Zee K.

Experience

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  Zee Productions

  Oct 2003 - May 2008

  Videographer and Editor

  Live videography and editing of footage for local musicians Electronic Press Kits-Die Mannequin-Letters to Elora-Dirty and the Derelicts-The Craigs-Urban Watersand more

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  Statistics Canada

  Sept 2005 - May 2008

  Deputy Polling Officer

  Managed polling stations and tallied ballots during multiple provincial and federal elections

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  Sea to Sky Freenet Association

  May 2007 - Sept 2007

  Volunteer Coordinator

  Coordination of volunteersProgram development and facilitation of youth and adult 'Cyber Camp' focused on basic and advanced digital literary and technical skills. 1 on 1 digital skills tutoring: website building, graphic design, video editing.

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  The Bright Red Crayon

  Sept 2009 - Jan 2013

  Founder

  Maker focused youth programming at local festivals, Neighbourhood Houses, Vancouver Parks Board as well as professional development workshops and team building events.

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  MakerMobile:Workshop on Wheels

  Nov 2012 - Sept 2014

  Co-Founder/Co-Director

  I co-founded the Maker Mobile Workshops on Wheels, the first iteration of a mobile classroom as an outreach project to share Maker Education with classrooms and libraries around BC. Since 2012, we have engaged over 4000 students and educators through programming, e-textiles and simple robotics workshops.Clients Include: Vancouver International Children’s Festival, WhistlerChildren’s Festival, Langley School District, Richmond School District, BurnabySchool District, the Industry Training Authority(ITA Youth), VIVO Media Arts,Telus World of Science. In 2015, I was approached by the Industry TrainingAuthority to use my expertise in maker culture to inspire teachers at the ITAYouth conference Show less

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  Vancouver Maker Foundation

  May 2013 - Sept 2017

  In partnership with Vancouver Maker Foundation, I spearheaded the MakerEducation Initiative in Vancouver. As part of this initiative, we founded theMaker Education Meetup to connect educators, makers and homeschoolers toeducational resources and events. Since our first event in 2013, our meetuphas grown to over 3000 members.Partners: The Centre for Digital Media, Emily Carr University, Mozilla, theNorth Van City Library, Richmond City Library, Surrey Library, and VIVO MediaArts. Show less

  • Young Makers Coordinator

    Jan 2011 - Sept 2017

  • Co Founder and Facilitator of Maker Education Meetup Vancouver

    May 2013 - Apr 2017
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  Magic Trout Imaginarium

  Jun 2013 - now

  Together with my business partner Emily Smith, we brought the maker ethos and 'Growth Mindset' into schools and libraries in BC. In 2016, we pitched a Maker Club project to the Industry Training Authority (ITA) to inspire grade 6 students to explore the trades through hands-on learning. Through the ITA, schools receive $3000 in funding for the program, and received professional training on how to run a maker club in schools. The program was released to schools across BC and impacted 240 teachers and 7200 students in its first year.Magic Trout Imaginarium also sells environmentally friendly wool classroom supplies (B2B & B2C) Show less I played a key role in bringing the tiny house movement to Canada. To do this, I recruited and registered 27 students for a 13-week series of hands-on workshops and fundraised 30k for building materials and supplies. Participants in the workshop series learned to build all aspects of a tiny house in partnership with Tumbleweed Tiny Homes. The house was later used as both a show home for those considering living tiny and a mobile classroom artist residency located at Trout Lake Community Center. The publicity from this project resulted in a partnership with the BC Tiny House Collective and led to The District of North Vancouver, New Westminister and Victoria exploring the possibility of developing a tiny house community. I participated in local advocacy groups and public awareness-raising events (such as "Go, Go Tiny" at Telus World of Science) alongside several other tiny house advocates to demand affordable housing alternatives. Community partnerships: Vancouver Tool Library, Vancouver Community Laboratory & Vancouver Trade School, Vivo Media Arts, Tumbleweed Homes etc.Media and Publicity: featured in major local publications including The Georgia Straight, the Province, Vancouver Courier Show less

  • Education and Events Manager/ E-Commerce

    Jan 2013 - now

  • Project Manager and Public Relations

    Jun 2013 - Sept 2014
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  Neil Squire Society

  Sept 2017 - Apr 2021

  As Community Coordinator, I recruited 60+ volunteer chapter leaders and champions(Canada and USA.) Once onboarded, I managed connections between requesters and makers and engaged a community engagement of 4000+ volunteers on our online forum to deliver 1600+ assistive devices in 2020 alone.In order to sustain our chapter program over time, I created a virtual onboarding process for staff and volunteers using LMS (E-learning) and automation software. To maintain engagement, I partnered with chapter leaders and external organizations to host relevant community events, campaigns and contests such as the "Make Occupational Therapy Fun" workshop series in partnership with JoyLabz Makey Makey, and created video marketing materials that were distributed through our newsletter and social media accounts.In order to expand our program reach, I developed worked with partners to develop educational content for social media, high school programs, and post-secondary institutions. As of April 2021, 17,000 students across 500 schools registered in the PrintLab MakeAble Challenge and a BAA-approved Grade 12 Makers Making Change course was created in accordance with the BC Career Education curriculum. Show less Makers Making Change connects makers to people with disabilities to create low-cost, open-source assistive technology. With an open-source library of over 100 designs and over 60 volunteer chapters across the world, the program consistently delivers thousands of free and low-cost assistive devices to people with disabilities every year.As Project Manager, I recruited, trained and managed 6 Regional Coordinators and over 4000 individual makers who volunteered to build open-source assistive technology at buildathon events in partnership with rehabilitation hospitals, educational institutions and corporate partners in Canada and the US. Using these buildathon events as a catalyst, I worked with Regional Coordinators and volunteer chapter leaders to create and sustain hundreds of partnerships in their regions including local hospitals and healthcare centres, disability organizations, high schools, post-secondary institutions, and corporations including Electronics Arts, Telus, Bell, and Microsoft. In this role, I also assisted with grant writing and performed quarterly grant reporting & statistics for funding distributed by the Government of Canada, RBC, Vancouver Foundation, and more.Working alongside our in-house engineering team, I created processes to capture device feedback by connecting directly with testers as well as through surveys and through reviews on our online forum. Together our team delivered 5000+ devices build at over hundreds of events funded by federal, provincial, and community grants. Show less

  • Community Coordinator of Makers Making Change

    Sept 2019 - Apr 2021

  • Project Manager of Makers Making Change

    Sept 2017 - Sept 2019
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  Affirma

  Sept 2021 - Jul 2022

  Hardware Community Program Manager for Microsoft

  I was hired to develop a community strategy for the Accessible Accessories Department at Microsoft as well as work with beta testers to collect feedback during the product development process. For this, I created a strategic plan which involved researching and planning events and campaigns as well as building the social presence by highlighting community-created content. For the release of the Microsoft Adaptive Accessories, I planned a series of education-focused events designed to create custom solutions for individual users to demonstrate use case scenarios and populate the Shapeways library with community-created mouse tails and button toppers. In addition to events planning I created customer education campaigns through social media and through post-purchase funnels and follow-up processes for each user segment. Show less

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  Rural Islands Economic Partnerships RIEP

  Feb 2023 - now

  Website Optimization and Educational Curriculum

  -I co-developed the educational content for the Skills Up program: a digital marketing training program specifically for Gabriolans and rural gulf island business owners-Freelance branding, website development and SEO-Websites: Ocean Track and more

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  Thunder Laser Canada

  Mar 2023 - now

  Marketing Coordinator

  Over the past year, I've worked with Thunder Laser Canada to optimize and grow their overall business by implementing changes with over 2X growth in 1 year through the following:-Events Management: Organizing and attending industry relevant trade shows, conferences and workshops-Optimization of website using Wordpress Elementor combined with plugins, HTML and CSS and increased the click-through rate.-Doubled click-through rate on Google, Facebook and Instagram by creating engaging and regionally relevant ads-Increased engagement and followers on social accounts by over 2x-Increased our website traffic by 3x by implementing On and Off-page SEO strategies.-Database Admin: Refined sales processes and pipelines through automation in Zoho CRM-Community Management: Ambassador programs and online communities -Development of laser consumables e-Commerce site Show less