WEBVTT

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[printing sound]

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I started Adafruit Industries

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back in my college dorm room at MIT

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and now I've grown the company to 25 people

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and we're here in downtown Manhatten.

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My name is Limor Fried and I am founder

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and lead engineer of Adafruit Industries.

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My passion is teaching people electronics

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and showing them just how fun engineering can be.

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[printing sound]

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We design all sorts of electronic kits here

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from DIY cell phone chargers to solar power systems

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to bright and beautiful LED displays.

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All kinds of projects so that

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people can learn a bit of electronics

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and see how much fun it is to build stuff on their own.

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One of the really interesting things about

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the way we do business here at Adafruit

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is that not only do I design and manufacture electronics

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but then I give away the recipe of how it's done.

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And I do this because I think it's really important

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for people to not only understand how we make stuff

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but how they can make stuff themselves at home.

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We do almost everything here at Adafruit

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from designing the schematic and laying out the circuitboard

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to placing these little teeny components

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on the circuitboard and assembling them here,

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to making kits, to writing the software

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and the tutorials.

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Everything necessary from beginning to end

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to learn about electronics.

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Here at Adafruit we have one of the

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largest collections of electronics tutorials.

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We have hundreds of tutorials online

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available for free.

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I give away all this information so that

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people can learn, share and

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build their own businesses from it.

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We have 800 products in store

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and we ship hundreds of orders a day

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all around the globe.

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[printing sound]

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We recently came up with a badging system

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and the idea here is that we want to reward kids

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for learning modern technological skills.

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So teachers, parents and educators

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can give a kid a badge when

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they learn something like 3D printing

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or building a robot.

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We've been getting letters and photos

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from around the world, from kids and their parents

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showing off the cool projects they built

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with Adafruit products and our tutorial system

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and then the badge that they earn

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once they've completed.

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[printing sound]

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I also do a weekly live Internet video show

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once a week on Saturday nights where hundreds of people

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show up and ask me the engineer

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any kinds of electronics engineering questions

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and I answer them live on the Internet.

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[printing sound]

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A lot of people find us because of our great tutorials

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but what we're really known for is our great prices

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our fast shipping and our excellent customer support.

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I've found that the more we help people by

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teaching them and showing them

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how to be creative on their own

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the more they rewarded us by being great customers

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and also being part of our fun community.

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Thanks for watching.

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I can't wait to see what you build up next.

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Now, time for me to get back to work

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here at Adafruit.

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[printing sound]

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[printer head return sound]