William Osman takes us into one of the internet’s biggest tech showcases in Open Sauce 2024

YouTuber William Osman opened up about the future of his career ahead of his upcoming tech showcase, Open Sauce, in an exclusive interview with Dexerto.

William Osman is a YouTuber and inventor known for his over-the-top videos like “renting a raccoon to simulate having a child” and building his own x-ray machine after a hospital charged him $69,000.

He’s gearing up for the second iteration of his event called ‘Open Sauce,’ touted as the “world’s biggest celebration of makers, creators, and innovators.” Open Sauce brings together some of the net’s top inventors, including names like MythBusters’ Adam Savage, tech YouTuber Mark Rober, and many more for a showcase of their craziest contraptions and gadgets.

Some of the inventions teased for Open Sauce 2024 include fried chicken vending machines, robot coffee baristas, and even a ‘real-life Gundam.’  I got the chance to speak with Osman about Open Sauce and what he sees for the future of his career as one of YouTube’s biggest inventors.

Invention is the spirit of Open Sauce

For Osman, Open Sauce is more than an opportunity to show off the wildest things creators have thought up — although that is a major point of the event, after all.

“The spirit of Open Sauce is building weird little inventions that I don’t want to say shouldn’t have been built, but honestly, a lot of them, your average person would not understand,” he said. “You’d never be able to explain why somebody built it. …When I say things that shouldn’t have been invented, it’s things that probably shouldn’t have been invented, but they’re cool. And somebody had an idea and they pursued it and they didn’t care if it was a good idea or not. It was just an idea. And they ran with it, and that’s the spirit of the event.”

One of the inventions he’s most excited about at the event is a bunk bed that some inventors turned into a go-kart, saying it’s a “great example of kind of the silliness” that Open Sauce is all about and what inspired him to create the showcase in the first place.

“I have had this infatuation with science and engineering for my entire life, and there was never a community available to me, even in school,” he explained. “I was probably one of like, three kids that would mess around trying to build things. And my teachers were… you know, they’re teachers, they’re not engineers or have much hands-on experience.”

“So I had to figure out most of this stuff on my own. By doing YouTube, I was able to find and build a community of people who like inventing things, building machines and contraptions, and chasing their weird ideas. So I decided to try to make a real-life version of that, to provide an opportunity, like a physical space for this group of people to share their weird ideas and meet the top creators they watch online, and have them all in one space and have a weekend that they look forward to every single year.”

Osman says he was inspired by Hank and John Green who notably founded VidCon, a creator-focused convention that’s been running in multiple cities across America for 24 years — but he feels it’s decidedly “lacking” in the science and engineering department.

“I’m always inspired by Hank,” Osman said. “I love those brothers. VidCon is great. I’ve always enjoyed going to it, but it’s always lacking in science and engineering because they have to hit everything. Being able to focus on just science and engineering [makes it a] much more engineering-style event. It’s like the idea of bringing the community together but in a more math and science and nerding-out way.”

Putting a spotlight on the internet’s inventors

Osman is far from the only creator starting big, community-focused events. On April 25, YouTube star MatPat hosted his Creators in Fashion show, which showed off clothing lines from six different creators like Blogilates, ZHC, Critical Role, and others. Osman says these events are great for creators to “grow” together, and that’s something Open Sauce aims to do.

“I think these are amazing opportunities for creators to start their own businesses, to help them grow their brand and to not have things that are hyper-corporate,” he said. “It’s community-driven. When you have a YouTuber or someone that people have an online relationship with, you have this pressure to deliver a good product. Now, I don’t have anybody above me breathing down my neck to make sure that something happens. 

“It’s just, how do we make this as good of an experience for the attendees and the creators and the exhibitors [as possible]? I think it’s a very healthy relationship with the audience and my sort of cohort of YouTubers.”

Among Open Sauce’s attendees will be none other than Adam Savage of MythBusters fame, who Osman says is extremely pumped about the event.

“I love Adam,” Osman told me. “He’s so excited about this that it still sort of surprises me. I thought he would be more closed off, but he has been nothing but gracious to us and he wants this event to happen. And most people who were at the event last year, all the creators, all the attendees, all the exhibitors, they want this event to happen. 

“They are so gung-ho and so excited. And the fact that Adam is amongst them, and he’s willing to help us talk about the event and promote it, is so generous of him. He’s someone I’ve looked up to my entire life and through YouTube. Being the future of science and engineering content for the next generation of engineers, we’ve sort of ended up in close enough proximity where it’s possible to reach out to him and talk and invite him to do things.”

I asked Osman if he ever saw himself spearheading such a massive celebration of creativity and ingenuity when he first started in the space — and it’s safe to say this is something he never predicted for his career.

“No, no way,” he laughed. “I couldn’t have predicted this in a thousand years. I remember my grandma telling me one time when I showed her one of my videos, ‘That’s a pipe dream. You’ll never be able to make a career out of making videos.’ And I proved her wrong. And now we’re doing even bigger and better things and contributing back to the community that helped me get to where I am. I don’t think I ever would have predicted this at all.”

As for the future of Osman’s content? The creator says he wants to keep doing “fun, interesting ideas” that will inspire and “empower” people to learn about math and science.

“That’s the goal,” he admitted. “What’s a weird idea or twist I can put on traditional things people are familiar with in their everyday lives and make a fun, interesting video? It’s the same thing with Open Sauce. How do I expand and chase these ideas and dreams that I have, and do bigger and better things and reach more people and entertain more people, and support more people?”

Open Sauce takes place on June 14th-16 at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, California, and will feature inventions from 150 creators and showcases from 500 other exhibitors.