Lewis James “Jim” Marggraff (born June 4, 1958) is an American

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

and

inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea, or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...

. He is known as the inventor of the

LeapPad The LeapPad is a range of tablet computers developed for children, specifically of the ages 3-9. Various models of the LeapPad have been developed by LeapFrog Enterprises since 1999. Development history The device, resembling a talking book, to ...

and is the founder and CEO of Kibeam Learning.

Education

Marggraff spent his college years at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

(MIT). While at MIT, Marggraff earned

bachelor's A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ( ...

and

master's A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

degrees in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

and

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

Business career

Marggraff’s first company, StrataCom, was sold to

Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc. (using the trademark Cisco) is an American multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, s ...

for $4.5 billion in 1996. With his second company,

Explore Technologies Explore Technologies, Inc. was founded in Sunnyvale, California in 1995. The company was acquired by LeapFrog on July 22, 1998. The explore team produced $99 and $129 versions of the Odyssey globe released under the LeapFrog label in 1999. Th ...

, Marggraff and his team invented the Odyssey Atlasphere, an interactive globe. Explore Technologies was sold to

LeapFrog Enterprises LeapFrog Enterprises, Inc. is an educational entertainment and electronics company based in Emeryville, California. LeapFrog designs, develops, and markets technology-based learning products and related content for the education of children f ...

in 1998 and Marggraff went to work for the company. While at LeapFrog, Marggraff invented the LeapPad Learning System. He also founded

Livescribe Livescribe is a paper-based computing platform that consists of a digital pen, digital paper, software applications, and developer tools. Central to the Livescribe platform is the ''smartpen,'' a ballpoint pen with an embedded computer and digi ...

, which invented the

smart pen A digital pen is an input device which captures the handwriting or brush strokes of a user and converts handwritten analog information into digital data, enabling the data to be utilized in various applications. This type of pen is used in conjunc ...

, and Eyefluence, an eye-tracking technology company that made AR and VR applications. Eyefluence was acquired by

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

in 2016. In 2011, Marggraff was named Entrepreneur of the Year for Technology in

Northern California Northern California (commonly shortened to NorCal) is a geocultural region that comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California, spanning the northernmost 48 of the state's List of counties in California, 58 counties. Northern Ca ...

Ernst & Young EY, previously known as Ernst & Young, is a multinational corporation, multinational professional services partnership, network based in London, United Kingdom. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and PwC, it is one of the Big Four accounting firms, Big F ...

. Marggraff currently serves as the

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

of Kibeam, a company that creates educational and communicational products for children.

StrataCom

Marggraff was a founding engineer of StrataCom. StrataCom supplied

Asynchronous Transfer Mode Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a telecommunications standard defined by the American National Standards Institute and International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T, formerly CCITT) for digital trans ...

Frame Relay Frame Relay (FR) is a standardized wide area network (WAN) technology that specifies the Physical layer, physical and data link layers of digital telecommunications channels using a packet switching methodology. Frame Relay was originally devel ...

, and network switching equipment. The company also produced the FastPacket, the first commercial cell switch. Marggraff has claimed that this technological trio enables for global computer connection, as well as reliable high speed connection.

Explore Technologies

After learning that one in seven Americans could not locate

the United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

on an unmarked map, Marggraff, his MIT roommate, and another friend created the Odyssey Atlasphere, a globe that would talk to its user and deliver facts when touched with a complementary

stylus A stylus is a writing utensil or tool for scribing or marking into softer materials. Different styluses were used to write in cuneiform by pressing into wet clay, and to scribe or carve into a wax tablet. Very hard styluses are also used to En ...

. The Odyssey Atlasphere attracted the attention of

, which acquired

in 1998.

LeapFrog

When his two children were learning to read at home, Marggraff conceived the idea of taking the touch-responsive surface of the Odyssey and flattening it to be used as paper in books. The result was the

LeapFrog Leapfrog is a children's game of physical movement of the body in which players vault over each other's stooped backs. History Games of this sort have been called by this name since at least the late sixteenth century.LeapPad The LeapPad is a range of tablet computers developed for children, specifically of the ages 3-9. Various models of the LeapPad have been developed by LeapFrog Enterprises since 1999. Development history The device, resembling a talking book, to ...

. The educational tool debuted in 1999 and from 2001 to 2002, it was the highest selling toy on the market in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Livescribe

After leaving LeapFrog in 2005, Marggraff formed his next company,

, in 2007. The company used paper-based computing platforms to create the first line of smart pens, which were ballpoint pens with embedded computer and digital audio recording systems. The first edition of the smart pen, the Pulse, was released in October 2008. New editions of the pen have been released, with the most recent being the Livescribe 3. The company was acquired by

Anoto Anoto Group AB (formerly C Technologies) is a Swedish cloud-based software provider (SaaS). Products Digital Pen The Digital Pen is an ink pen combined with a digital camera that digitally records everything that is written. It works by rec ...

in 2015.

Eyefluence

Eyefluence was founded by Marggraff in 2013. The company developed

eye-tracking Eye tracking is the process of measuring either the point of gaze (physiology), gaze (where one is looking) or the motion of an eye relative to the head. An eye tracker is a device for measuring eye positions and Eye movement (sensory), eye mo ...

and eye-interactive technology for use in

augmented Augment or augmentation may refer to: Language *Augment (Indo-European), a syllable added to the beginning of the word in certain Indo-European languages * Augment (Bantu languages), a morpheme that is prefixed to the noun class prefix of nouns ...

, mixed, and

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a Simulation, simulated experience that employs 3D near-eye displays and pose tracking to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video gam ...

devices A device is usually a constructed tool. Device may also refer to: Technology Computing, electronics, mechanisms and telecommunication * Appliance, a device for a particular task * Computer, a computing device * Device file, an interface of a pe ...

. In 2016, Eyefluence was acquired by Google.

Kibeam

Marggraff is the founding CEO of Kibeam (formerly named Kinoo), a company that focuses on children’s educational tools. Kibeam partnered with the Lastinger Center at the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preem ...

in Gainseville to boost literacy as part of a research pilot in 2023.

Rotary and volunteering

Marggraff is a member of the

Lamorinda Lamorinda is an area within Contra Costa County, California in the United States. The name is a portmanteau derived from the three cities that make up the region: Lafayette, Moraga and Orinda. Lamorinda is located east of the Berkeley Hil ...

Sunrise Rotary Club in

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. He was named “Rotarian of the Year” in 2018 by the club. Marggraff Executive produced a film made for virtual reality titled "One Small Act" as part of a partnership between

and Rotary. The film was released at the

Rotary International Rotary International is one of the largest service organizations in the world. The self-declared mission of Rotary, as stated on its website, is to "provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, goodwill, and p ...

Convention in 2017. In his keynote address at the 2018 Rotary Convention, Marggraff told the story of how the LeapPad helped educate thousands of women in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

. In 2004, the company was contacted by the former US Secretary of

Health and Human Services The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the US federal government created to protect the health of the US people and providing essential human services. Its motto is "Im ...

Tommy Thompson Tommy George Thompson (born November 19, 1941) is an American politician who served as the 19th United States secretary of Health and Human Services from 2001 to 2005 in the Presidency of George W. Bush, cabinet of President of the United State ...

, to create LeapPads for Afghan women. The LeapPads created by Marggraff and his team used the

Pashto Pashto ( , ; , ) is an eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family, natively spoken in northwestern Pakistan and southern and eastern Afghanistan. It has official status in Afghanistan and the Pakistani province of Khyb ...

and

Dari Dari (; endonym: ), Dari Persian (, , or , ), or Eastern Persian is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan. Dari is the Afghan government's official term for the Persian language;Lazard, G.Darī – The New Persian ...

languages and contained stories that educated women on topics such as

immunization Immunization, or immunisation, is the process by which an individual's immune system becomes fortified against an infectious agent (known as the antigen, immunogen). When this system is exposed to molecules that are foreign to the body, called ' ...

and spacing

pregnancies Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring gestates inside a woman's uterus. A multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins. Conception usually occurs following vaginal intercourse, but can also o ...

; 20,000 of these LeapPads were sent to health centers in

. Marggraff is a member of the board of directors for the Team Gleason Foundation, a

non-profit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

raising funds and awareness for

ALS Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or—in the United States—Lou Gehrig's disease (LGD), is a rare, terminal neurodegenerative disorder that results in the progressive loss of both upper and low ...

. It was started by former

NFL The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The N ...

player

Steve Gleason Stephen Michael Gleason (born March 19, 1977) is an American former professional football player who played as a safety with the New Orleans Saints of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Washington State Couga ...

after he was diagnosed with

in 2011.

Personal life

Marggraff has been married to his wife, MJ, since 1988. Together, they have two children, Blake and Annie. In 2004, Marggraff was named “Father of the Year” by the National Father’s Day Council. MJ Marggraff, Jim Marggraff’s wife, has a

doctoral degree A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

from

USC USC may refer to: Education United States * Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, Santurce, Puerto Rico * University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina ** University of South Carolina System, a state university system of South Carolina * ...

and is a trained pilot. In 2016, she published ''Finding the Wow: How Dreams Take Flight at Midlife''. In 2011, Marggraff’s son, Blake, along with fellow

high school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...

classmate Matthew Feddersen, won the

Intel International Science and Engineering Fair The Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) is an annual science fair in the United States. It is owned and administered by the Society for Science, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. Each May, more ...

for their work with an experimental cancer treatment. While attending

Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) is a private research university in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1853 by a group of civic leaders and named for George Washington, the university spans 355 acres across its Danforth ...

, Marggraff’s daughter, Annie, founded the Bear Cubs Running Team, an athletic club for people on the

autism spectrum Autism, also known as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by differences or difficulties in social communication and interaction, a preference for predictability and routine, sensory processing d ...

References

1958 births Living people 21st-century American businesspeople American company founders Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni {{improve categories, date=January 2024