Honored by Newsweek as one of the “Women Shaping the 21st Century,” Tiffany Shlain is a filmmaker, founder of The Webby Awards and co-founder of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. Her films have been selected at over 100 film festivals including Sundance, Tribeca, and Rotterdam, have won 20 awards including Audience and Grand Jury Prizes and translated into 8 languages. Tiffany’s films are a fusion of documentary and narrative and known for their whimsical yet provocative approach unraveling complicated subjects like politics, cultural identity, technology and science. Her films include “Life, Liberty & The Pursuit of Happiness,” about reproductive rights in America and “The Tribe,” an exploration of American Jewish identity through the history of the Barbie doll, the first documentary to become the #1 most downloaded short film on iTunes. As a director for both theater and film, she has worked with Harrison Ford, Peter Coyote and Alan Cumming and was selected as an Artist-in-Residence at the Headland Center for the Arts. Tiffany’s films and discussion programs have been used in many diverse settings to spark a dialogues about social issues. She has been singled out by The New York Times, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and Sundance for her cutting-edge work using documentaries and internet distribution in unique ways to engage audiences. A sought-after speaker known for her visual presentations, she lectures worldwide on filmmaking and the Internet’s influence on society. Invitations include MIT, Apple theaters in NYC and SF, The Idea Festival, Fortune 500 companies, and The Sydney Opera House.

Tiffany founded The Webby Awards in 1996 and was creative director and CEO for nearly a decade, establishing it into a global organization honoring the best of the Internet. The Webbys receive over 12,000 entries annually and are presented annually in NYC.  She co-founded The International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences, today a 550-person organization and served as the on-air Internet expert for Good Morning America. Her work has been profiled on The BBC ABC, MTV, CNN and NPR.

Tiffany is a Henry Crown Fellow of The Aspen Institute. She is a graduate of the University of California Berkeley where she was selected as a valedictorian speaker for the interdisciplinary Studies Department and received the highest honor in art, The Eisner Award, for filmmaking. She received her BA in film theory and interdisciplinary studies in 1992.  She studied organizational change at Harvard Business School Executive Education and film production at New York University’s Sight & Sound program in 1990. She serves on the advisory boards for The World Science Festival in NYC and The UC Berkeley Center for New Media. Tiffany is director of The Moxie Institute an organization that creates films, books, discussion programs and theater experiences around social issues using emerging technologies. Currently, she is working on a feature-length film, “Connected: A Declaration of Interdependence,” a “performance documentary” piece for Yerba Beuna Center for the Arts triennial art exhibition and recently premiered an art installation, Smashing, with artist and husband Ken Goldberg. They have a 5 year-old daughter Odessa Simone and live in Northern California.

Honors & Distinctions