The Economist recognises pioneers of 3D printing and online education
Celebrating the world’s leading entrepreneurs, thinkers, creators, scientists and innovators at The Economist Innovation Awards 2013
Wednesday, November 20th, 2013 - Chuck Hull and Bre Pettis were today named this year’s winners in the Consumer Products category of The Economist’s Innovation Awards 2013 for their work pioneering and popularising 3D printing. Salman Khan, the founder of Khan Academy, a free online-education platform, was named the winner in the Process and Service Innovation category.
Now in its 12th year, the Innovation Awards recognise significant contributions in eight fields: Bioscience, Computing and Telecommunications, Consumer Products, Energy and Environment, Process and Services, Social and Economic, No Boundaries and Corporate.
The Consumer Products award celebrates the contributions of Chuck Hull, co-founder, executive vice-president and chief technology officer of 3D Systems, and Bre Pettis, co-founder and chief executive officer of MakerBot, to 3D printing, a set of novel manufacturing processes that allow solid objects to be built up one layer at a time. Mr Hull, who created the stereolithography process in the 1980s, is considered the father of 3D printing. Mr Pettis, the co-founder of MakerBot, has been at the forefront of bringing the technology to an affordable and accessible level on the desktop.
“3D printing is a hugely exciting technology that is starting to transform the way things are designed, manufactured and sold,” said Tom Standage, digital editor at The Economist and chairman of the panel of 30 judges. “We are delighted to recognise the role these two pioneers have played in this fast-moving field, and making it increasingly accessible to a wide range of users.”
The Process & Service award recognises Mr Khan’s transformative influence in online education. In 2004 he began tutoring his cousin in mathematics over the phone using an interactive notepad. By 2006 he was tutoring 15 family friends and cousins, and decided it would be more efficient to post videos on YouTube. These attracted a huge audience and won widespread acclaim. Mr Khan won backing from Google and from Bill Gates of Microsoft, and established his non-profit organisation in 2008. It now serves more than ten million students per month.
“Using simple online tools, Mr Khan made his relaxed teaching style available to millions of people, and he has now built a broader platform that is reaching millions more,” said Tom Standage, “we are thrilled to recognise his achievements.”
Consumer Products Award Winners - Chuck Hull and Bre Pettis, Pioneering and popularising 3D printing
Chuck Hull was issued a US patent for stereolithography, a method for making solid objects by printing thin layers of material one on top of another, in 1986. He founded 3D Systems the same year, which today is the only 3D printing company to offer a seamless 3D content-to-print platform. It services professionals and consumers alike with eight different types of 3D printing technologies that are capable of printing in more than 100 different materials ranging from industrial-grade metals to edibles like sugar. In 2009 Bre Pettis established MakerBot, a company designed to open up the technology of 3D printing to the consumer market with the first commercially available desktop 3D printer.
3D printers are used for rapid prototyping of new designs. They save manufacturers and designers huge amounts of time and money by quickly producing models instead of having to wait weeks for prototypes traditionally fabricated from clay, wood or metal. Today the technology has advanced into direct-use manufacturing for industries like aerospace, automotive and consumer products as well as revolutionising healthcare with patient-specific, customised solutions for implants, braces and prosthetics.
Then hobbyists got interested. An open-source group at the University of Bath in the UK created designs for a desktop 3D printer called the RepRap (Replicating Rapid Protyper) that could be built as a kit by enthusiasts. MakerBot went one step further, turning 3D printers into easy-to-use devices that could be bought off the shelf. MakerBot’s first 3D printer, introduced in 2009 was the CupCake CNC, which it sold as a kit for hobbyists to assemble. Today MakerBot sells its fourth generation 3D printers, the MakerBot Replicator 2 Desktop 3D Printer and the MakerBot Replicator 2X Experimental 3D Printer, which are fully assembled, along with the newly released MakerBot Digitizer Desktop 3D Scanner and has garnered 30% share of the 3D printer market.
To encourage wider use, MakerBot operates a website called Thingverse, the world’s largest 3D design community to print and share 3D designs for items ranging from replacement parts to jewelry to manufacturing models. Visitors to the site can download the 100,000+ digital design files for free. The US Army uses a 3D printer in Afghanistan to create tools and gear for soldiers in the field.
In August 2013, MakerBot merged with 3D printing company Stratasys in a $403m deal. Terry Wohlers, a US consultant, estimates that the global market for additive manufacturing products and services was valued at US$2.2 billion in 2012 and will reach US$6.5 billion by 2019.
Process & Service Innovation Award Winner – Salman Khan, Developing an online world-class education
In 2004, Salman Khan’s young cousin Nadia was having trouble in her maths class in New Orleans. Working in Boston at a hedge fund, Khan offered to tutor her. He began writing software to give Nadia and his other cousins and friends practice and feedback in mathematics. To complement this software, he also began posting videos of his hand- scribbled tutorials on YouTube. Demand took off, and in 2009, when the practice problems and instructional videos were reaching tens of thousands of students per month; he quit his day job to commit himself fully to the not-for-profit Khan Academy.
Today, the Khan Academy provides a self-pacing guided learning experience with over 100,000 practice exercises and 5,000 instructional videos (with translations in over 28 languages) covering everything from basic arithmetic to college-level science and economics. It is the most-used library of educational lessons on the web, with over ten million unique students per month, over 300 million lessons delivered, and over a billion exercises completed. Over 100,000 teachers around the world are also using Khan Academy to help build student mastery of topics and to free up class time for dynamic project based learning.
Khan has a BS in mathematics, a BS in electrical engineering/computer science and an MS in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology plus an MBA from Harvard Business School. Despite a small group of educators questioning his methods, most teachers rave about his work and the lessons have been used by over 100,000 teachers.
Bill Gates, the co-founder and chairman of Microsoft, was so enamored of the videos that he and his-then 11-year-old son started using them together. That led to a donation from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, plus many other grants which enabled Khan to support his educational efforts.
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