01 / Compute
2 × Intel Xeon Gold 5118
2.30–3.20 GHz · 24 physical cores / 48 threads total
Room to run multiple virtual machines and services side by side. Build, break, and rebuild an infrastructure stack.
Friends unlock what comes next.
BUILD THE LAB.
An owned professional lab.
A real foundation for the work ahead.
Day One / P920 foundation
Gino commits €500. Friends unlock the remaining €3,000.
The distance, together.
Confirmed funds only- Owner commitment
- €500
- Confirmed friends
- €0
- Current total / original goal
- €500 / €3,500
Next unlock: Foundation at €1,500
€1,000 to next unlock
01 / Why this exists
A career built by building.
I’m building a career in AI and infrastructure. An owned professional lab gives me a place to run real systems, make mistakes, and turn what I learn into work I can show.
Not another subscription. A foundation I can keep, understand, and improve. Virtual machines, services, and experiments running on hardware I control, with the work documented as the lab takes shape.
Learn → build → show the work
02 / The foundation
Serious hardware.
A second beginning.
A refurbished workstation becomes a place to build new things. Every specification has a job to do.
Lenovo ThinkStation P920 Tower
Second-hand / refurbished
€1,462 Planned purchase price
02 / Memory
128 GB DDR4 ECC
8 × 16 GB PC4-R
Give those virtual machines room to breathe. ECC memory adds error correction for long-running workloads.
03 / Storage
256 GB M.2 NVMe
Day One boot storage
A fast home for the operating system and first tools. More storage comes with Infrastructure; this is the starting point.
04 / Local AI
LOCKED / €2,750
No add-in GPU on Day One
Future GPU: TBD
The Local AI milestone opens the budget for a future GPU. Selection and performance remain to be established; no GPU is presented as already owned.
05 / Platform
A foundation worth extending.
Refurbished workstation · owned professional lab
Start with compute, memory, and boot storage. Add infrastructure and an appropriate GPU as funding unlocks each next capability.
A starting point.
A direction to grow.
Day One / Foundation
Dual Xeon compute. 128 GB ECC memory. NVMe boot storage. No add-in GPU on Day One.
Full Build / Funding-dependent
Expanded infrastructure, more storage, and a future GPU: TBD. The Local AI budget unlocks at €2,750; hardware choices and results follow the build.
03 / The unlock sequence
Money becomes energy.
Energy becomes capability.
One fixed €3,500 goal. Four concrete steps. Each confirmed contribution closes the distance to the next unlock.
- 01NEXT
€1,500
Foundation
Secure the P920 foundation: compute, memory, and boot storage.
- 02LOCKED
€2,000
Infrastructure
Expand storage and the infrastructure around the machine.
- 03LOCKED
€2,750
Local AI
Open the budget for a future GPU and local AI experiments. GPU TBD.
- 04LOCKED
€3,500
Full Lab
Complete the planned lab setup and document what it can do.
04 / The person behind the plan
Campaign owner / future lab builder
I’m putting something in first.
I’m Gino. I want to turn my interest in AI and infrastructure into a career, through work I can point to. This lab is a concrete next step: a place to practice, test ideas, and build evidence of what I can do.
€500 of my own. €3,000 to build together.
I’m asking friends to help close the distance. Every confirmed contribution moves the same plan forward. I’ll share the build as it happens, including what works and what needs another try.
Gino
05 / Friends who showed up
Not ranked.
Just real.
Every confirmed friend, in the order they showed up. No leaderboard. Some chose to keep their amount to themselves.
No confirmed supporters yet. Be the first to help build it.
06 / From funding to building
The Build Log.
The work your support makes possible, documented as it happens.
THE BUILD LOG UNLOCKS WHEN THE HARDWARE ARRIVES.
Follow the build07 / No small print energy
Personal campaign.
Clear accounting.
This is a personal campaign, not a registered charity. Payments happen externally through Tikkie, Revolut, or PayPal and are manually verified by Gino. Only confirmed friend contributions count toward public funding; pending or rejected submissions do not.
Tikkie is recommended in the Netherlands. The original goal stays fixed. Hardware is planned, not yet presented as purchased; the Build Log unlocks when hardware arrives.