Of all the companies covered on this blog, GE are possibly the most adventurous with their use of more social approaches to their work.  Whether it’s their innovation partnership with Quirky, their ample use of open innovation challenges or their move into the maker movement with GE Garages and Tech Hub.

Another sign of their willingness to experiment is the co-creation community FirstBuild that celebrated it’s 1st birthday recently.  In that first year of operation, the community has swelled to over 7,500 members from around the world.

FirstBuild one year on

The community are working on the next wave of appliances, with products emerging in areas such as refrigeration, induction cookers and even ice makers.  All in all, there are 24 projects currently in the works.

There has also been a microfactory constructed in Louisville, where things such as microkitchens and the Easy-Load Double Oven have been produced in small, prototype size numbers.  The hope is that products that are born in FirstBuild will scale up via the much larger facilities GE operates.

University partnerships

FirstBuild has also teamed up with the University of Louisville to provide students with the chance to work on 32 projects.  This gives them access to a TechShop style state of the art facility and real life projects to work on alongside the community of local makers and entrepreneurs that are also part of FirstBuild.

The facility located on the university campus saw over 3,000 people working in its lab spaces over the course of the year, so it’s been a great experience for students and makers alike.

“Our partnership with FirstBuild has exceeded our expectations. UofL students are learning in a high-tech, innovative environment in which they are capable of designing and producing concepts and products that will flourish in the 21st Century marketplace,” the university say.

Bringing products to market

FirstBuild have also helped with the marketing of the prototypes created by the community, whether that’s selling the products directly to consumers or helping with crowdfunding further development.

The approach taken with FirstBuild was inspired by the open source manufacturer Local Motors, who have had a profound impact on product development and production.

“Credit also goes to our mentor Local Motors,” GE say. “Using the Local Motors’ model, we created an opportunity and forum to share ideas and iterate product development. We have been able to green light ideas by validating them in the market place and more than halve the time it takes to get products from mind to market—doing so in months rather than years.”

GE hope to build on the success of their first year with FirstBuild by pursuing a range of fascinating projects, including a built-in home pizza oven and a device for allowing coffee to be roasted inside a traditional oven.

It’s clearly a project that is well worth following, both for the products produced but also for the way in which they are done so.