The Mashhad Innovation Factory is located in the former Coca Cola factory. The factory’s floor space is 10,000 m² of a of 37,000 m² space that is surrounded by a park that is 27,000 m². The factory had been vacant for a long period of time and the building had become rundown and the park area overgrown before the Mashhad municipality took ownership.

The objectives of the Mashhad Innovation factory are:

• To provide the opportunity of establishing the cooperation and utilizing the individuals’ capabilities/potentials and sharing the existing skills in a form of teamwork.
• To provide a professional environment for the owners of new ideas and businesses to work.
• To create an atmosphere to facilitate the entrepreneurial ecosystem of the Khorasan province.
• To Fulfil all the needs of the domain of the business in a centralized form such as market advisory, coaching, product advisory, assessment/analysis, attracting investors, advertisement, etc.

After the city management made the decision to establish the Innovation factory specific actions were taken concerning some of the old buildings. First, the buildings with the possibility of being preserved and restored were identified. Having evaluated the foundation stability of old buildings the strip foundations were designed on the former foundations. Then, the metal skeleton of the industrial sheds was reinforced, sandblasted, and paint removed. Finally, the metal parts of the industrial shed were coloured with certain thicknesses.

In order to speed up the process, the main and exterior layers were made in the form of pre-constructed walls. These layers were produced outside of the project workshop and then transported to the factory for installation. 

Other construction stages were as follows, cladding the roofs with sandwich panels, operating the curtain wall system, cladding transparent layers with resistant laminated glasses to the sun rays, central air conditioning and heating system, the fire alarm and extinguishing system to provide adequate safety according to state-of-the-art standards. 

Utilizing the materials and state-of-the-art technology in the construction of the Innovation factory of Mashhad is among the most significant actions adopted. 

The lead agency for the project is the Mashhad Municipality and the finance is made available from the credits of Mashhad Municipality civil projects.

• Synergy of members of Mashhad Innovation ecosystem
• Consolidation of resources for growth and development for start-up businesses
• Allocating an professional environment to knowledge-based and innovative companies
• Allocating a shared workplace to freelancers and start-ups
• The municipality enters the sphere of the innovation domain of the city
• Providing an opportunity for the innovation centre of the city to collaborate/ interact with innovators and innovation ecosystem activists
• Providing the opportunity for organic growth of businesses 
• Identifying and developing the local capacity for exporting
• Identifying the capable people and activists in the area of new technologies in the east of Iran to join the Innovation Factory

• The demand for space is greater than the space available
• The members’ varied organizational cultures 
• Diversity of needs among the factory members and responding to them

• Becoming a reference for other cities to establish centres of urban innovation
• Providing the opportunity of collaboration/interaction among the innovation ecosystem members

Mashhad Innovation Factory website: Link

Mashhad Innovation Factory Instagram: Link

Mashhad Innovation Factory Twitter: Link