LabUp!

Benefits

The purpose of LabUp! is to help your nonprofit ODL get off the ground and to continuously support it. Participating in LabUp! is free of cost. The only requirement is that your ODL must provide a free service to the developer community. No-brainer, right?

These are our goals:

• Provide useful information how to get your lab off the ground by direct communication and frequent newsletters
• Provide a directory of ODLs so they are easy to find: http://OpenDeviceLab.com
• Provide a central point of contact to device manufacturers and encourage and facilitate the donation of needed devices to your labs
• Help to create and provide useful Software for ODLs
• Future plan 1: build a simple marketplace for individuals to donate hardware to be used at a first-come first-serve basis by all participating ODLs. (Help wanted! Please contact us if you can support setting that up!)
• Future plan 2: raise a fund for people to donate money, to help ODLs buy devices from manufacturers that are not sponsoring the idea of ODLs. (Help wanted! Please contact us if you can support raising that fund!)
• Help in communicating your lab to the world - DONE: List of Open Device Labs around the world
• Your improvement missing here? Wanna sponsor? Please contact us.

Resources

There are a number of great resources on the web that should help you get started. We are sharing our findings here - if you find something to be missing, please let us know so we can add it to the list!

• The Nuremberg Open Device Lab wrote a TYPO3 Extension for managing the devices of an ODL (April 16, 2013)
• Andre Jay Meissner describes how to establish a Conference ODL in his blog post "How we built the Open Device Lab at Beyond Tellerrand" (April 5, 2013)
• Michael Scharnagl wrote a german language article on "Open Device Labs: Testlabore für das mobile Web" in t3n Magazine Nr. 31 (February 2, 2013)
• Viljami Salminen wrote an article on "Establishing an Open Device Lab" for Smashing Magazine (September 24, 2012)
• Jason Grigsby runs a Google Group for Device Lab organizers to share ideas (September 14, 2012)
• Andre Jay Meissner described how to "Tame The Mobile Web Beast" in Appliness Magazine 09/2012 (September 5, 2012)
• List of Open Device Labs around the world maintained by Andre Jay Meissner (August 20, 2012)
• Clearleft's laboratory conditions post by Jeremy Keith (August 10, 2012)
• "How to build a device lab" by Dave Olsen (June 26, 2012)
• How to "Test on real devices without breaking the bank" by Brad Frost (April 1, 2012)
• David Blooman elaborates on mobile testing at the BBC (March 28, 2012)
• Stephanie Rieger gives tips on narrowing down the device farm in this article (February 7, 2012)

Forgot something? Please let us know.

You want to help us help others help you?

Open Device Labs help developers around the globe to optimize content for consumption on YOUR devices, effectively optimizing the experience for YOUR customers! With thousands of mobile devices out on the markets it is impossible for developers to purchase all of the devices they need. Open Device Labs are going to play an important role in the future.

You want to help us help others help you? Great. It´s not only about seeding free devices - it´s also about easing your work in having a central point of contact instead of dealing with a growing number of device labs around the world.

We´re also looking for sponsors of WiFi-Equipment, Device-Stands, Accessories (e.g. replacement batteries) and Telcos (e.g. SIMs with data plan).

Please contact us at: sponsor (at) lab-up (dot) org

Follow us on Twitter: LabUpOrg
Follow us on App.Net: LabUpOrg

"If device manufacturers want people to develop applications and websites that work on their devices, then it's in their best interests to get those devices in developers hands. The best and easiest way to get the devices in their hands is through a community lab."
Shaun Dunne, London Device Lab

About

We founded LabUp! because we want to help improve the web.

Anybody is welcome to contribute and help us help others.
Contact us at: hello (at) lab-up (dot) org
Follow us on Twitter: LabUpOrg
Follow us on App.Net: LabUpOrg

LabUp! is currently maintained by Andre Jay Meissner and Bruce Bowman.

We want to thank these people for their help and contribution:
Anselm Hannemann, Christian "Schepp" Schaefer, Timm Jansen and Viljami Salminen

Application Form

We know it's a long beast.

But it should easily pay off for the time you invest in filling and submitting. And it helps us reduce the efforts on our end to a minimum, as well. ;oD=

We would like to suggest that you do the following before submitting this form:

• establish a web presence for your ODL
• establish social media presence (e.g. Twitter, app.net) for your ODL
• donate the first devices to your ODL

Form created using Adobe® Formscentral®

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