MISSION
Our mission is to provide tangible resources that speed integration of technology, innovation, making and entrepreneurship within universities and the technology innovation ecosystems that surround them. We work with our members to define, and practice, better ways to Make Impact.
VISION
Our vision is to build a global consortium that defines the needs, and creates the resources, to build university-wide, and regional environments that attract, educate, support, employ and deploy the next generation of innovative and entrepreneurial makers. We are creating a new paradigm for the smart deployment and use of resources in technology innovation ecosystems.
VALUES
We believe these values are central to developing university ecosystems, and regional ecosystems, wherein students convert passion and classroom learning into world-changing ideas:
• the marriage of making and entrepreneurship skills has a key role in skill development and the perspective needed to solve real problems and seed entrepreneurial activities
• technology innovation ecosystems thrive when they have “making literate” entrepreneurs and “entrepreneurial literate” makers
Watch two stories below
• universities have an indispensable role in creating and feeding city/state/regional technology innovation ecosystems
• university networks can speed impact by sharing maker/entrepreneurship best practices and programming
• ongoing assessment and improvement of makerspaces leads to more impactful making and entrepreneurship programs
OUR COMMUNITY
At its heart, technological innovation is about people and opportunity — people learning together, creating together, and collaborating together to provide solutions where opportunities exist — in short, a community that supports its members to dream, invent, innovate and make impact. A community that forces the fusion of technology, innovation, making, and entrepreneurship. The Make Impact Consortium is an extended community of like-minded individuals and institutions, dedicated to facilitating connections so that the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts.We would not be where we are today without our network of friends and collaborators:
Our Team
Professor Marty Culpepper – MIT Maker Czar, Director of MIT Project Manus
Marty Culpepper, a Professor of Mechanical Engineering, is MIT’s first Maker Czar. He is passionate about all aspects of making and breaking as demonstrated in his 2.72 class where the student teams spend the semester building desktop lathes. Professor Culpepper is the recipient of an NSF Presidential Early Career Award, two R&D 100 awards, a TR100 award and a Joel and Ruth Spira Teaching Award. He is not one to be afraid of getting his hands dirty. His favorite maker tools are mills and waterjets, though he’s become fond of glass blowing.
Saana McDaniel – Senior Program Manager
Saana serves the Make Impact Consortium as its Senior Program Manager. She is a jack-of-all-trades who is a self-confessed workaholic. She is busy keeping everything running smoothly but manages to find time to be a manuscript editor for a scientific journal and to teach Finnish at Harvard. Although her Husqvarna sewing machine is by far her favorite tool, she cannot wait to master the waterjet.
Conor McArdle – Webmaster
Conor is the webmaster of the Make Impact Consortium. He wears many hats, and is our in-house filmmaker, photographer, web developer and more.