This month, we are exploring the theme of Education in Design and Technology, and the ways in which educators and students are changing the world through innovation. To kick off this theme, we are joined by the brilliant designer, builder, author and educator Emily Pilloton-Lam.
Emily is the Founder and Executive Director of the nonprofit Girls Garage. She has taught thousands of young girls how to use power tools, weld, and build projects for their communities. She has presented her work and ideas on the TED stage, The Colbert Report, and in the documentary film If You Build It. She was also a 2020 Hackaday Prize Judge. She is currently a lecturer in the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley, and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Girls Garage is a nonpro fit design and construction school for girls and gender-expansive youth ages 9-18 that provides free and low-cost programs in carpentry, welding, architecture, engineering, and activist art to a diverse community of 300 students per year. Integrating technical skills, unconditional support, and community leadership, their programs equip youth with the personal power and literal power tools to build the world they want to see. In their 3,600-square-foot workshop in Berkeley and under the guidance of their highly skilled all-female and nonbinary instructors, they invite students to bring their creative voice and put technical skills to work on real-world building projects that live in their community. To date, participants have built 184 projects ranging from furniture for a domestic abuse shelter to a greenhouse for a community garden and fruit stand for an organization serving refugee families. All teen participants attend the program at no cost to their families. In short, Girls Garage is making a tangible difference through the power of accessible education.
You can follow @Supplyframe and @Hackaday on Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter, and @SupplyframeDesignLab on Instagram and Twitter.
The BOM is a Supplyframe podcast hosted by Majenta Strongheart, written, produced, and edited by Frank Driscoll and co-edited by Daniel Ferera. Executive producers are Ryan Tillotson and Tyler Nielsen. Theme music is by Ana Hogben, with show art by Thomas Schneider. Special thanks to Giovanni Salinas, Bruce Dominguez, Thomas Woodward, Jin Kumar, Jordon Clark, Matt Gunn, the entire Supplyframe Team, and you, our wonderful listeners.
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