19 going on ‘Under 30’

At 19, all I remember being concerned about was passing exams and meeting friends. Of course, there were a few extracurricular activities, But nothing to brag about. But nineteen-year-old Ann (Andini) Makosinski, on the other hand, has made it to the Forbes ‘30 Under 30’ list for her unique inventions — the Hollow Flashlight, which is powered by the heat of a person’s palm, and the eDrink, which is a coffee mug that can charge a phone or iPod using the heat of the coffee.

Makosinski was inspired to create the Hollow Flashlight, when she was 14; she found out that one of her friends in the Philippines had failed her grade in school, because she couldn’t afford electricity, and had no light to study with at night. A few years later when “I was around 16, I came up with the eDrink. The idea came from two main problems that my high-school friends were experiencing. One, their phones were always running out of battery, and two, their coffee was taking too long to cool down,” says the half Filipino and half Polish teen, who lives in Victoria, British Columbia, in Canada. While the flashlight will come on almost as soon as your hands come in contact with the Peltier tiles, the time taken for your phone to charge using the eDrink, “depends on much coffee you drink,” she says.  They are not available for purchase yet, but she hopes that the torch will be out in the market later this year.

According to Makosinski, it had taken her at least five months to finish her inventions. She worked on them after school, after finishing her homework and/or extracurricular activities such as piano lessons, Kumon tuitions, field hockey, the school play... But she didn’t wait till her teens to start inventing. She says as her parents didn’t give her too many toys, her first “inventions” were made to solve that problem. “I would take my hot glue gun, collect garbage from around the house and piece it together to create ‘inventions’.

Of course they never worked, but the idea of taking resources around me and piecing them together to make something better got ingrained early on,” shares the English literature student at The University of British Columbia, Vancouver.

The teenager was also named in Time’s ‘30 Under 30’ list in 2013, the same year that she won the Google Science Fair. She has given several TEDx talks and appeared twice on The Tonight Show. Balancing school work and taking time to think through and create her inventions is obviously a challenge, but she tries “to separate time for homework, business and inventions, and a little bit of play. Keeping them separated and blocking out my time in a very detailed schedule helps a lot,” says the teenager who is inspired by Harry Houdini, Nikola Tesla, Elvis Presley, and Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

In her free time, Makosinski likes to watch shows on Netflix, old foreign films, and her favourite author is PK Page. “Watching films from as far back as the 1920’s to 1980’s is a hobby, besides appreciating the existence of cats,” she says.

Makosinski urges teens to “never give up, failure is just part of the process of making and creating. Be dedicated, and remember that time is very crucial while you are young, so don’t waste it”. Her future plans include “living with at least five cats, two chickens and a goat, having my own business and continuing with my inventions, creating films and new creative content, and living somewhere sunny”.

One of many teenagers out there who are creating and inventing, she’s been lucky to get some coverage, but reminds peers, “Do not get discouraged, your time will come. But do not start inventing to get fame, that is the wrong way round.”