The foundation of the hackerspace Frack

A hackerspace is a place where people, with the same interests (mostly technical, science, digital- and electronical-arts) come together to work on projects, learn and discuss a wide range of subjects. The main goal is always to share knowledge and have fun.

Hackerspaces are a world wide phenomenon. The first space in the Netherlands was founded after HAR2009 held place, and a lot of people found themselves a community where they could meet like-minded people

A lot of these spaces are established around the larger cities of the Netherlands like Utrecht, Den Haag and Amsterdam (also know as "the Randstad"). Originally I lived in the north of Holland, my school is settled in Leeuwarden, but during my internship at Bits of Freedom I moved to Amsterdam. At this moment there was no hackerspace in the whole north of Holland and when in Amsterdam I really liked to visit these spaces and meet people in real life, I already spoke with online.

At the end of my internship I decided to move back to the north, but also to try and set up my own hackerspace there. I posted some questions on the internet to ask if more people were interested, and I received a lot of positive reactions. From there I found two friends who were interested in forming the board of our hackerspace, together we set up a foundation and found a place to make our space. In June 2011 the hackerspace Frack was born.

Since the foundation of the hackerspace we received a lot of attention. We've made a couple of projects (one of the first was the Twitterboom ) who were displayed in the library of Leeuwarden and at Festivals. We also work together with the NHL university of applied sciences, the library of Leeuwarden, the municipality of Leeuwarden and the province Friesland.