A Teen Inventor, All Grown Up | The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation

So every now and then, throughout all the years of this show, we've shown you a few teen inventors who've dazzled the tech world with their creations. Now the thing about teens is they grow up to be adults, and if they're innovative enough to be on our show, they're likely to become really, really impressive adults. Now, if you go back to season one, you might remember the 16-year-old inventor of the hollow flashlight that's powered by the heat of your hand. Where is she now? Albert Lawrence shows us her past, her present, and the future. You're witnessing a very special moment. A toddler named Anne Makizinski is feeding her curiosity, playing with electronic parts. It was a glimpse into her future because Anne was only 15 when she invented this. A flashlight powered solely by the heat from your hand. Just a hollow tube and no batteries. So over here is my workbench. Wow. That was a 2015 season one story reported by Adam Yamaguchi. This is Anne today, living large in New York City. Besides winning a Google Science Fair award for her invention, Anne has also been named to both Time and Forbes' 30 under 30 lists. She agreed to meet me and give us an update on what she's been up to. It's been about nine years since last time that you spoke with Adam Yamaguchi. A lot has happened. A lot has happened. Something that I did the past couple years was take my patented technology of the flashlight and implement it into a line of children's toys that all run off of green energy. It's been an interesting process. As a female entrepreneur and inventor, I've learned a lot of hard lessons along the way. So I actually just signed my first book deal, which I'm very excited about. And the book is tentatively designed around something that I call the inventor's mindset. You really need to start preparing young kids and giving them 21st century skills and showing them why critical thinking and why having multiple passions is very valuable. Because traditionally, we've always viewed science as a career and art as a hobby and kind of pitted science and art against each other. But I really think we should be showing young kids and adults that they work together really beautifully. Who inspires you? Who is a great example of that within history? Great example of someone who merged the sciences and arts together and pursued both their passions is obviously Leonardo da Vinci. Because he was a fantastic artist and painter, but he was also coming up with inventions that were completely ahead of his time. And I think we're just seeing very slowly and through social media actually the emergence of so many cool artists that integrate the sciences in their work. And clearly if this feather boa is any sort of indication, you are really embracing the artist within you and at the same time still making progress within the science realm. So thank you for that. Thank you. Yes.