Limor Fried named Entrepreneur of the Year

DIY leader honored by magazine

BY MELISSA SUE SORRELLS GALLEY

Entrepreneur magazine has named Limor Fried its Entrepreneur of 2012. A leader in the open-source hardware movement, Fried is the founder and lead engineer of Adafruit Industries, a successful electronics hobbyist company.

Limor Fried has been named Entrepreneur of the Year by Entrepreneur magazine.

Fried—better known on the Internet as “ Ladyada ”—and her company provide a one-stop shop for

do-it-yourselfers at all levels of experience. Started in Fried’s college dorm room, the 7-year-old company has grown to include 25 employees. In 2011, they did a booming $10 million trade in sales of open-source electronic hardware kits, tools and equipment.

In addition to kits, the company also offers a wide variety of free electronic tutorials and forums for makers. Uniquely, Adafruit is based on an open-source business model: everything is made freely available, sharing is encouraged and hacks are celebrated, making it easy for electronics hobbyists to learn almost everything there is to know while creating their own projects.

In addition to educating current electronics hobbyists, Fried is dedicated to inspiring future engineers and teaching young people how to program. She creates curricula in electronic circuitry and robotics and is working on a children’s television show that will bring maker concepts into the home.

In a 2011 interview with Electronic Products , Fried said, “We need to celebrate engineers and expose kids at earlier ages to how much fun engineering is. The more kids see themselves doing engineering, the more likely we’ll see them choose this creative field.”

Fried earned her BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and her masters in electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2009, she was awarded the Pioneer Award by the Electronic Frontier Foundation 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 and appeared on the cover of the April issue of WIRED Magazine.

Chosen from thousands of nominations, Fried was the only female of the five final candidates for Entrepreneur’s highest honor. The final round was decided by a popular vote, conducted on the magazine’s website.

To learn more about Fried, visit Entrepreneur.com. ■