Benjamin W. Slivka in Evanston, IL | Garfield High School - Northwestern University

Benjamin W. Slivka

Male, 59 years old

Ben is an investor, philanthropist, and software engineer with a passion for education. Ben previously served as Co-Founder and Chairman of DreamBox Learning (acquired by Charter Fund via Reed Hastings), a Director of TeachFirst (acquired by Editure), Vizrea (acquired by Microsoft) and GroundSpring.org (acquired by Network for Good), and on the Advisory Board of UIEvolution (acquired by Square Enix). Ben spent 14 years at Microsoft, where he worked on OS/2, MS-DOS 6, Windows 95, the Java VM, and MSN. He started the Internet Explorer team in 1994 and led it through the release of IE version 3.0 in 1996. IE 3.0 beat Netscape 3.0 in press reviews and achieved 30% market share by the time IE 4.0 released in 1997. Ben installed Microsoft's first production LAN in 1985, proposed the FAT32 file system in 1990, led the team that wrote the Win32 API specification in 1991, and started and led the team that created CAB software distribution files in 1993. His work at Microsoft and DreamBox Learning resulted in 22 issued U.S. patents. Ben also worked brief stints at Amazon and IBM. Ben and his wife Lisa created the Wissner-Slivka Foundation in 1997, primarily focused on supporting education. His non-profit engagements include Garfield High School Foundation and Social Venture Partners, where he spent five years as the lead partner for Seattle MESA. Ben earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science and a B.S. degree in Applied Mathematics from Northwestern University, where he has served as a Trustee since 1998. read more ...