Zac Smith accepts the TCT Sanjay Mortimer Foundation Rising Star Award at this year's TCT Awards ceremony.
At the TCT Awards in 2023, TCT teamed up with the Sanjay Mortimer Foundation to launch the TCT Sanjay Mortimer Foundation Rising Star Award. The award was established to shine a spotlight on an up-and-coming neurodivergent young person who has the potential to contribute greatly towards the engineering industry.
Sixteen-year-old Zac Smith was the inaugural recipient of the award, after being nominated by his teachers at Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys. Smith was one of the youngest nominees for the award, which includes the prize of a Prusa 3D printer, as well as the opportunity to become an SMF Star, providing access to grants, training and more.
Speaking about how he first became involved with 3D printing, Smith told TCT: “I used to buy a lot of Nerf blasters, and had a lot of fun with them, but over time I heard about people online modifying them to make them more powerful, shoot faster, and a lot of people were using 3D printing for that. Then when I attended secondary school, I went to the design department and my teacher there, Mr Cunningham, he was amazing. Basically I asked him if I could print off this part because it broke and I couldn’t find a replacement. From there I was like, ‘Oh this is cool, let’s do some more of this.’ And then he was showing me the software, how to slice, how to do CAD, and then eventually we’re taking machines apart and fixing them.”
Smith was offered a job at 14 by the YouTube channel 3D Muskateers, after watching a video and hearing that they were hiring people who could work with CAD. Smith told TCT: “This was during COVID, so I was [working with] Fusion 360 almost every day and had learned builds up to a pretty decent level, so I thought I would give it a shot. I sent an email, saying ‘Hey, I don’t even have a CV but can we go on a Google Meet or a Zoom and have a chat?’ Now I’ve done half a dozen projects for him over the years.”
The Sanjay Mortimer Foundation was founded in 2022 in honour of the late Sanjay Mortimer, a CoFounder of E3D-Online, who passed away at the age of 32. Mortimer lived with ADHD and transformed it into his superpower to build one of the leading companies providing 3D printing nozzles, extruders, and essentials. In an effort to continue this spirit of innovation and championing of neurodivergent children and young adults, the SMF plans to introduce a series of awards and initiatives as part of its future outreach.
Teula Bradshaw, Director of the Sanjay Mortimer Foundation told TCT: “We’re so grateful to TCT for helping us to continue Sanjay’s legacy and gifting this award. It was a fabulous way to kick off the SMF. We couldn’t think of a better way to share our story, to recognise Zac for who he is and all his brilliance and get our message out there. Our main aim of the SMF is to give confidence to neurodivergent individuals who find an outlet in making. We really want to help them realise their talents and give them the confidence to go out into the workplace, so they can explore their capabilities and develop themselves.”
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Exhibit at the UK's definitive and most influential 3D printing and additive manufacturing event, TCT 3Sixty.
Speaking about what businesses can do to be more inclusive of neurodivergent individuals in the workplace, Bradshaw added: “We’d like to push for organisations to acknowledge that their capacity to think differently and beyond conventional boundaries, makes them a valuable asset to any organisation. Every individual is unique, so there is no one-fit solution, but if organisations can implement small, inexpensive changes, like providing quiet spaces, allowing headphones or slightly adapting interview processes, then they can properly benefit from their ability to think creatively and with a visionary mindset, like Sanjay and Zac, and really could be a competitive advantage.”
The Sanjay Mortimer RepRap Festival (SMRRF) will take place in Oxford between December 2-3, 2023.
