19-year-old entrepreneur is working on a coffee mug that will charge your phone

Ann Makosinski, a 19-year-old student and entrepreneur from British Columbia, has an idea for a flashlight that runs on the heat from a human hand to charge. She’s also working on a coffee mug that uses excess heat to generate power so you can charge your phone while drinking a hot beverage.

She’s also writing a children’s book, developing a TV project, and planning a keynote in Saudi Arabia next month. No big deal. On Tuesday’s “The Morning Blaze with Doc Thompson,” the guys wondered how the hardworking teen gets her ideas and what first inspired her to become an inventor. Makosinski, whose company is named Makotronics, talked about her drive to keep learning and her early curiosity as a kid taking apart computers with her dad.

“I think I’ve always had a drive to just keep learning in my spare time and use the resources around me,” she said.

She described her start playing with transistors to make inventions as a kid as well as her process today of building on what earlier inventors discovered to implement her new ideas.

“I was gonna do that,” Brad Staggs joked about her flashlight invention.

Kal Elsebai, who is a dad to two girls, wanted her advice on encouraging kids to be creative.

If you want entrepreneurial kids, teach them to be problem-solvers and don’t flood them with stuff, Makosinski asserted. It’s best to give them fewer toys and include things they can take apart and put back together, so they can create their own solutions.

“Less is much better, I promise,” she said.

To see more from Doc, visit his channel on TheBlaze and listen live to “The Morning Blaze with Doc Thompson” weekdays 6–9 a.m. ET, only on TheBlaze Radio Network.