Ayah Bdeir facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Ayah Bdeir
Ayah Bdeir in November 2014
Born	1982 (age 42–43) Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Nationality	Lebanese-Canadian
Education	MS Media Arts and Sciences, Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2006) BS Computer Engineering and Social Sciences, American University of Beirut (2004)
Organization	littleBits Daleel Thawra Mozilla
Movement	Maker Movement Open-source hardware STEAM Gender neutrality in Education

Ayah Bdeir (Arabic: آية بدير; born in 1982 in Montreal, Quebec) is a talented Lebanese-Canadian inventor and business owner. She is the creator and CEO of littleBits. This company makes special electronic kits for learning and creating. Ayah also helped start Daleel Thawra, a website that shared information about protests and help during the Lebanese Revolution.

Ayah is well-known for her work in the Maker Movement. This movement encourages people to create things themselves. She also supports "open-source hardware," which means sharing technology ideas freely. Ayah promotes fairness in STEAM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) for all genders. She helped start the Open Hardware Summit and has been recognized as a TED Senior Fellow.

Ayah was named one of BBC's 100 Most Influential Women. She has appeared on the covers of famous magazines like The New York Times Magazine and WIRED. Her inventions are even shown in The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). She also holds many patents for her ideas.

Ayah Bdeir's Story

Ayah Bdeir was born in Canada to a Syrian family. She grew up in Beirut, a city in Lebanon. She studied Computer Engineering and Sociology at the American University of Beirut. She finished her degrees in 2004. After that, Ayah moved to the United States. In 2006, she earned a Master of Science degree from the MIT Media Lab.

Ayah Bdeir in 2010

After getting her Master's degree, Ayah worked as a financial consultant for a short time. In 2008, she received a special fellowship at Eyebeam in New York City. There, she created electronic art that was shown in many places. Her art was displayed in galleries and festivals in cities like Amsterdam, Paris, and New York. Ayah also taught classes at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP). She also taught at Parsons The New School for Design. In 2010, Ayah was a design mentor on a TV show called Stars of Science.

She was a TED Fellow, which means she was chosen for her innovative ideas. She also helps support New York City's public schools.

Inventing littleBits

Ayah Bdeir wanted to help people, especially girls and those often left out, to become creators. In September 2011, she started littleBits Electronics. Her goal was to make electronics easy for everyone to use. The company officially began after she sold her first invention at a maker fair in New York. Soon, Bloomberg TV called littleBits "Lego for the iPad Generation."

LittleBits makes a system of electronic building blocks. These blocks help people learn and create new things. The modules are small, rectangular pieces. They have special circuits hidden inside them. The system uses different colors to show what each block does. Blue blocks provide power. Pink blocks are for inputs, like switches or microphones. Green blocks are for outputs, such as lights or motors. Orange blocks are for wires or logic functions.

The blocks connect together with magnets. This makes it easy to build circuits. Even if you've never worked with electronics, you can create cool projects. You can experiment with advanced technologies using these simple blocks.

In 2012, Ayah received the TED Fellowship. She gave a famous talk at the TED conference. It was called "Building Blocks That Blink, Beep and Teach."

Her company, littleBits, received money from investors to grow. In 2012, they raised $3.65 million. In 2013, they got even more funding. This money helped littleBits develop new products and reach more people.

In 2013, CNN named littleBits one of the top 10 new companies. It also won a Gold Award for its design.

In 2015, littleBits raised another $44.2 million. The company then joined the Disney Accelerator program in 2016. They also teamed up with Pearson, a big education company. Together, they created lessons to support science and engineering programs.

By 2019, littleBits products were used in over 20,000 schools. That same year, littleBits and Disney started a program called "Snap the Gap." This program helps girls around age 10 stay interested in technology. It connects them with mentors who work in STEM fields.

In August 2019, another company called Sphero bought littleBits.

Standing Up for What's Right

Ayah Bdeir often speaks about the Maker Movement. She believes that technology should be available to everyone. She wants people to be creators, not just users. She has given talks at big events like TED and SXSW. She discusses how sharing ideas openly can lead to new inventions.

Ayah strongly supports the Open Hardware Movement. This idea is about making sure that knowledge about technology is open for everyone to use. She helped start the Open Hardware Summit. This is a yearly meeting organized by the Open Source Hardware Association. In 2010, Ayah received a fellowship for her work. She helped define what Open Hardware means. She also co-chaired the Open Hardware Summits in 2010 and 2011.

As a fellow at Creative Commons, she led a competition to design the Open Hardware logo. This logo is now used on millions of circuit boards worldwide. Ayah has written academic papers. She also created the term "Electronics As Material." This idea means thinking of electronics like any other building material. You can combine them with traditional materials to create new things.

Ayah also believes that toys should not be made just for boys or just for girls. She thinks they should be for everyone. She shared that 40% of littleBits users are girls. This is much higher than the average in STEM/STEAM fields.

In 2017, Ayah spoke out for immigration rights. This was in response to President Trump's travel ban. She put up a large billboard in Times Square. It had the message: "We Invent the World We Want to Live In." This showed her belief in fairness and equality.

In October 2019, Ayah co-founded Daleel Thawra. This was a digital platform that became a main source of information. It shared resources related to the Lebanese revolution.

Creative Art Projects

Before starting littleBits, Ayah Bdeir worked as an interactive artist. Her art has been shown in galleries in places like New York and London. Some of her art installations include:

• Random Search: This project involved wearable technology. It recorded experiences during airport security checks. The clothing had sensors that collected data during searches. This helped analyze how security procedures affected travelers.
• Elusive Electricity (Ejet Ejet)
• Teta Haniya's Secrets
• Les Annees Lumiere
• Arabiia

Where Her Art Was Shown

• "Energy", MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) (New York), 2020
• "This is for Everyone: Design Experiments for the Common Good", MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) (New York), 2016
• "Subtitled: Narratives From Lebanon", RCA (Royal College of Art) (London), 2011
• "Talk To Me", MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) (New York), 2011
• "Electronics as Materials", Eyebeam (New York), 2010
• "7 on 7", New Museum (New York), 2010
• "Identities in Motion", Peacock Visual Arts Gallery (Aberdeen, Scotland), 2009
• "Impetus", Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria), Works from the MIT Media Lab, curated by Hiroshi Ishii & Amanda Parkes, 2009
• "Open Stitch", Location One Gallery (New York), 2005

Awards and Achievements

• 2012 TED Fellowship
• 2014 35 Innovators Under 35 by MIT Technology Review
• 2014 25 Makers Who Are Reinventing the American Dream by Popular Mechanics
• 2014 35 Under 35 Coolest Entrepreneurs by Inc. Magazine
• 2018 Top 5 Women to Watch in Robotics by Inc. Magazine
• 2019 100 most influential women by BBC
• 2019 New York Times Groundbreaker

See also

In Spanish: Ayah Bdeir para niños