North Bay Woman

26 NORTH BAY WOMAN | S P R I N G 2 0 1 5 By Judith M. Wilson Moxie has led Tiffany Shlain down some interesting paths. She's a filmmaker who founded the Webby Awards and the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences, and she currently runs the Moxie Institute, a film studio in San francisco that developed cloud filmmaking, an innovative method of making films collaboratively. Among her credits are "The future Starts Here", an Emmy-nominated series of five-minute episodes that explores diverse topics ranging from Technology Shabbats to dreams, and a nonprofit series, "Let It Ripple: Mobile films" for Global Change. The daughter of psychologist Carol Lewis Jaffee and the late Leonard Shlain, a noted author, inventor and surgeon, Shlain, 45, grew up in Mill Valley, and now she and her husband, Ken Goldberg, a professor of robotics at the university of California, Berkeley, and an artist who works with her on films, are raising their two daughters, Odessa, 12, and Blooma, 6, in her hometown. What did you think you'd be when you grew up? " "I was supposed to be a doctor," Shlain says, but her interest in filmmaking started early. She enjoyed going to movies with her whole family at the Sequoia and the Rafael, and afterward, she says, "We'd have big family discussions." How were your mother and grandmothers role models? "My mother went back to school to get her PhD when I was 8," she says, explaining that watching her mother go after her dream had a big impact. "My grandmothers were wonderful, loving women," she adds. What would you like your daughters to learn from you? "That anything is possible. I can't wait to see what the next generation does." How can we instill moxie in our girls? "It's about courage, and courage is like a muscle. You have to exercise it," she says, explaining that the more you find your voice and strengthen and develop it, the more confident you will become. She pushes her own daughters to do things that scare them. "I tr y to do one thing a year that scares me," she says. "When your kids see you doing it yourself, they're learning." Of all the awards and recognition you've received, which has been the most meaningful? "The commencement speech at my alma mater," she says, referring to a speech she gave at the university of California, Berkeley, in 2010. She had just turned 40 and lost her father, and she felt like life was taking her by the shoulder and shaking her, asking what she had done for the next generation. It was difficult, because she was under pressure and ner vous about speaking to 20,000 students, she recalls, but NPR recently named it one of the best commencement speeches ever. What would you like people to know about Character Day? Shlain's nonprofit, Let it Ripple, focuses on character education and will celebrate Character Day, a global event with six free >> 10 QUESTIONS w i t h T I F F A N Y S H L A I N TIffany directing a shoot at the Exploratorium of her Emmy-nominated show The Future Starts Here. –Photo by Marla Aufmuth >> Continued on page 40

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