Lisa Gelobter facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Lisa Gelobter
Gelobter at a NASA STEM panel
Born	1971 (age 53–54)
Alma mater	Brown University
Occupation	Founder and CEO of tEQuitable
Employer	tEQuitable United States Department of Education Black Entertainment Television Macromedia
Notable work	Macromedia Shockwave software

Lisa Gelobter, born in 1971, is a brilliant computer scientist and a leader in technology. She is famous for helping create the animation technology that makes GIFs possible. GIFs are those short, looping videos you see everywhere online! Lisa also served as a top digital officer for the United States Department of Education when Barack Obama was president.

In 2016, Lisa started her own company called tEQuitable. She is the CEO of this company, which offers a safe and private way for people to report problems like unfair treatment or bullying at work. Lisa raised over $2 million for tEQuitable. This made her one of only a few Black women to raise such a large amount of money for a business.

Lisa Gelobter is also very involved in helping others and making a positive change. She has worked with groups like Black Girls Code and the Kapor Center for Social Impact. These groups aim to fix issues like racism and unfairness in the technology world.

About Lisa Gelobter

Lisa Gelobter was born in 1971 in Washington, D.C., and grew up in New York City. Her father was from Poland, and her mother was from the Caribbean. From a young age, Lisa loved math. Even though her family sometimes struggled with money, her father, who worked on political campaigns, encouraged her to follow her dreams and go to college.

Lisa started attending Brown University in 1987. She graduated in 2011 with a degree in Computer Science, focusing on artificial intelligence and machine learning. Lisa's journey through college showed her amazing determination. She sometimes had to take breaks from school because of money problems. She also worked as a Teaching Assistant (TA) to help pay her way, even when she wasn't fully enrolled. Later, Lisa earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Film from New York University.

Lisa's Amazing Career in Tech

Early in her career, Lisa Gelobter worked at a company called Macromedia. There, she invented something called Shockwave. This was a huge step forward for the internet! Shockwave allowed websites to have cool graphics, 3D images, and interactive features. Before Shockwave, websites were mostly just text and simple pictures.

Lisa's invention made the internet much more exciting and interactive. It also helped lead to the rise of GIFs! Thanks to Shockwave, developers could create complex multimedia programs and even video games online. Shockwave changed the internet and how we see animations. It also influenced other important technologies like Flash and HTML5. Today, things like streaming videos, online gaming, and social media wouldn't be the same without Lisa's contributions.

After Macromedia, Lisa held many important leadership jobs at different companies. She worked at The Feedroom, Comet Systems, Brightcove, Joost Technologies, and NBC Universal. She even had a senior role in launching Hulu, a popular streaming service. Later, Lisa spent several years as the Chief Digital Officer for BET Networks.

Helping the U.S. Government

In 2015, Lisa Gelobter became the Chief Digital Service Officer for the United States Department of Education. This was during the time of President Barack Obama. In this role, she helped make HealthCare.gov better. She made the application process simpler and faster, reducing the number of pages people had to fill out.

Lisa also led the team that created the College Scorecard. This is an online tool that helps students and families compare colleges. It shows how much colleges cost and how valuable their degrees are. The College Scorecard helped colleges focus more on making education affordable and helping students succeed. This program even helped increase college graduation rates across the country by 1.5%.

Starting tEQuitable

In 2016, Lisa Gelobter started her company, tEQuitable. This company provides a private and independent platform for people to deal with issues like unfair treatment, discrimination, and harassment at work. tEQuitable gives employees a safe place to talk about workplace problems confidentially. This helps solve issues early on, before they become bigger problems. Lisa has successfully raised over $2 million to support this platform.

Lisa is also a former member of the New York Urban League STEM Advisory Board. She was recognized by Fast Company as one of the Most Creative People.

Awards and Recognition

• In 2019, Lisa and her company tEQuitable were featured in Inc.'s list of "100 Women Building America's Most Innovative and Ambitious Businesses."
• In January 2016, she was named one of the "Most Creative People in Business" by Fast Company.
• In March 2014, she was honored in an article by The Roots called "17 Black Women in Science and Tech You Should Know."
• In November 2011, she was recognized in The Roots' article "Blacks in Silicone Valley."