Avnet (Nasdaq: AVT) today announced that Hackster.io and element14 continue to achieve impressive growth, and have achieved two milestones: Hackster has surpassed one million members and element14 celebrated its 10th anniversary. Together Hackster and element14 comprise the world's largest collaborative network of engineers, entrepreneurs and developers who learn by engaging each other on ideas, new products, discussion groups and other useful online resources.

"While product development can be complex, time consuming and highly competitive, the collaboration and strong partnerships found in our communities can help anyone navigate the path to production," said Bill Amelio, Chief Executive Officer, Avnet. "Hackster's large and vibrant community and the proven and reliable industry network of element14 are at the heart of our end-to-end ecosystem, and key to our ability to truly help anyone take an idea from the back of a napkin and turn it into a full-fledged product."

Hackster, Avnet's project-based community for anyone who wants to learn about building hardware and programming, membership has grown 10-fold since 2016. "Hackster's growth can be attributed to our two core values: information and education," said Adam Benzion, cofounder and CEO at Hackster.io. "With Avnet's support, we have accelerated our outreach to more people in more places and offered better learning tools for hardware creation. And, as interest in advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning and blockchain continues to grow, we're seeing the emergence of even more exciting ideas and projects in our community."

Celebrating its 10th anniversary this summer, element14 is a discussion-based community comprised of more than 650,000 members that connects engineers across the globe to solve each other's technical and design challenges, and is one of the longest running networks of its kind in the electronics industry. "During the past 10 years, we've cultivated a lasting, active and valuable community for engineers and entrepreneurs," said Dianne Kibbey, Global Head of Community and Social Media for element14. "Statistics show that only 1 in 10 communities make it beyond their first three years, but element14 is still thriving today because we're staying focused on collaborating with our members to provide the resources and programs they need to increase their knowledge of new technology and bring their projects to life."

In addition to the strong growth of its communities element14 and Hackster.io, Avnet also continues to engage startups, engineers and innovators online about the advantages of its unique end-to-end ecosystem. Most recently, Avnet announced it is giving away 20,000 free Azure Sphere starter kits and hosting two design challenges to help developers create highly secure, end-to-end IoT solutions. The initiative is part of Avnet's ongoing partnership with Microsoft's Azure Sphere Ecosystem and is taking place on both Hackster.io and element14, with prizes valued at $70,000.

By delivering design, product, marketing and supply chain expertise, Avnet helps companies reduce the time, cost and complexities of bringing products to market.

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