Shanghai Government Proposes 100 Community Hackerspaces
taweili writes "According to a tweet from Shanghai Morning Newspaper's Weibo account, the Shanghai Government Technology committee has issued a call for a proposal to build 100 community hackerspaces with government funding for equipment and a community managing the spaces. Hackerspaces have been growing rapidly in China since the first one, XinCheJian, was started in Shanghai last November as reported here by CNN Go. Currently there are three hackerspaces in China, with XinCheJian in Shanghai, Maxpace in Beijing and Chaihuo in Shenzhen. It looks like the governments are paying attention to the trend and are getting into supporting (or 'regulating') the movement."
China, land of innovation and engineering.
USA, land of draconian restrictions and propaganda.
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My experience with hackerspaces and government officials is that they really don't think the same way. One is all about breaking the rules and the other is all about living within them. I suppose it's possible for government to fund them and let them loose but it is certainly out of character. Big money tends to draw corruption too and that's death to a knowledge sharing environment.