Meet some of our Maker-Mentors:
– World-class Maker-Mentors for your child
– Police-checked, triple-reference checked
– Highly experienced and trained
Ariel
Graduated with highest distinction
Hello, my name is Ariel! I enjoy playing board games, doing nail art and teaching children. I’ve spent a lot of my time learning and teaching in a variety of different learning environments. I have worked for the YMCA, volunteered for day camps and had a number of placements in other learning spaces such as TDSB classrooms and the Boys and Girls Club.
Achievements: I completed my undergrad at Ryerson University where I studied Early Childhood Education. I most recently earned my Bachelors of Education at UOIT where I graduated with the highest distinction. More simply put, I love learning.
Specialties: Teaching children with unique skills and abilities, meeting diverse learning needs and optimism!!
Andrew
Certified teacher
Thomas
8+ years of camp experience
Thomas is a passionate Minecrafter with a deep love of sci-fi, fantasy, puns and music! With 8 years of camp counselor experience and a lifetime of theatre, he always leads his sessions with an enthusiasm that is rivaled only by his students. After studying music in the Bachelor of Arts program at the University of Guelph he taught singing and piano for two years at Guelph’s largest private music school, started building his own Minecraft servers and coded his own band website.
Achievements: Eight years of camp experience, Bachelor’s of Arts (Music)
Specialties: Minecraft, coding, servers and networks
Sarah
Bachelor of Arts, Psychology
Meet Sarah: she’s a creative, artsy person who loves kids. When not working or spending time with friends, she can be found on Pinterest, looking for new crafts, recipes and new ways of thinking about education. She loves video games (especially the LEGO ones!), Geocaching, and referring to herself in the third person.
Achievements: Sarah has a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Brescia at Western University. She focused on social psychology, specifically child development and education. She won a scholarship for public speaking and is an adult member of Girl Guides of Canada. When she was the same age as the MakerKids, she won an Oreo stacking contest, created a newspaper with her brother and had a painting displayed in a local gallery.
Specialties: General crafting, sewing and embroidery, painting, baking.
Meet our CEO: Jennifer Turliuk
Graduate of Singularity University at NASA
Jennifer’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Forbes, Huffington Post, Fast Company, CBS national TV, and more. Her career highlights include doing marketing and PR for the Matterform 3D Scanner crowdfunding campaign (which raised over $471K – the most-funded Indiegogo campaign outside the US), helping build a 3D printer for a music video, launching an SMS-based disaster relief project during Hurricane Sandy, being selected as a Startup Chile entrepreneur (as part of a program run by the Government of Chile to foster entrepreneurship locally), creating her own self-education program which involved being 1 of the top 6 finalists in a competition to shadow Dave McClure of 500 Startups, leading the Canadian launch of Tide Pods (P&G’s biggest launch in 27 years), running Canada’s largest business plan competition (the Queen’s Entrepreneurs’ Competition), writing one of Forbes Greatest Hits articles, speaking on a panel discussion with Peter Thiel (founder of Paypal), doing a TEDx talk in Spanish, being invited to join MaiTai (a group of pro kiteboarders and entrepreneurs), and DJing for Red Bull. She attended the Graduate Studies Program at NASA’s Singularity University and business school at Queen’s University. In her spare time, she does independent marketing and strategy consulting and enjoys salsa dancing, extreme sports (such as kiteboarding), improv, 3D printing, and building electronic creations.
Advisory Board
Massimo Banzi
CEO of Arduino
Massimo Banzi is the co-founder of the Arduino project. He is an Interaction Designer, Educator and Open Source Hardware advocate. He has worked as a consultant for clients such as: Prada, Artemide, Persol, Whirlpool, V&A Museum and Adidas.
Massimo started the first FabLab in Italy which led to the creation of Officine Arduino, a FabLab/Makerspace based in Torino.
He spent 4 years at the Interaction Design Institue Ivrea as Associate Professor. Massimo has taught workshops and has been a guest speaker at institutions all over the world.
Before joining IDII he was CTO for the Seat Ventures incubator. He spent many years working as a software architect, both in Milan and London, on projects for clients like Italia Online, Sapient, Labour Party, BT, MCI WorldCom, SmithKlineBeecham, Storagetek, BSkyB and boo.com.
Massimo is also the author of “Getting Started with Arduino” published by O’Reilly. He is a regular contributor to the Italian edition of Wired Magazine and Che Futuro, an online magazine about innovation.
He currently teaches Interaction Design at SUPSI Lugano in the south of Switzerland and is a visiting professor at CIID in Copenhagen.
