Tiffany Shlain

Emmy-nominated filmmaker, speaker, and Webby Awards Founder Tiffany Shlain has received over 80 awards and distinctions for her films and work, including inclusion in the Albert Einstein Foundation’s upcoming book and initiative Genius: 100 Visions for the Future, being on NPR’s list of Best Commencement Speeches and by Newsweek as “one of the women shaping the 21st Century.” She is also co-founder of 50/50 Day, Character Day and The International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences. Her first book 24/6: The Power of Unplugging One Day a Week was published by Simon & Schuster’s Gallery Books on September 24th. The book explores her family’s decade-long, transformative practice of turning off screens one day each week for what they call their Technology Shabbats; the past, present and future of technology; and the effects our 24/7 world has on individuals, our relationships, and our society. She has premiered four films at Sundance, including her acclaimed feature documentary Connected: An Autobiography about Love, Death & Technology, which The New York Times hailed as “high-tech Terry Gilliam,” and “Examining Everything From the Big Bang to Twitter.” The US State Department has selected four of Shlain’s films including Connected to represent the U.S. at embassies around the world for their American Film Showcase and she serves as a film expert for selected envoys. Tiffany’s film 50/50: Rethinking the Past, Present, and Future of Women + Power, premiered live at TEDWomen, at 275 TEDx’s globally, and on Refinery29. It was the centerpiece film for first annual 50/50 Day which had over 11,000 screenings around the globe all linked together in an online discussion about what it’s going to take to get to a more gender balanced world. The Second Annual 50/50 Day occurred on April 26th, 2018 with over 36,000 screening events globally. The next 50/50 Day is planned for 2020. Her films and art installations have shown at museums including Leonardo Da Vinci Museumand “The Whole Cinemagillah,” recently had an exhibit at The National Museum of American Jewish History. Tiffany’s original series, The Future Starts Here was nominated for an Emmy Award in New Approaches: Arts, Lifestyle, Culture and has over 40 million views to date. Shlain’s films employ her signature style of fast-paced images, colorful animations, deep scientific research and daring and funny insights to encourage us all to think about where we’re headed in our increasingly connected world. Tiffany is a world-renowned speaker and has given keynotes at Google, Harvard, NASA, and was the closing speaker for TEDWomen and TEDMED. Tiffany was the on-air Internet expert on ABC’s Good Morning America with Diane Sawyer in the early days of the web, is a Henry Crown Fellow of The Aspen Institute, and was invited to advise then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the Internet and technology. She currently serves on the Leadership Board of The Center on Media and Child Health at Harvard’s Boston Children’s Hospital. She has contributed articles for Harvard Business Review, CNN Documentary Magazine. TED Conferences published a TEDBook based on one of her films, Brain Power: From Neurons to Networks, and she has been writing a quarterly newsletter about ideas and culture since 1998 called Breakfast @ Tiffany’s. Tiffany runs the Let it Ripple film studio in San Francisco where they make films and create global days around subjects shaping our lives. Their global initiative Character Day features films on character development (including her films The Science of Character, The Making of a Mensch & The Adaptable Mind) had over 200,000 groups in 125 countries and all 50 states. The 6th Annual Character Day will be on Sept 27 & 28th. Her films have been translated into multiple languages and had over 50 million views. She lives in Northern California with her husband and collaborator Ken Goldberg (an artist & professor of robotics at UC Berkeley) and their two daughters Odessa & Blooma.