Make: and Hackster.io Announce Partnership at Maker Faire Bay Area

San Francisco, Calif. – (Marketwired – May 19, 2015) – Make: and Hackster.io announced an exciting new partnership today that will benefit the millions of innovators who constitute the Maker Movement. The companies have joined together in an effort to invite the broader community of Makers, engineers, entrepreneurs, and innovators to participate in projects and challenges that can benefit us all. As the Maker Movement continues to grow and impact business, education, community, and culture, Fortune 500 brands are increasingly turning to Makers to develop and design new products and ideas. The alliance between Make: and Hackster.io will make it even easier for Makers to partner with leading companies to bring new ideas to market.

"The Maker Movement is not just one of the most optimistic social movements of our time, it’s becoming one of the most influential economic movements of our time,” said Amy Maniatis, Chief Marketing Officer at Maker Media. “Increasingly, iconic companies in American industry are coming to us so they can reach and collaborate with Makers. Our partnership with Hackster.io takes this to the next level by giving Makers new opportunities to see their ideas come to market.”

Hackster.io is a community dedicated to learning hardware, but also provides challenges and contests encouraging Makers to participate and design something of their own. Under the Maker Media family of brands that include Maker Faire and Make: magazine, Make: has built an extensive community, from hobbyists to professionals, of Makers who are prepared to innovate. This partnership brings the best of what both companies offer, especially to those who want to engage the brain trust of the Maker Movement to bring new ideas to the fore.

“We’ve always wanted to work with Make: as they have stewarded the maker movement and gave makers a stage and a currency” said Adam Benzion, co-founder and CEO of Hackster.io. “Together, we can reach even more people who wish to create, engage and get rewarded for their work.”

GE Lighting is the first company to take advantage of Make: and Hackster.io’s new partnership with the launch of the “Lights for Life Challenge” at Maker Faire Bay Area this weekend. GE’s challenge calls upon makers, designers and engineers to determine use case solutions for the home and LED designs that incorporate voice command capabilities and submit via the Hackster.io platform.

“As an LED market leader, we’re bringing the future to light. We don’t create tech for sake of tech – instead we create smart LED technologies that solve every day problems,” said Tom Stimac, Chief Innovation Manager.

“We know voice command is the future user experience, but we want to better understand what are the pain points for consumers inside the home and help design the next C by GE product, using LED technology + voice command and sensor technology. We are excited to work with the Maker and Hackster communities to help us invent new ways to create a more responsive environment in the home or small business.”

For example, GE is looking for ideas around how to know when your kids arrive home from school while you’re still at work, or how to closely monitor an elderly parent or how to locate your dog when it’s time to go for a walk. Because the average home has 45 light sockets, all with unobstructed vantage points and a power source – lighting is uniquely positioned to be the connector or “glue” of the smart home.

Participating Makers are encouraged to consider lighting from every angle, from table and floor lamps to light bulbs and Blue Tooth-enabled devices to voice activated illumination or lights that are triggered by temperature sensors. Allowing five months for prototyping and creative inquiry, three winning Makers and/or Maker teams will be announced at World Maker Faire, Oct. 1-2, in New York. Makers vie for cash prizes, and first place winners will see their work developed, manufactured, and taken to market by GE. The winning design will become an extension of the C by GE product family, a new line of smart LED products that GE introduced earlier this year.

For full details about the GE “Lights for Life Challenge,” visit the campaign homepage at Makezine.com/LightsforLife. For more information about Maker Media and Maker Faire Bay Area happening May 20-22 in San Mateo, CA, check out MakerFaire.com. Find more information about Hackster’s challenge platform, visit at Hackster.io.

About MAKER MEDIA

Maker Media seeks to create positive change in the world by inspiring and empowering everyone to become a Maker. Through our signature brand, Maker Faire, we have the largest event network that engages Makers around the world and under our Make: publishing brand, we produce Make: magazine, the how-to "bible" of the Maker movement along with websites, books and kits. Founded in 2005, and headquartered in San Francisco, Maker Media caters to a universe of more than 25 million Makers across its properties.

About Hackster

Hackster Powers the Hardware Community. We started in 2013 with a commitment to help people everywhere learn how to program, connect and create Internet-connected hardware. Our community has surpassed 100,000 developers, makers and entrepreneurs who build projects as means for learning and discovery. Learn more about us at Hackster.io

About GE

GE (NYSE:GE) is the world’s Digital Industrial Company, transforming industry with software-defined machines and solutions that are connected, responsive and predictive. GE is organized around a global exchange of knowledge, the “GE Store,” through which each business shares and accesses the same technology, markets, structure and intellect. Each invention further fuels innovation and application across our industrial sectors. With people, services, technology and scale, GE delivers better outcomes for customers by speaking the language of industry. www.ge.com

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