An interview on Making with

Jesse Harrington Au

Autodesk Chief Maker Advocate, Autodesk

About Jesse

Jesse Harrington Au is Program Manager Maker at Autodesk Inc. He is also a designer, maker and educator. Au works with the award winning consumer products team there to arouse the creativity in us all. Au provides technical support both internally and externally to makers and evangelists; this includes creating programs and events to assist in the growth of the creative class.

What is Making?

Making is the empowerment to start shaping the physical objects in the world around you. 

Who are Makers?

Makers are those brave enough to break the terms and conditions and utilize the objects around them to create new inspirational vessels of influence. 

Why is Making important?

Making is important because it fulfills our primal need to work with our hands and it also gives the power back to the creatives for determining how to interact with the surrounding world. 

What is an exciting example of Making and why?

An exciting example of making is enable. Enable is a group active participants who are developing DIY prosthetics. This is something that the medical field ran for years and was too expensive and not form fitting for many people in need. Thus it was painful and also embarrassing to wear. With Enable they have opened up prosthetics to not only be an affordable comfortable fitting solution but they also can be customized to look like anything from a Wolverine claw to a an Iron Man hand. Who doesn’t want to walk around with an Iron Man hand?  

How is Making transforming education?

The ideology behind making is the key to transforming education, instead of repeating textbooks or lectures the Maker movement is teaching individuals how to think for themselves and create their own solutions. This is the most important thing that you can teach anyone. 

How can Making change my community?

Open Maker Spaces or Making Groups can build strong communities by utilizing the knowledge of the past generation with the creativity and energy of the younger ones. Its one of the only sections of our culture that successfully can span multiple generations. 

How does Making solve big problems?

Making solves the biggest problem, How to think for ones self. Teaching self-reliance and creative confidence is something that we were not able to address in our factory and white collar culture. Teach a maker to fish and they will find a new way to make fishing poll using a 3D printer and Microprocessor. This is helping us shape our future by advancing our technology like never before, in a truly democratized culture.