Building the future: STEAMLabs

Meet the Toronto organization teaching kids and adults about making things with tech

Back in 2010, Andy Forest did what so many entrepreneurs do and started a business in his garage. Literally. Although it’s since grown into the non-profit organization STEAMLabs – which offers programs teaching kids and adults about technology, digital fabrication (manufacturing using computer-controlled machines) and coding through hands-on activities – at the time it was just an informal summer-camp-like “tinkering club” he put together for his children and their friends.

“The kids were getting older and I could see that they were interested in technology and ‘making,’ but they weren’t getting that kind of education anywhere else,” he explains, “so I just thought, ‘Well, we’ll start doing it!’”

When interest in, and enthusiasm for, his “camp” grew within his Toronto neighbourhood, Forest realized there was the potential to turn it into something bigger. In 2012, he and his partner, STEAMLabs co-founder and planetary scientist Marianne Mader, formally incorporated as an official non-profit.

They upsized from Forest’s 200-square-foot garage to increasingly larger spaces, eventually landing in their current “makerspace” facility, which opened in 2016 and is housed in the Centre for Social Innovation’s Spadina Avenue location. The makerspace is a whopping 3,000 square feet, and features 3D printers, laser cutters, sewing machines, a wood shop, a computer-controlled milling machine and an electronics lab.

“It’s great to have a big space and something that can have a lot of people in it,” he says.

And STEAMLabs does have a lot of people coming through its doors, averaging roughly 1,000 visits per month, with higher numbers over the summer. The organization employs 12 full-time staff, alongside numerous part-time workers and dozens of volunteers.

For Forest, whose background is in Web development and digital marketing, hiring the right team means identifying potential. “Rather than their backgrounds, it’s about the capabilities of the individual and what they’re able to teach themselves,” he explains, citing one staffer who’s a biologist by trade, but a successful, self-taught roboticist in her spare time.

Forest also believes that continuing to grow as an organization isn’t about saying “yes” to everyone who pitches a partnership or project.

“We throw away at least half of the opportunities that come our way,” he says, “because they don’t match up with the direction that we’re trying to go in.”

After initially struggling with which offers or ideas to pursue, he and his team developed a set of five core values and now measure all proposals against those values to make sure they align. “[We also] came up with a very specific and precise strategic plan, with one-year and five-year plans,” he says.

To keep the literal and figurative moving parts of his business organized, Forest uses project management software Asana, which he says is “a great way to keep track of all the individual things we’re doing.” STEAMLabs also uses Google Docs to easily organize, share and collaborate on their work, and says that Slack is the way he and his employees keep track of their messages. “It’s great for quick communication and having questions answered,” he says.

This fall, STEAMLabs will be launching a new afterschool program geared towards educating and inspiring children from low-income families and new immigrants. Forest also hopes to someday open STEAMLabs makerspaces in additional locations.

For now, though, he marvels at watching kids learn, grow and gradually teach themselves. “When I see someone’s capabilities are amazing, and know that we helped in some small way to give them those capabilities,” he says, “that’s what makes me proud.”

Learn more about the team at SteamLabs: