Ann Makosinski

Andini discusses the crucial yet often overlooked combination of science and art in the world around us. She encourages the audience to rethink the many stereotypes that the media has perpetuated over the years around people who pursue STEM versus Arts. Andini questions why we pit these fields against each other, instead of celebrating the many ways in which science and art are intrinsically linked. Andini believes that if we start showing the synergy between the arts and sciences at an earlier age in the educational system, it could cause a radical shift in society and cause a new generation of inventors and proactive problem-solvers to evolve.

One of her most requested talks, Andini focuses on her unique growing up experience – infused with classical opera, silent movies from the 1910’s, taking old electronics apart, inventing using garbage, eating insects, collecting bones, filming and editing with her dad on his documentary shoots, and beginning her science fair journey. Andini then explores the various international science fairs she competed in during her teenage years, and how her infamous inventions of the Hollow Flashlight and the eDrink came about while she was in high school.

Let’s face it – the educational system is radically behind in the majority of countries around the world. The way we are teaching youth and what we are teaching them isn’t always inspiring them to become pro-active, autonomous learners outside the classroom. We need to equip students with 21st century skills, yet so often we are still seeing the stuffy classroom, textbook homework questions, and rigid class structure in place. This causes education (in the students’ eyes) to morph into an uninspiring chore that neglects to reflect or resonate with them. Now with the rise of AI, we need to put an emphasis on teaching critical thinking and visual analysis skills. Andini is passionate about challenging educators to rethink their mode of education and the way they are using their classroom.

Having strong communication and storytelling skills are more vital than ever, especially with the advent of A.I. and social media. Now there are billions of voices (some human, some not!) on the Internet, so how can you ensure your ideas stand out and be heard? Andini reflects on her own 10 year journey as a public speaker and presenter – as well as an inventor/entrepreneur pitching her ideas – and gives advice on how to strengthen this skill in the audience’s own lives.

Andini is a Gen Z’er who grew up with a smartphone, and then chose to own a flip phone when she first left for college. While she now struggles like the rest of us with her relationship to social media and her smartphone, Andini believes we all need to rethink our relationship with technology. As more new tech gets thrown at us on a daily basis, it becomes hard to draw the line. What to adopt, what to learn, what to ignore? How can AI be used in our personal and professional lives as a tool to make things easier, versus a crutch that weakens our creativity and imagination?

Andini talks about what it could look like for youth (and/or you!) to have healthy interactions on social media – and if it’s even possible. She references the latest developments in both the mental health and social media spaces.

Andini’s first book, releasing Spring 2025 with Knopf Canada, discusses the idea of inhabiting what she likes to call ‘the Inventing Mindset’, a unique problem-solving approach to life that encourages constant creativity.

… And as an adult – you should play with garbage around the house too! With everyone’s eye towards sustainability, Andini firmly believes in innovating from whatever you do have. When you have less distractions, it allows your mind to experience boredom – and daydreaming, where some of the best ideas are born.

The standard classroom setup of a teacher lecturing in front of a room of unenthused students (who are dreading that night’s assigned textbook questions) should be illegal in the 21st century. This long-used method makes learning become a resented chore, instead of something to get excited about. How can we encourage and enable teachers around the world to inspire their students to become infinitely curious, life-long learners?

Andini believes that project based learning may be the key to what 21st Century Education looks and feels like.In this talk, Andini pulls from her unique upbringing and explores how you can create the appropriate environment for project based learning, one that will foster a passion within your students to begin organically connecting with their innate creativity, critical thinking, and innovative skills for the rest of their lives.

The future of education leans towards our students’ individual passions and skills, allowing them the personalized freedom to also express what they’ve learned in a format they choose, instead of a more traditional assignment approach. We also need to encourage a flexible classroom space, where the teacher learns equally as much from the students, and free-flowing dialogue and debate is encouraged between them. Andini envisions a future where different subjects that were traditionally separated (eg. science and art), are instead mixed. Equally crucial is preparing students to intelligently interact with AI generated content and information, and to do this we need to begin teaching early on critical thinking and visual analysis skills.

Even though Gen Z’er Andini chose to grow up without a smartphone, she does believe that the use of technology as a tool in the classroom is possible – if done in a way that doesn’t encourage the students to use it as a crutch. In this talk, Andini discusses what she envisions the future of education to be like, and also touches on the importance of technical and manual skills still being taught, and the power of bringing techniques from her experience in improv and acting classes into the traditional classroom.

Andini enjoys being a multi potential, meaning she has always cultivated interests in both the sciences and arts, and chooses to pursue all her passions, instead of settling on one specific subject. She believes that interchanging professions – especially within the gig economy – will become a normal way of life for the next generation, and that we need to start shifting the educational space to accommodate students’ many different interests and skills.

In this talk, Andini touches on the crucial yet often overlooked combination of science and art, and why we need to reconsider the way STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) is taught in school. She dives into history to show how scientists and artists have always organically worked together and needed each other, and questions why we have decided – especially in popular culture – to generate negative stereotypes of people in STEM versus people in the arts. Examples of Renaissance individuals in history are Leonardo da Vinci, Hedy Lamarrr, and even actress Jamie Lee Curtis has a patent for a new kind of diaper she invented! Anyone can love – and be good at – the sciences AND the arts. Andini believes in the power of combining one’s own unique talents and interests in the sciences and arts to not only live a more fulfilling creative life, but also a more successful one.