Power (of electronics) to the people
MIT Media Lab alumna and entrepreneur Ayah Bdeir SM ’06 wants to help all people worldwide, tech savvy or not, understand and build creatively with electronics. It’s the ambitious mission powering her fast-growing startup littleBits, which sells a library of small modules (called “Bits modules”) integrated with electronic functions — such as lights, sounds, and motors — that snap together with magnets for do-it-yourself (DIY) prototyping. “The mission is to put the power of electronics in everyone’s hands,” says Bdeir, the littleBits CEO who founded her company in 2011 based on an open-source-electronics concept that took shape years before at MIT.The New York-based company, which recently closed an $11 million funding round and has sold hundreds of thousands of “Bits modules,” has caught media buzz and earned praise in technology and entrepreneurial circles across the globe. As an open-source company, littleBits — which provides its circuit diagrams freely on its...