Amanda Williams has some impressive credentials, including a Ph.D. in information and computer sciences from UC Irvine and a B.S. in symbolic systems from Stanford. Those qualifications don’t really describe her capabilities, though.
Amanda is a talented designer and has more recently gained expertise in manufacturing, which is a powerful combination. She co-founded design consultancy Wyld Collective with collaborator Bruno Nadeau. Their focus is on designing interactive systems combining technology, art and culture. More recently, Amanda and Bruno founded Fabule, whose first product is an Arduino compatible expressive lamp with the quirky name of Clyde. Fabule ran a very successful Kickstarter campaign to fund Clyde’s development. The first batch of Clydes has already sold out; the second batch is available for pre-order.
You can read more about Clyde on Fabule’s website, but this isn’t Clyde’s story, it’s Amanda’s. She’s interested in ethnography (the study of customs of peoples and cultures), and likes to incorporate this into her designs. She lived in Bangkok for a year, and has spent time in Shenzhen learning the ropes of manufacturing.
What many makers and aspiring hardware entrepreneurs may find interesting are the lessons she has shared on the Fabule blog. Amanda has blogged about her experiences running Clyde’s Kickstarter, the process of design and iteration, and the nitty gritty of plastic injection molding.
With the founding of Fabule and the experience gained developing and manufacturing Clyde, Amanda is well positioned to continue to bring innovative and personally engaging products to market. I hope we’ll see more from her in the future.
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