MAKO Student Innovation Award Raises $100K

At MAKO, we are passionate about driving change within our industry.  Innovation is integral to what we do, and while we spend much of our time concentrating on helping our clients develop cutting-edge material, it is also important to us to nurture the talent of young people interested in doing what we do—and doing it well. We want to ensure that these students and entrepreneurs have the tools and guidance they need to progress successfully and contribute to the innovation cycle.  And we recently took a significant step towards this goal by signing a ten-year agreement with Ryerson University for a student innovation award that will provide young entrepreneurs the support they need to make their ideas become a reality.

MAKO Design + Invent was one of the earliest supporters of product innovation within Ryerson’s Zone Learning—an incubator program that creates an arena for young entrepreneurs from across a variety of fields to dream, explore and design.  For the last two years, the MAKO@Ryerson Invention Awards provided the rare opportunity for young people to develop their ideas and inventions into successful businesses and market-ready products.  With tremendous support from Randy Boyagoda, the Director of Ryerson University’s Zone Learning; Filiz Klassen, the Director of the DFZ;  Sean Mullins, Executive Director at Brookfield Institute; and Valarie Fox, Co-founder at the DMZ, our annual award has found a home at Ryerson University for the next 10 years.  Under our new agreement with Ryerson, the MAKO Student Innovation Award is the largest award available across all of Ryerson’s Zones.  With over $100,000 raised in matching funds from MAKO, Ryerson University, and the Brookfield Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, one student each year will receive over $10,000 in support to help them take their creative idea from the ideation stage to a manufacture-ready prototype. To double match these funds, Michelle Hounslow, the Associate Director of Ryerson, worked hard to form a powerful partnership between MAKO, Brookfield, and Ryerson.

Our goal for the next ten years is to see that each student awarded the student innovation award has access to the knowledge and expertise necessary to ensure their projects are successful. For our company President, Kevin Mako, investing $35,000 is his promise to help provide the necessary tools and the right strategic guidance to help prepare these young individuals in becoming the successful inventors and innovators of tomorrow.  We love that our partners at Ryerson University share our passion and drive for nurturing the creators, and purposeful thinkers behind the new products that will positively transform our society.

We are extremely excited that our student innovation award program is in partnership with one of the most innovative universities in the world.  Our student award program next year will undoubtedly be Bigger, Bolder, Better!

About: MAKO Design + Invent is the original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Simply put, we are the leading one-stop-shop for developing your physical product from idea to store shelves, all in a high-quality, cost-effective, and timely manner. We operate as one powerhouse 30-person product design team spread across 4 offices to serve you (Austin, Miami, San Francisco, & Toronto). We have full-stack in-house industrial design, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, patent referral, prototyping, and manufacturing services. To assist our startup and inventor clients, in addition to above, we help with business strategy, product strategy, marketing, and sales/distribution for all consumer product categories. Also, our founder Kevin Mako hosts The Product Startup Podcast, the industry's leading hardware podcast. Check it out for tips, interviews, and best practices for hardware startups, inventors, and product developers. Click HERE to learn more about MAKO Design + Invent!