Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Meet Stephanie Santoso, the White House Advisor for Making”.
Hey this is mike with make and i’m with stephanie santoso the advisor for making with the white house ostp the office of science, technology and policy yep. That’S right, hi mike! So we are here at makercon and i’m catching up with uh everything that um stephanie’s working on uh with with the white house ostp and uh, and it’s in specific the um it’s interest in making. So what brought you here to makercon yeah? Definitely so um! You all may have seen that earlier. In the summer, the white house hosted its first ever white house maker faire, which was pretty amazing, and so the white house is really really interested in trying to figure out what are the different ways that we can help to support the maker movement and the development Of the maker community moving forward, realizing that there’s a ton of opportunities for hands-on informal learning across science, technology engineering, math, the arts and design, which is super important. Um, there’s also uh a lot going on with individual makers who are becoming entrepreneurs so uh we’re realizing that there needs to be lots of different ways to support and cultivate a culture of entrepreneurship in the us right.
That’S going to be really critical to innovation. Moving forward and so we’re trying to to figure out um, you know how can we be part of the conversation and how can we help so i’m here to to really talk to to people here at makercon and maker faire, to try and understand what are the Ways that the white house uh can actually help um. What are some of the things that agents agencies can do to help and how might we be able to foster um a culture of creativity, moving forward? That’S great so uh white house maker faire huge event and really exciting. Obviously from our side, you know a complete validation of this event that we’ve been putting on for for a number of years now, but uh there’s no bigger platform than having an event like this. At the white house uh, how was the reception on your guys’s side? It was amazing um. You know.
I would say that the white house is a pretty buttoned up place right um, but it was amazing to see um. You know makers interacting with folks that are typically in suits, and i think there were definitely a lot of the suit blazers came off that day. You know, i think that people within the white house and in d.c are starting to realize just how important it is to to support what’s going on in maker spaces in schools that are trying to integrate making into their curriculum. Now that you’re, seeing the democratization of tools and technologies, whether that’s 3d printing arduino, cnc, milling laser cutting.
These are all things that are making it easier for people to turn their ideas into real, tangible things. And that’s really empowering. And that’s something that the white house really wants to support yeah. I think it’s fantastic. It was uh. It was a lot of fun for on our side and you know fingers crossed it happens again. Every year, maybe white house version 2.0. I don’t know, but i hope i think we all do so. What types of things within the makerspace are getting. You really excited lately.
What, personally, what what? What have you found? That’S, that’s really cool so um. I i’m personally really interested in all of the really uh fascinating hardware startups that are that are popping up right. Um.
You have all of these really interesting devices like pinocchio, you know they’re being crowdfunded through um platforms like indiegogo and kickstarter and um. One of the the things that i’m really interested in trying to understand is um. I think there are often lots of challenges associated with starting, in particular, a hardware company in the u.s and figuring out. How can we make that easier and what is what is the a better more efficient model? Look like so, i think the hardware side of things are are really fascinating. I think sort of the future of 3d printing for encouraging students to get more interested in stem topics.
So you know, i think, uh 3d printing is a really shiny, appealing technology, but it also has a lot of really great educational value. I mean it can teach students about all sorts of concepts related to math and science and technology. So i’m really interested in trying to see um what are the, what are the different ways that we can? We can get some of those tools and technologies into more more schools, yeah. Well, i’m excited there’s an advocate for making in the white house, which is great uh we’ve got uh.
You know, we’ve got uh some incredible things happening already, so thank you very much for helping foster those things. Anything um anything coming up soon that we should keep our eyes open for looking forward to so um. One thing that i would love to pose to everybody at home or whoever is watching. Is we often try to ask this question uh if you had 15 minutes with the president um? What would you what would you say to him, and i would specifically like to ask you if you had 15 minutes to the president? What would you ask him to do to help support the maker movement i’ll leave it abroad? It could be making an education, it could be entrepreneurs, but, from your own perspective, what what? What? What is that, and i would love to actually to the extent that you can respond to that and in the comments section or write to me, make magazine um.
That would be great yeah. It would be great, i’m already percolating some really interesting ideas uh. So i will put those in the comment section below uh as well uh for yeah, so for those of you guys who are watching this uh, either on youtube or on on make scene or anywhere else, um yeah, let’s hear what you guys would weigh in would Yeah definitely weigh in we’d love to hear yeah great well. Thank you, stephanie and uh. I’M really excited about everything.
That’S been happening, looking forward to uh continued growth and uh and excitement thanks mike .