[printing sound]
I started Adafruit Industries
back in my college dorm room at MIT
and now I've grown the company to 25 people
and we're here in downtown Manhatten.
My name is Limor Fried and I am founder
and lead engineer of Adafruit Industries.
My passion is teaching people electronics
and showing them just how fun engineering can be.
[printing sound]
We design all sorts of electronic kits here
from DIY cell phone chargers to solar power systems
to bright and beautiful LED displays.
All kinds of projects so that
people can learn a bit of electronics
and see how much fun it is to build stuff on their own.
One of the really interesting things about
the way we do business here at Adafruit
is that not only do I design and manufacture electronics
but then I give away the recipe of how it's done.
And I do this because I think it's really important
for people to not only understand how we make stuff
but how they can make stuff themselves at home.
We do almost everything here at Adafruit
from designing the schematic and laying out the circuitboard
to placing these little teeny components
on the circuitboard and assembling them here,
to making kits, to writing the software
and the tutorials.
Everything necessary from beginning to end
to learn about electronics.
Here at Adafruit we have one of the
largest collections of electronics tutorials.
We have hundreds of tutorials online
available for free.
I give away all this information so that
people can learn, share and
build their own businesses from it.
We have 800 products in store
and we ship hundreds of orders a day
all around the globe.
[printing sound]
We recently came up with a badging system
and the idea here is that we want to reward kids
for learning modern technological skills.
So teachers, parents and educators
can give a kid a badge when
they learn something like 3D printing
or building a robot.
We've been getting letters and photos
from around the world, from kids and their parents
showing off the cool projects they built
with Adafruit products and our tutorial system
and then the badge that they earn
once they've completed.
[printing sound]
I also do a weekly live Internet video show
once a week on Saturday nights where hundreds of people
show up and ask me the engineer
any kinds of electronics engineering questions
and I answer them live on the Internet.
[printing sound]
A lot of people find us because of our great tutorials
but what we're really known for is our great prices
our fast shipping and our excellent customer support.
I've found that the more we help people by
teaching them and showing them
how to be creative on their own
the more they rewarded us by being great customers
and also being part of our fun community.
Thanks for watching.
I can't wait to see what you build up next.
Now, time for me to get back to work
here at Adafruit.
[printing sound]
[printer head return sound]