Ann Makosinski
Ann Makosinski is a 24-year-old Polish-Filipino Canadian student inventor and writer. Ann’s first toy was a box of transistors, which launched her journey into the world of inventing. At 11 years old, Ann started participating in the Vancouver Island Regional Science Fair, and developed a passion to explore the world of alternative energy harvesting. When Ann was fourteen years old, she found out that her friend Maria in the Philippines failed a grade in school because her family couldn’t afford electricity. Maria therefore had no light to study with when darkness hit at 6 pm, so Ann set about finding a solution. Ann ended up inventing the Hollow Flashlight, a flashlight that runs off the heat of the human hand. During the beginning of her grade 11 year, the flashlight went viral online and Ann won in her age category at the Google Science Fair in Mountainview, California. Ann began being featured in countless nation-wide and international news outlets.
Thrust into the world of speaking, she was invited to present at myriads of business and technology conferences, gave five TEDx talks around the world, and conducted multiple interviews from her basement workshop in Victoria. During her grade eleven year, Ann demonstrated the flashlight to Jimmy Fallon on his premiere week hosting the Tonight Show and was included on the prestigious Times Magazine World Changers 30 under 30 list.
Ann then invented another device - the eDrink. The eDrink harvests the excess heat of one's hot drink and converts it into electricity, giving one’s phone a boost of energy. More awards and interviews followed, and Ann with her father set up Makotronics Enterprises Incorporated in Victoria, a BC corporation to manage the patenting and licensing of her inventions. Ann’s gift of speech and presentation launched her into becoming one of the most sought after keynote speakers of her generation. She was then named on Forbes Magazine’s 30 Under 30 list in the Energy sector, and in Times Magazine’s 30 Under 30 World Changers.
Ann was named one of Glamour Magazine’s top ten College Women of the Year, one of seven of Teen Vogue Global Earth Angels, and Popular Science’s “Breakout Young Inventor of the Year.” Ann appeared with Miley Cyrus for Converse, was named the global brand ambassador for the clothing brand Uniqlo and their unique heat-retaining fleece technology, in addition to endorsing many other brands including the Google Pixel 2, where she worked with Vice to create the campaign.
Ann has frequently travelled the world delivering keynote talks, ranging from events hosted by McCann Erickson in NYC for their major clients, a private event at the Pictet Bank in Geneva, and the King Abdullah’s University for Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia where she presented talks to the university students, as well as local high school students. She also had the honour of being invited as a Youth Ambassador on the Canada C3 Expedition, where she sailed through the NorthWest Passage on an icebreaker, while talking to the students in remote Inuit communities. Ann was honored to be one of Canada’s five chosen representatives at the I7 in Turin, Italy, an innovation focused committee that reported their feedback on the Future of Work to the annual G7 conference. She also spoke at the Y20 Summit in Cordoba, Argentina, which was held in conjunction with the G20 conference.
Ann’s role as a speaker has led her all over the world (full list upon request), ranging from the Atlantech Festival in Ireland, an EF Leadership Summit in Berlin, Forbes Impact Summit in NYC, the Congreso Futuro in Chile, an innovation summit in Timisoara, Romania etcetera. Ann received the Rising Star of the Year award at the first Greentech Festival, which was held in Berlin by F1 race car driver Nico Rosberg, and she is returning this June 2022 to speak on a panel and interview other companies exhibiting at the event. She has also worked with a variety of brands, ranging from the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) in their Future Launch Campaign, Hewlett Packard Enterprises on their supercomputers, Tradlands’ sustainable clothing line, and most recently Ann became one of the faces of Maybelline New York’s new Green Edition makeup line, a step forward towards more eco friendly packaging.
During 2019 and 2020, Ann worked on a collection of children’s toys that all ran off of green energy, which was profiled on CNN. She also studied acting for a year at the prestigious Herbert Berghof (HB) Studio. Right before Covid began, Ann managed to speak for the Lili’uokalani Fund in Honolulu, a Girl Scouts event in Omaha, at the International Project Management Forum in Dubai, the final event for Red Bull Basement University in Toronto, and Zurich International School (ZIS).
During the pandemic, Ann resumed her Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Victoria. She kept busy speaking virtually at events ranging from an engineering program run by the University of Tennessee, an online panel for the Filipino program Kids for Kids Habilin, a Workplace Skills conference for UVic Gustavson Business school, students of KAUST’s Gifted Student Program, and presenting at the Rukami Festival in Russia. Ann also hosted a science experiment for kids for the Rebel Girls Adventure Awaits! Fest, and recorded a podcast for RG’s Good Night Stories about Old Hollywood actress Anna May Wong. Ann was also thrilled to be named in Entrepreneur Magazine’s annual issue as one of their potential “Young Millionaires”, yet she is still waiting for her million bucks.
Ann is on the verge of signing her first book deal, which will focus on what Ann has named “the Inventing Mindset”. Ann is also in the midst of working with a production company to develop and pitch a television show about Futurism, which she aims to host