About Us
Mission
App Inventor was founded in 2007 by educators and researchers at MIT and Google with the vision of enabling anyone—including those who may not think of themselves as coders—to create mobile apps for real, effective change in their communities. The App Inventor Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization established by the same team, and expands upon the educational initiatives of the MIT App Inventor project by offering additional resources for teachers and students across the globe. Our mission is to empower students of any background and any age to make apps that improve their lives, uplift their communities, and change the world.
Learn more about the App Inventor Foundation’s impact and work by reading our Annual Impact Report below.
Team
Dr. Natalie Lao
Executive Director
As Executive Director of the App Inventor Foundation, Natalie’s mission is to empower anyone, anywhere, of any age to create meaningful technologies that can transform their lives and the lives of people around them. She fell in love with App Inventor when she discovered it teaching high school computer science, and saw its power to rapidly transform students from passive consumers of technology into active creators of it. She joined the MIT App Inventor lab as an undergraduate research assistant during her studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she received her B.S., M.Eng., and Ph.D. in EECS and AI. At MIT, she was Co-creator and Instructor for the Deep Learning Practicum course, and led the trajectory team for the Inclusive AI Literacy and Learning project. Her research on databases, AI, ML, and educational frameworks has been featured by MIT News and UNESCO. Natalie also serves as Individual Specialist for UNESCO's AI & the Futures of Learning project.
Zareen Choudhury
Communications Manager
Zareen’s interests lie at the intersection of education technology, social good, and storytelling. She received a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT, after which she worked as a software engineer at Samsara. She then went on to teach computer science at Inspirit AI, serve as Managing Editor of Children of 1971, and complete a nonprofit fellowship through YCore. She is currently a freelance writer and cartoonist whose work has been published in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, The Nib, and more. Her role as Communications Manager at the App Inventor Foundation taps into her varied interests and experiences.
Rupa Shah
Board Member
Rupa is an accomplished non-profit executive with over 10 years of experience in the US and internationally, where she has raised over $500M and collaborated on projects worth more than $2B. Rupa currently serves as Global Program Director at Mozilla. Born and raised in Nepal, Rupa is passionate about having a voice and giving one to those who don’t. Rupa has built partnerships with governments, aid agencies, foundations, and large corporations through her various roles in impact-driven organizations. Previously, Rupa was the inaugural Director of Philanthropy at Scratch Foundation, responsible for establishing and growing the organization’s philanthropy from $9M to $28M within three years. Rupa has a Master’s degree in Non-Profit Finance and Management from Cornell University and is a visiting lecturer at Cornell, where she teaches non-profit finance and management to graduate students.
Prof. Hal Abelson
Board Member
Hal is a Professor of Computer Science and Engineering in the EECS department at MIT and a Fellow of the IEEE. His work in making information technology more accessible for all has made him a worldwide leader in computer science education. He is a founding director of Creative Commons, Public Knowledge, the Free Software Foundation, and the App Inventor project. Throughout his impressive career, he has played key roles in fostering MIT institutional educational technology initiatives and has served as co-chair of the MIT Council on Educational Technology. He has received many awards for teaching computer science, including the Bose Award, the Taylor L. Booth Education Award, and the ACM SIGCSE Award for Outstanding Contribution to Computer Science Education.
Mark Friedman
Board Member
Mark is a co-founder of the App Inventor project, led its initial development at Google as tech lead and manager, and is currently an MIT Research Affiliate at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). He has supported the growth of App Inventor from a small research project to a global platform used by millions of learners and professional app developers alike, and he continues to be dedicated to its ongoing and expanding mission. Mark has been a technology leader at companies large (e.g., Google, Microsoft, Oracle) and small (e.g., Thunkable, Piper). He also serves as an adjunct professor of computer science at the University of San Francisco. His long-standing interests are to open up computer programming to everyone, and to contribute to the uses of technology in education.
Jeff Schiller
Board Chair
Jeff is the former Area Director for Security with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), where he spent 9 years shepherding the development of critical Internet security technology including IP layer encryption, E-mail encryption, and Transport Layer Security (https). He also served as MIT Enterprise Architect for decades, where he manages MIT's Internet presence and Security Infrastructure. Jeff uses his world-class expertise to support the development and operations of the App Inventor project, ensuring secure, privacy-compliant, and speedy access for millions of students and teachers across the globe.
Advisors
Director, Hong Kong Cyberport Management Company
Charleston Sin
Karen Lang
Curriculum Developer,
Technovation
Keertan Kini
Stanford MBA/MPP
McKinsey & Company