In addition to being a prolific inventor and 5x serial entrepreneur, Jim has explored and tinkered with mnemonic systems and graphoanalysis for decades. At MIT, Jim taught his Phi Delta Theta fraternity brothers and fellow Shakespeare Ensemble thespians mind-feats and magic tricks with phonemic-based memory tools. Performances and amazement abounded. Years later, pursuing his fascination with learning, media, and technology to invent the billion dollar, award-record breaking LeapPad Learning System, Jim termed this new form of interactivity — paper-based multi-media. He brought to life over 300 LeapPad books built upon a detailed set of standards & guidelines embodied in a new scripting language, PAMLA (Paper Based Multimedia Language), that he created. Jim then taught design teams around the world how to merge phonemic-awareness, art, kinesthetics, music, voice, and stories to engage hundreds of millions of kids with a new tool to teach reading — possibly making a dent in the problem of global illiteracy.
Jim’s wife MJ, daughter Annie (17,) and son, Blake (19) all share his entrepreneurial gene. Most recently, Blake was awarded the Gordon E. Moore Award for the Intel ISEF, from among 7 million high school science projects, for developing a treatment for cancer. Blake’s research was enabled by a home garage chem-lab built with Dad, and was preceded by years of neighborhood pyrotechnics fraying family and neighbor nerves. Blake is now working on launching a business from his freshman dorm room at Wash. U. in St. Louis. Current explosions are cognitive rather than chemical.
As the inventor of the Livescribe smartpen, and company's founder, Jim’s passion continues for advancing Livescribe's platform, while exploring several new startups to change the way we think, and help learners of all ages blow past their self-perceived potential.
