Limor Fried
Limor Fried (better known as LadyAda, paying homage to her hero) is a electrical engineering graduate from MIT and founder of AdaFruit Industries. She's played a critical role in the rise of the DIY hobby scene through her work in the Open Source Hardware community. It's a mantra she lives and breathes, as all products her company produce ship with schematics, tutorials and code to accompany them. It takes a lot of courage to enable anyone, including competitors, to essentially copy your work, but LadyAda is in it for the greater good. A true educator at heart, she's developed guides and tutorials for all ages, from advanced circuit board design tips all the way down to merit badges and science-based coloring books (http://www.adafruit.com/coloringbook). Her manuals all consolidated at http://learn.adafruit.com/ are an excellent way to learn a new skill, start with adding some fancy bits to a project, or learn what electricity is. More importantly, her insistence on quality education is highly infectious, and due to her constant stream of tips for educators and kids doing amazing things, is a huge part of my recent and future involvement in MESA and FIRST, and getting kids to do cool stuff.
