Sarah Allen (born Sarah Lindsley)
is an American software developer and entrepreneur. Allen attended
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
in
Rhode Island, where she majored in computer science and visual arts. Early in her career, she led the development of
Adobe Shockwave Multiuser Server,
Flash Media Server
Adobe Media Server (AMS) is a proprietary data and media server from Adobe Systems (originally a Macromedia product). This server works with the Flash Player and HTML5 runtime to create media driven, multiuser RIAs ( Rich Internet Applications ...
, and
Flash video
Flash Video is a container file format used to deliver digital video content (e.g., TV shows, movies, etc.) over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player version 6 and newer. Flash Video content may also be embedded within SWF files. There ar ...
, and co-founded the company that created
Adobe After Effects.
In 2013, Allen was selected for the
Presidential Innovation Fellows program working with the
Smithsonian Institution.
Companies
In 2010, Allen co-founded and serves as the chief technology officer of mobile startup
Mightyverse. In parallel she is the founder of San Francisco-based
Ruby on Rails consultancy
Blazing Cloud, a product-centric mobile application consulting firm. In 2010, she co-authored the book ''Pro Smartphone Cross-Platform Development''.
Representation of women
In the Silicon Valley community, Allen contributes her time to improving the representation of women in technology as the president of
RailsBridge, which aims to "bridge the gap from aspiring developer to contributing open source community member through mentoring, teaching and writing".
Recognition
In 1998, Allen was named one of the Top 25 Women of the Web by
San Francisco Women on the Web. Allen was honored on
Ada Lovelace
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (''née'' Byron; 10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852) was an English mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the A ...
Day by the Bay Area
Girl Geek Dinners
Girl Geek Dinners is an informal organisation that promotes women in the information technology industry, with 64 established chapters in 23 countries. The organization was founded in London, United Kingdom, by Sarah Lamb (''née'' Blow), who reali ...
in 2010 and participated in the mobile-themed Google Tech Talk at the company's headquarters in Mountain View. In 2013, Allen was chosen as a Presidential Innovation Fellow and worked for six months with the Smithsonian Institution.
Publications
"The Future of the Web is not the Past of Windows"W3C Position Paper: Workshop on Web Applications and Compound Documents. June 2004.
"Pro Smartphone Cross-Platform Development iPhone, Blackberry, Windows Mobile and Android Development and Distribution"Sept 2010, Apress.
References