Tinkerine Studios has announced that it is bringing in two former MakerBot employees to help the Canadian 3D printer manufacturer expand its Tinkerine U education efforts into the US market. Liz Arum will be the company’s new East Coast Region Education Coordinator while Andrew Pelkey will be the new Social Media Community Manager.
Tinkerine U sells 3D printers bundled with filament and a selection of 3D printing curriculum and printable educational models directly to schools to help promote 3D printing in primary and secondary education. The program was previously only available as a pilot program to a few select schools in Canada, but they are now expanding it into the United States market and hiring two new key payers to help make that happen.
“We are extremely encouraged with the feedback we are receiving from schools, which is now translating into sales as educators adopt our curriculum and integrate our latest desktop 3D printer the Ditto™Pro into the classroom,” Kevin Brandt Managing Director of Tinkerine U explained. “Adding Andrew and Liz to our team gives us another layer of distinction when it comes to understanding the needs of the education and prosumer markets. There has been tremendous interest in our Tinkerine U pilot program, so these appointments come at just the right time.”
Here’s a video about the Tinkerine U program:
As the former Education Coordinator for MakerBot, Arum oversaw their successful educational initiatives, as well as developed the company’s educational materials and coordinated with educators to facilitate training and support. As a former teacher who has been using 3D printing for five years to educate her students, she is an obvious choice to help Tinkerine get their educational bundles, including the DittoPro 3D printer, into US schools.
Pelkey comes from MakerBot’s product strategy team and has a background in marketing, so he’s a natural fit for a social media manager. As social media becomes more and more essential to a company’s success, expertise in handling the intricacies of the day to day operations is essential. I’m reminded of a recent social media faux pas where a large brand name company jumped on a trending hashtag only to find out it was in support of domestic abuse survivors. In addition to promoting Tinkerine’s new push into the US market on social media, it would also be his job to make sure that sort of thing doesn’t happen to them.
If you’re an educator in the US or Canada and are interested in participating in Tinkerine U or just looking for more information on the program you can register here.
