Limor Fried
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Limor Fried is an American
electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...
and owner of the electronics hobbyist company
Adafruit Industries Adafruit Industries is an open-source hardware company based in New York City, New York, United States. It was founded by Limor Fried in 2005. The company designs, manufactures and sells Electronic Products, electronics products, electronics comp ...
. She is influential in the
open-source hardware Open-source hardware (OSH, OSHW) consists of physical artifact (software development), artifacts of technology designed and offered by the open-design movement. Both free and open-source software (FOSS) and open-source hardware are created by th ...
community A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...
, having participated in the first Open Source Hardware Summit and the drafting of the ''Open Source Hardware'' definition, and is known by her moniker ''ladyada'', an homage to Lady
Ada Lovelace Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (''née'' Byron; 10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852), also known as Ada Lovelace, was an English mathematician and writer chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-pur ...
.


Career and recognition

Fried studied at
MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...
, earning a BS in electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) in 2003 and a
Master of Engineering A Master of Engineering (abbreviated MEng, ME, M.E. or M.Eng.) is a Professional degree, professional master's degree in the field of engineering. International variations Australia In Australia, the Master of Engineering degree is a research ...
in EECS in 2005. For part of the qualification she created a project called ''Social Defense Mechanisms: Tools for Reclaiming Our Personal Space''. Following the concept of critical design she prototyped glasses that darken when a television is in view, and a low-power RF jammer that prevents cell phones from operating in a user's
personal space Proxemics is the study of human use of space and the effects that population density has on behavior, communication, and social interaction. Proxemics is one among several subcategories in the study of nonverbal communication, including haptics ...
. Fried was an Eyebeam fellow from 2005–2006. During 2005, Fried founded what became
Adafruit Industries Adafruit Industries is an open-source hardware company based in New York City, New York, United States. It was founded by Limor Fried in 2005. The company designs, manufactures and sells Electronic Products, electronics products, electronics comp ...
, first in her MIT dorm room, later moving to New York City. The company designs and resells open source electronic kits, components, and tools, mainly for the hobbyist market. In 2010 the company had eight employees and shipped more than $3 million worth of product. The company's mission extends beyond the adult hobbyist audience to pre-school STEM education. Adafruit is a company based on sharing ideas as well as resources; everyone who works for the company is offered the same 401k plan and they get paid time off for volunteer nonprofit work. In 2009, she was awarded the Pioneer Award by the
Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an American international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1990 to promote Internet civil liberties. It provides funds for legal defense in court, ...
for her participation in the open source hardware and software community. In 2011, Fried was awarded the Most Influential Women in Technology award by ''
Fast Company ''Fast Company'' is an American business magazine published monthly in print and online, focusing on technology, business, and design. It releases six print issues annually. History ''Fast Company'' was founded in November 1995 by Alan Webb ...
'' magazine and became the first female engineer featured on the cover of ''
Wired Wired may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * ''Wired'' (Jeff Beck album), 1976 * ''Wired'' (Hugh Cornwell album), 1993 * ''Wired'' (Mallory Knox album), 2017 * "Wired", a song by Prism from their album '' Beat Street'' * "Wired ...
'' magazine. In that same issue of ''Wired'' she said, "Having websites that sell parts online is a really big deal. It used to be that if you wanted to order parts to make something, you had to dig through a catalog, and they probably wouldn't even send you one if you weren't a professional. Now everything is online. You can just Google the parts to make your submarine." In a 2012 interview with CNET, Fried said, "If there's one thing I'd like to see from this, it would be for some kids to say to themselves 'I could do that' and start the journey to becoming an engineer and entrepreneur." She is also quoted as saying, "There's always something newer and funner and more glossy, but we want to make sure people can actually build stuff, too." Fried is a member of the
IEEE Spectrum ''IEEE Spectrum'' is a magazine edited and published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The first issue of ''IEEE Spectrum'' was published in January 1964 as a successor to ''Electrical Engineering''. In 2010, ''IEEE Spe ...
editorial advisory board .


Awards

* 2009 Pioneer Award by the
Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an American international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1990 to promote Internet civil liberties. It provides funds for legal defense in court, ...
* 2011 Most Influential Women in Technology award by
Fast Company ''Fast Company'' is an American business magazine published monthly in print and online, focusing on technology, business, and design. It releases six print issues annually. History ''Fast Company'' was founded in November 1995 by Alan Webb ...
magazine * 2012 ''Entrepreneur'' "Entrepreneur of the Year". Of the 15 finalists, she was the only female. * 2015
White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest (Washington, D.C.), NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president ...
Champion of Change (Making) * 2018
Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...
' America's Top 50 Women In Tech. * 2019 STEP Ahead Honoree, Women in Manufacturing by The Manufacturing Institute * 2019 Women in Open Source Award (Community) by
Red Hat Red Hat, Inc. (formerly Red Hat Software, Inc.) is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises and is a subsidiary of IBM. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North ...
* 2023 GitHub Awards - Hardware Hacker


Open Kinect Project

In response to the launch of Microsoft's
Kinect Kinect is a discontinued line of motion sensing input devices produced by Microsoft and first released in 2010. The devices generally contain RGB color model, RGB cameras, and Thermographic camera, infrared projectors and detectors that map dep ...
for the
Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the Xbox (console), original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detail ...
in 2010, Fried, along with Phillip Torrone, organized a $1,000 challenge to create an open source driver. After Microsoft condemned the challenge as modification to their product, Adafruit increased the prize to $2,000 and then $3,000. This prompted a response from a Microsoft company spokesperson: After significant advancements in the open source drivers, spokespeople from Microsoft stated that they did not condemn the challenge, and in fact were excited to see what the community developed.


Personal life

Fried is married to ''
Hackaday ''Hackaday'' is a hardware hacking website. It was founded in 2004 as a web magazine. Since 2014, Hackaday also hosts a community database of open-source hardware designs. History Hackaday was founded in 2004 by Phillip Torrone as a web maga ...
'' founder, former '' Make'' editor, and former ''
Engadget Engadget ( ) is a technology news, reviews and analysis website offering daily coverage of gadgets, consumer electronics, video games, gaming hardware, apps, social media, streaming, AI, space, robotics, electric vehicles and other potentially ...
'' podcast host Phillip Torrone. In 2022 they had a baby.


See also

*
Adafruit Industries Adafruit Industries is an open-source hardware company based in New York City, New York, United States. It was founded by Limor Fried in 2005. The company designs, manufactures and sells Electronic Products, electronics products, electronics comp ...
* Ayah Bdeir – entrepreneur and founder of littleBits * Becky Stern – Maker and the former director of Wearable Electronics at Adafruit * Jeri Ellsworth – entrepreneur and inventor of C64 Direct-to-TV


References


External links

* — Limor Fried's company. * * * on ladyada's work.
Adafruit Industries (Youtube)
-- Rocketboom report on ladyada's company
The Mag Pi #9
– Raspberry Pi magazine features an interview with Limor Fried {{DEFAULTSORT:Fried, Limor Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American electrical engineers MIT School of Engineering alumni Open-source hardware people American women company founders American company founders 21st-century American women engineers 21st-century American engineers 21st-century American businesspeople 21st-century American businesswomen