Ann Makosinski


Ann Makosinski is a Canadian student inventor and public speaker. She won the Google Science Fair in 2013 for her thermoelectric flashlight.

Early life

Makosinski is of Filipino, Polish and Canadian descent. Her father is a retired lab manager with two medical patents. Her family live in Saanich, British Columbia. She studied at St. Michaels University School. For her grade 7 project, Makosinski invented a radio that could be powered by the wasted heat from a candle. She also made a piezoelectric flashlight when she was in Ninth grade.As a little girl, Ann found insects to be very interesting. She wondered how they could be so small, yet so intricate. She has grown up to be a very talented young scientist because of her fond passion for science.

Hollow Flashlight

In 2014 Makosinski won the Google Science Fair with Hollow Flashlight, a thermoelectric flashlight. She was inspired by visits to her mother's homeland in the Philippines, where her friends failed at high school because they didn't have enough light to study at night. The device relies on the Thermoelectric effect using Peltier tiles. It is hollow to increase convection currents. She is currently in negotiations to commercially manufacture and distribute the light.
She presented at TEDx Richmond and TEDx Vancouver in 2013. That year she appeared on Time 30 Under 30. She won a gold medal at the Canada-Wide Science Fair. In 2014 she presented The Problem with Inventions at TEDx Victoria. She presented at TEDx Teen in 2016 - her talk Why I don't use a smart phone has been watched over 2 million times. Makosinski presented her eDrink mug, which uses heat from a drink to charge a phone, to Jimmy Fallon on the Tonight Show. As a prize she was given $5,000 to support her education. She won four major awards at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. She was voted the 2016 Popular Science Young Inventor of the Year.

Career

Ann won $50,000 investment from the Quest Climate Grant, supported by Canadian Geographic and Shell Energy North America in 2016, for inventions which are powered by body-heat. She was appointed a global brand ambassador for Uniqlo in 2016, and has completed campaigns for Five Star and Lenovo. In 2017 Makosinski was included on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
Makosinski is a student at the University of British Columbia, and completed the Arts One program. She was also named one of Glamour magazine's 2018 College Women of the Year. She is the Founder of Makotronics Enterprises. She has filed several patents. In August 2017, Makosinski celebrated Canada's 150th anniversary and embarked on a two-week expedition of the Northwest Passage. In October 2017, she was part of Converse Public Access show with Miley Cyrus.