About Eric:

Eric Wilhelm has founded several companies including the project-sharing community Instructables (acquired by Autodesk), high-altitude wind power company Makani Power (acquired by Google), the innovation and design partnership Squid Labs, and companies working on portable energy generation and health care.

Wilhelm is now Director of Communities and Hardware at Autodesk, where he leads the groups that continue to grow the Instructables community (now over 175 K projects and 30 million monthly unique visitors), built Autodesk's cutting-edge digital fabrication workshops at Pier 9, and created the Ember 3D printer.

He received his SB, SM, and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT. He has been recognized as a top innovator by Technology Review Magazine and Popular Mechanics, won a Wired Rave award for Industrial Design, and awarded the National Inventors Hall of Fame Collegiate Inventors Award for development of a nanoparticle printing technique. Wilhelm has completed an ultra-marathon, flown 75 feet in the air under a kite-powered contraption of his own design, built a climbing wall in his house, and practices partner gymnastics with his two children.