class prototyping and hacking support services to student ventures, academic startups, and external SMEs. Based in the Advanced Hackspace at Imperial’s White City campus, this lively and varied post requires an enthusiastic self-starter who can multi-task, work to deadlines and take the initiative. You will have a significant interest in, prototyping, hacking and making in the context of entrepreneurship, and have a keen interest in supporting the growth of startups and SMEs.
You will work with the rest of the Hackspace Fellows and incubation team to create and run key projects and programmes, continuing to build a safe working environment that supports advanced prototyping in mechanical, electrical and bio-hacking workshops and lab spaces. You will connect innovators and inventors with the tools and expertise they need to realise their creative ideas.
The physical incubation and prototyping spaces, including the Advanced Hackspace, are a unique venture, outstanding in terms of scale and ambition within a university environment. The spaces house a bio-wet lab, woodwork/ metalwork/ electronics workshops, a digital manufacturing studio and a design studio. These cutting-edge facilities link to hot-desking/hot-house space: complementing the manufacturing spaces.
Duties and responsibilities
- Maintain a safe and risk-free environment including infrastructure maintenance (ad hoc and planned preventative maintenance), defect reporting and minor improvements, service contracts and visits, defects and minor lab works/upgrades, ensuring that the teams produce the necessary risk assessments, requests for changes. Carry out inductions on equipment for all new members
- Nurture and support members of Hackspace and the Incubator in prototyping and project development, providing technical guidance and assistance including working with academic, student and external startups and SMEs, and the Imperial entrepreneurial community.
- Develop and run new prototype skills building activities/programmes (online or in-person events designed to engage and upskill - workshops, training and hackathons).
- Support the delivery of showcase events and demo days
Essential requirements
- PhD in engineering or equivalent knowledge and skills
- NEBOSH or similar Safety Certificate or above
- Proven track record in fabrication, casting and prototyping in a range of materials (such as metal, wood and plastics, composite materials)
- Proven ability to communicate effectively and professionally at a variety of levels, with entrepreneurs, new academic and student ventures and spin-outs, external SMEs and the Advanced Hackspace and Incubation teams.
- Experience of contributing innovative ideas in order to solve technical problems
- Ability to organise own work with minimal supervision and prioritise work in response to deadlines
- Ability to use judgement to find solutions to challenges for which no standard procedures exist