Petra Rees: “I Realized 3D Printing Can Be The Answer To So Many Questions”

Petra Rees is originally from the Czech Republic and is now based in South Africa. 

She has started a few successful enterprises in her life; a destination marketing agency in Seychelles and one of the largest virtual business support and enterprise development centers on the African continent servicing over 50,000 small businesses over the years. 

Her new exciting business venture, the Why Toyz, provides fun educational content for kids ages 3-8 that one can 3D print at home or at school and has recently won the Best Edutech category in the whole of Southern Africa as part of the Southern Africa Startup Awards (SASA) as well as Seedstars Johannesburg!

Nora Toure: Petra, could you let us know about your background and what brought you to 3D printing in the first place? 

Petra Rees: I am an entrepreneur with a recently successful business exit. Being a mom of young children, I became obsessed with wanting to raise creative geniuses and ensure they become awesome leaders in a fundamentally different future. I was looking at different technologies and ways to educate my kids to equip them with the right skills. I looked at manufacturing, VR and AR and then I was at a Singularity University Conference when I put the two and two together. I realized that 3D printing can be the answer to so many questions I had… about being able to create, being flexible and agile, dealing with exponential technologies, minimizing any supply chain and logistics issues etc. 

Nora Toure: Can you describe your very first experience with 3D Printing? 

Petra Rees: I started to research the best value for home 3D printers and tested a number of them. I was so scared at the beginning that I was asking my husband to take out the filament because I didn’t want to damage anything…. Haha

Nora Toure: Could you explain furthermore what Why Toyz is and the services that you are providing? 

Petra Rees: Why Toyz provides fun educational content for young kids one can 3D print at home or at school directly from our app. A child can choose what she wants to print on the app, which informs the printer and voila! Our edutainment videos and development guidebooks further explore the various concepts and add value to the content we created. 

Our content inspires creative, problem-solving, analytical and critical thinking. And now we add another component to it – letting the small 3-7-year-old kids design what they want to create!

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