MERE’15 invited Eric J. Wilhelm as our keynote speaker. Best known as the founder of Instructables, Eric has SB, SM, and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from MIT. While there, he developed methods to print electronics and micro-electromechanical systems using nanoparticles. He co-founded Squid Labs (an innovation and design partnership) and a number of Squid Labs spin-off companies, including: Potenco, producing a human-powered generator for cell phones and laptops; Makani, an energy company seeking to harness high-altitude wind; and OptiOpia, developing low-cost portable vision-testing and lens-fabricating devices.
Wilhelm is now a Director of Communities and Hardware at Autodesk, where he continues to grow the Instructables community (now over 150,000 projects and 30 million monthly unique visitors), builds Autodesk’s cutting-edge digital fabrication workshops at Pier 9, and leads the hardware group that created the Ember 3D printer.
Eric believes in making technology accessible through understanding, and strives to inspire others to learn as much as they can and share it with those around them. He has been recognized as one of the top innovators under 35 years old by Technology Review, has won a Wired Rave Award for Industrial Design, and was awarded the National Inventors Hall of Fame Collegiate Inventors Award for the development of a printing technique used to create patterns in films of nanoparticles or polymers with resolutions reaching into the 10’s of nanometers.
Wilhelm has completed an ultra-marathon, flown 75 feet in the air under a kite-powered contraption of his own design, built a climbing wall in his house, and practices partner gymnastics with his two children.