
Entrepreneur magazine has named Adafruit‘s founder and lead engineer, Limor “Ladyada” Fried, as the Entrepreneur of 2012. A tireless proponent of the open source movement, Limor started Adafruit in her dorm room at MIT in 2005. Today, Adafruit is housed in a 12,000-square-foot industrial space in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City, sells 800 different products, and hit $4.5 million dollars in sales in 2011.
Check out the video below for more about Limor and Adafruit. Her own words sum it up best:
My passion is teaching people electronics and showing them just how fun engineering can be. … Not only do I design and manufacture electronics, but then I give away the recipe of how it’s done. And I do this because I think it’s really important for people not only to understand how we make stuff, but how they can make stuff themselves at home. … I give away all this information so people can learn, share, and build their own businesses from it.
Congrats Limor! You’re a fine role model for budding engineers across the globe.


…I think you meant “4.5 MILLION dollars”, not “4.5 dollars”. One is a good sales figure for a company, another is enough to buy me a small sandwich.
Thanks Scott! Best typo I’ve made in a long time
) Fixed.
Congratulations! You are a true champion of the open-source and maker movement!
Well deserved!
Congrats! I am jealous of all of the fruits of her labor, but she absolutely deserves her award.
I’ve followed her work since those dorm days at MIT. She absolutely deserves this – an impressive individual.
Congratulations, and thank you!
Well deserved. For a while I thought hardware hacking was dying out. Limor has been one of the leaders of the comeback. Hard work, dedication and intelligence are occasionally rewarded!
(along with MAKE, of course
Smart is Sexy.
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What a clean work area.
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