Zach Kaplan is the CEO of Inventables, a company that collects and shows off new materials and new ideas (you can see their latest collection on Discovery Channel's new show, "Prototype This!").

Why you should listen

Zach Kaplan founded Inventables in 2002 with co-founder Keith Schacht. The firm seeks out interesting new materials, and blue-skies new uses for new materials, bringing its subscribers fresh ideas for commercial products (and the world's most amazing toys).

Inventables is contributing to the new Discovery Channel show "Prototype This! " You can see three of the company's distinctive racks of materials in the Design Room on Prototype Island.

Zach Kaplan’s TED talk

More news and ideas from Zach Kaplan

Business

Trendables — 6 products that can

March 13, 2009

-able, everyone’s favorite “can-do” adjective suffix, is enjoying a revival. 20-some years since its heyday, we’ve found it stitched to no less than six modern product names, deriving for them a certain adroitness that a lonesome noun mightn’t have provided. And two of these products, as it happens, have been demoed at TED. 1. Siftables: […]

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Invention

Toys from the future: The Inventables guys on TED.com

October 30, 2008

The Inventables guys, co-founders Zach Kaplan and Keith Schacht, demo some amazing new materials and how we might use them. Look for squishy magnets, odor-detecting ink, “dry” liquid and a very surprising 10-foot pole. (Recorded February 2005 in Monterey, California. Duration: 15:46.)   Watch Zach Kaplan and Keith Schacht’s 2005 demo on TED.com, where you […]

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