Introducing the Amazing Maker Awards

Maker Faire Maker News
Amazing Maker Awards 2022

By Dale Dougherty

Dale Dougherty

DALE DOUGHERTY is the leading advocate of the Maker Movement. He founded Make: Magazine 2005, which first used the term “makers” to describe people who enjoyed “hands-on” work and play. He started Maker Faire in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2006, and this event has spread to nearly 200 locations in 40 countries, with over 1.5M attendees annually. He is President of Make:Community, which produces Make: and Maker Faire.

In 2011 Dougherty was honored at the White House as a “Champion of Change” through an initiative that honors Americans who are “doing extraordinary things in their communities to out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world.” At the 2014 White House Maker Faire he was introduced by President Obama as an American innovator making significant contributions to the fields of education and business. He believes that the Maker Movement has the potential to transform the educational experience of students and introduce them to the practice of innovation through play and tinkering.

Dougherty is the author of “Free to Make: How the Maker Movement Is Changing our Jobs, Schools and Minds” with Adriane Conrad. He is co-author of "Maker City: A Practical Guide for Reinventing American Cities" with Peter Hirshberg and Marcia Kadanoff.

View more articles by Dale Dougherty

To recognize the creative, technical, and social contributions of makers and the impact of their projects all over the world.

The Makeys

Introducing the Makeys

Today, as champions of makers and the maker movement, we at Make: are excited to announce the 2022 opening of Amazing Maker Awards — aka The Makeys.

This new awards program is open to any individual maker or group of makers to submit a project for consideration. Accepted projects will be reviewed both by the community and an invited panel of judges. The finalists will be selected to be part of an online exhibition of amazing projects scheduled for this summer.

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The Maker Community exists because makers work on projects and share them, which also spreads maker “know-how.” The pandemic has made it harder for makers to get together and share their work at places like Maker Faire. That’s one reason we created the Amazing Maker Awards. Another reason is we want to elevate the positive contributions of makers to society and recognize the ways that makers create value. These amazing projects can inspire others to become makers.

Now is the time to register to participate in the Awards but you have until June 1, 2022 to submit your project. You can be part of an online community to learn from while you work on your project.

What is a Project?

A project is a physical and/or digital prototype based on developing an idea of your own. We are looking for new projects, ones that have been started by January 2020.

How Will You Decide Which Projects are “Amazing”?

It won’t be an easy decision but we will enlist a lot of makers as a “jury” to review the projects and make the decision. We are looking for the kinds of amazing projects that we have seen for many years at Maker Faire — and we’ve seen a lot of great projects. Some have solved important problems, others made us laugh or wonder. Some have been shared widely and replicated by others, or even gone on to become commercial products. 

Projects will be judged on the basis of originality, ingenuity, quality of work as well as potential impact of the project.

Who Can Enter?

The awards are open to all makers of different abilities, backgrounds and ages (and we aren’t particularly concerned whether you want to call yourself a maker or not!). Student projects will be considered independently of adult makers.

Individual makers or groups of makers can enter a single project. Makerspaces and schools can enter multiple projects.

More Details to Come

We’ll be providing more details on the Amazing Maker Awards but sign up now to be sure to stay informed.

If you have a project, then prepare to submit a demo of it. If you don’t have a project, there’s time for you to get started.

Go to Amazing Maker Awards.

Thank you to our sponsors for supporting the Amazing Maker Awards: NVIDIA, 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS for Makers, and Restorer.

Be An Amazing Maker in 2022

What will the next generation of Make: look like? We’re inviting you to shape the future by investing in Make:. By becoming an investor, you help decide what’s next. The future of Make: is in your hands. Learn More.

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By Dale Dougherty

Dale Dougherty

DALE DOUGHERTY is the leading advocate of the Maker Movement. He founded Make: Magazine 2005, which first used the term “makers” to describe people who enjoyed “hands-on” work and play. He started Maker Faire in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2006, and this event has spread to nearly 200 locations in 40 countries, with over 1.5M attendees annually. He is President of Make:Community, which produces Make: and Maker Faire.

In 2011 Dougherty was honored at the White House as a “Champion of Change” through an initiative that honors Americans who are “doing extraordinary things in their communities to out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world.” At the 2014 White House Maker Faire he was introduced by President Obama as an American innovator making significant contributions to the fields of education and business. He believes that the Maker Movement has the potential to transform the educational experience of students and introduce them to the practice of innovation through play and tinkering.

Dougherty is the author of “Free to Make: How the Maker Movement Is Changing our Jobs, Schools and Minds” with Adriane Conrad. He is co-author of "Maker City: A Practical Guide for Reinventing American Cities" with Peter Hirshberg and Marcia Kadanoff.

View more articles by Dale Dougherty
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