Xavier Leonard

Fab Lab San Diego Founder

Xavier Leonard works to foster multimedia development and technology-training programs to bridge the gap between the physical world and technology.

He co founded FAB LAB San Diego in 2007 – a collaboration between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his own non-profit organization, Heads On Fire. FAB LAB is an advanced digital design and fabrication laboratory where community members can utilize high-tech tools to actualize ideas through design and fabrication.

In 2010, he created Designers for Humanity, a model for delivering open-source distributed invention aimed at fostering innovation and providing engineering solutions for community-specific problems.
Leonard has spoken on the deployment of technology to empower and develop communities at the United Nations’ World Summit; the Air Jaldi Summit on Wireless Technologies, the International Summit for Community Wireless Networks; the Nonprofit Technology Network Conference; and the Community Technology Center Network Conference. He has been honored as a Z-Fellow of the Zero Divide Foundation, an Ideas Institute Fellow of the MIT Media Lab, and a TEC Champion by the United States Congress.