Jay Silver

Jay Silver was Intel′s first Maker Research Scientist and Founder/Director at JoyLabz; which produces products that help people to become agents of creative change in the world. He’s invented many popular creative platforms such as Drawdio (Time′s Top 15 Toys for Young Geniuses) and MaKey MaKey (Kickstarted for $550,000). CNN has called him “…a leading proponent of the Maker Movement. The Maker Movement is a rebirth of DIY (do it yourself) and DIWO (do it with others) with an emphasis on the whimsical, entrepreneurial and educational. The most visceral instantiation of the Maker Movement are the dozens of Maker Faires held around the world. Jay studied electrical engineering at Georgia Tech where he was named Engineer of the Year. He was awarded a Gates Scholarship to earn a master’s in Internet Technology from Cambridge University. He also holds a master’s and PhD ABD from MIT Media Lab where he was a National Science Foundation Fellow and Lemelson Prize winner for inventiveness. A popular class he taught at MIT was called “Radical Design for Learning”; where students took action designing iterative learning situations with a focus on experiential and nontraditional learning modalities. Jay helped develop Scratch, an online programming language used by millions. His inventions have been licensed and productized by many electronics and toy companies. Jay’s company bootstrapped $2 million in revenue in the first year and continues it’s rapid growth to date. Jay has been a featured keynote speaker at TED, PopTech, University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, IDEO, Google and many other global events. He has worked for companies and organizations ranging in diversity from Lincoln Labs (national defense research laboratory), to BellSouth, and UC San Diego. He has exhibited internationally at many museums including Ars Electronica and NT MOFA.