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We honor the recipients of our Game Development awards.
By sharing Jerry Lawson’s story and partnering with organizations to provide education and mentoring, our aim is to help diversify gaming and tech spaces.
Gerald A. “Jerry” Lawson, a Silicon Valley tech pioneer, was a self-taught engineer, inventor, and amateur aviator.
Born in Brooklyn, NY on December 1, 1940, Jerry grew up with parents who nurtured his natural interest in gadgets and science. His brilliance was evident to all around him, including his teachers. Ms. Grubel, Jerry’s first grade teacher, also took notice and pinned a picture of George Washington Carver next to his desk. Her encouragement opened up a world of possibilities for his growing mind and future direction.
He is best known for creating the first cartridge-based home gaming system, the Fairchild Channel-F, in 1976.His contributions led to a wave of console systems such as Atari, Nintendo, XBOX and PlayStation; spawning a global gaming industry valued at 162.32 B in 2020.
Throughout his life, Jerry shared what he knew to whomever was interested, from computer classes taught in his home garage in the 70’s to mentoring children in the Stanford robotics program in the 90’s.
Jerry died on April 9, 2011 from complications from diabetes.
Jerry was a man known for his passions: mentoring, music, movies, aviation and comedy. He loved to laugh.
We aim to inspire, educate and empower children, POC and people in underrepresented groups to choose careers in technology!
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