I would like to ask if any Community Mayor has any problems trying to introduce 3D Printing to a sector with low income like rural areas. I want to make an event here where I live in the Caribbean but people see 3D Printing expensive and not reachable. Any advice?
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Hi Alex,
I would have to say, our community is very much land locked and rural. There is not any problem getting peoples attention in the area, through events at libraries, art exhibits… any where there is a lot of foot traffic. The issue I run into is getting people past the simplicity of idea to part. That can be from rapid prototyping to limited manufacturing. As we move forward our efforts are going to be on showcasing some local success stories to help communicate the idea.
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Trede
4
Hi @Alex_O__Martine
When I organized the first version of 3D Island in Puerto Rico, summer 2014, I wasn’t aiming to an specific public. Just did my best to get the news out there and luckily it got published in the newspaper. Just plan it out, set the date and promote the hell out of it. 
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Hi Alex,
Just saw your post, even though it’s 8 months old. We’ve done 3D printing workshops in low-income areas throughout East-Africa. What we find is that generally workshop where we bring our own printers and we can instantly get people going with simple products they might use work really well. Especially if they are products that they generally don’t have acces to. That varies a lot depending on where you work.
As a next step of developing 3D printing locally we have worked with partners that create 3D printers for the local market out of e-waste. It’s a pretty cool thing when all of sudden a low-cost ($300) machine can be build from local parts. I’m not sure if that would work in a rural area (we’ve mainly worked in ow-income urban areas) but if you want to know more let me know!
Best,
Jasper
I forgot about this post! Thank you for the comment.
How did it work out in the end?
There is not much involvment! We are still a small makerspace. But we are trying! I will keep you guys Posted.
Please do! If you’re ever into setting up local recycling/filament production let us know 
