Skip to Content
MIT News magazine

Nicholas Powley '04

Inventor hangs out his shingle.
March 12, 2007

Nicholas Powley ‘04 is in the business of finding better ways to do things. His condo in St. Paul, MN. is a model of efficiency. He’s converted his bedroom into a work space and sleeps on a Murphy bed in the living room. And he’s simplified maintenance. To haul logs to his second-floor fireplace, he ties one piece of firewood every few feet to a 60-foot rope suspended from a window. When Powley takes out the trash and recycling, he lowers it out through the window.

Nicholas Powley ’04 founded his own invention firm, Open Forum Design.

Although he gets an occasional chuckle from neighbors on trash day, they value his contributions to the community. “I help people fix stuff around the neighborhood,” he says. He also works with about 60 students at nearby Johnson High School, where he’s helping them invent and design a product for a real-world business–in this case, a bakery chain. His goal, he says, is “to improve the climate for invention in the U.S.” Through a new fellowship, Powley is helping the Minnesota Museum of Science build innovation into its educational programs. Recently he has been invited to teach engineering graphics at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul.

Powley runs his own invention consulting business, Open Forum Design, developing medical and other products and helping other inventors take their ideas from conception to marketplace. For client Rockler Hardware, he works with the chain’s more enthusiastic customers, who want to create new tools. Another client is a high-powered company working to combat kidney disease.

At MIT, Powley didn’t always do exactly what was expected. In his sophomore engineering class, he wrote his own assignments and kept his work logs instead of turning them in. Yet by graduation he had won a mechanical-engineering award for ingenuity and creativity and an International Design Competition Award in the 2.007 robotics contest.

During Powley’s freshman year, Professor Woodie Flowers told him MIT could be either “a steamroller or a candy store.” Powley chose to think of it as a sweet opportunity, so he dove in–collaborating on projects with professors and friends, attending Enterprise Forum gatherings, and having fun.

Keep Reading

Most Popular

This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI

The tool, called Nightshade, messes up training data in ways that could cause serious damage to image-generating AI models. 

Rogue superintelligence and merging with machines: Inside the mind of OpenAI’s chief scientist

An exclusive conversation with Ilya Sutskever on his fears for the future of AI and why they’ve made him change the focus of his life’s work.

The Biggest Questions: What is death?

New neuroscience is challenging our understanding of the dying process—bringing opportunities for the living.

How to fix the internet

If we want online discourse to improve, we need to move beyond the big platforms.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.