➰ Black History is Infinity Remember when the internet didn’t move? When web pages were flat, static blocks of text and blue hyperlinks, more archive than atmosphere? That version of the web disappeared because engineers decided it could. Among them was Lisa Gelobter. Born in 1971 in Washington, D.C., Gelobter came of age in a household where public service and political imagination were everyday conversation. Her father had managed Shirley Chisholm’s presidential campaign. She gravitated toward computation instead. At Brown University, studying computer science with a concentration in artificial intelligence, she was often one of the only Black women in the room. Financial hardship slowed her path but did not redirect it. She kept building. In the mid-1990s, Gelobter joined Macromedia and became a key figure in the development and release of Shockwave, the browser technology that transformed the web from a static publishing tool into an interactive, multimedia environment. Shockwave enabled animation, vector graphics, and dynamic content inside the browser, laying the groundwork for the animated GIF, online gaming, streaming video, and the responsive web that followed. The modern internet experience, from moving ads to embedded video to interactive storytelling, rests on that architectural shift. Her influence extended beyond the browser. She later held executive roles at Brightcove and BET Networks and was part of the senior management team that launched Hulu in 2007, helping define the streaming economy. In 2015, she was recruited by the Obama administration as Chief Digital Service Officer at the U.S. Department of Education, where she led the creation of College Scorecard, an open data tool designed to increase transparency around higher education cost and outcomes. In 2016, she founded tEQuitable, a platform addressing workplace bias through confidential digital reporting. Most recently, she was appointed Chief Technology Officer for the City of New York. Gelobter’s career matters now because debates about artificial intelligence, platform power, and digital governance hinge on a central question who designs the systems that shape public life. She has worked across the private sector, venture-backed startups, federal government, and municipal leadership, demonstrating that technical architecture is never neutral. It encodes values. The internet did not simply evolve. It was engineered into motion. And a Black woman helped teach it how to move. 📍 Follow along as we continue honoring the builders, the breakthroughs, and what comes next.