As a young child, Dominic Canare always looked forward to Friday evenings when his family took turns playing computer games.

“The computer had such a small hard drive that we had to delete things off of it to get new games,” Canare says.
When his mom accidentally deleted important information, 8-year-old Canare set aside his video games, making it his mission to fix the computer.

Decades later, the Wichita State University doctoral student who was still carries with him the curiosity he had fixing his family’s old computer, was recently recognized for his endeavors as a Bright Future Award winner at the Innovation Award Ceremony hosted by WSU Ventures at Wichita State.

In his second year of the five-year Human Factors doctorate program at WSU, Canare is researching human-computer interaction. Some of his projects include working on a multi-touch table (essentially a big iPad) and a hands-free computer that integrates gaze tracking and hand gestures for navigation to aid people with motor disabilities or doctors during surgery.

But Canare is not just a full-time doctoral student. He is also the president and founding member of MakeICT, a space at 1500 E. Douglas for community members to collaborate and create new technology.

For $25 a month, members of MakeICT have 24/7 access to a wood shop, metal shop, electronics lab and fabrication lab, as well as classrooms, a lounge, art gallery and the soon-to-be ceramics studio, textile shop and printmaking studio. They also offer free or low-cost workshops at least once a month for members and non-members based on what people want to learn.

“We are doing everything we can to keep the barrier to entry as low as possible for people to create and explore,” Canare says. “We believe that your level of income should not determine whether or not you can create.”

Founding members of MakeICT started the space with money out of their own pockets to pay the rent. Since then, it has received help from donors and grants from the Knight Foundation and the Wichita Community Foundation.

Now 31 years old, Canare fills his small amount of free time with smaller projects such as making video game controllers, Christmas lightshows and Halloween costumes.

With plenty of experience under his belt as a software developer, software analyst, small business owner and a health care systems consultant before returning to school and opening MakeICT, Canare is not concerned with his future career goals.

“In 2013, I quit working and spent my time volunteering in Wichita,” Canare says. “I’m happiest when I am not working. I feel like this is my calling, this is what I am supposed to be doing. I want to find ways to use my skill set to try to create something that can make the world a better place.”