April Staines
Co-founder & Chief Maker
Specialty Areas
Advocacy, Education, Equity and Equality in STEMM, Gender, Mentoring, Motivational Speaking, Science, Technology and Innovation, Women in STEMM
About Me
April Staines is a seasoned technology leader and passionate girl geek with over 15 years’ industry experience. In 2012, April founded the Making community, Open Source Prop Alliance. The group, which now has over 600 members, uses electronic media and 3D printers to design and create props.
In 2014, April joined forces with four other digital professionals to co-found Girl Geek Academy with a mission to teach 1 million women to get into tech and launch their own startups by 2025. Girl Geek Academy is behind Australia’s first all-women hackathon, #SheHacks, and the world’s first hackathon for girls aged five to eight, #MissMakesCode. The myriad of skills made her ideal to lead Girl Geek Academy’s world-first #SheMakes event in 2014, a makerfest on 3D printing and modelling for women.
A digital visionary, April designed and made her own 3D printers before they were even on the market and is currently bootstrapping her own digital fabrication business. Her online store has had 878 commissions – worldwide – and her projects include 3D printing a 1:1 Scale R2-D2, as well as a human-sized robot for a locally produced movie.
On the speaker circuit, April has been a guest speaker at the Inside 3D Printing event in Melbourne since its inception and has talked at a number of other events, covering everything from movie props to STEM to digital fabrication and – of course – women in 3D printing.
April has worked with the National Australia Bank (NAB) for over a decade where she provides security advice and technology consulting as a Digital Solution Architect.
