Jeri Ellsworth is a truly impressive individual. She dropped out of high school and went into business for herself. An early commercial success was the creation of a complete Commodore 64 emulator in a joystick that could play 30 classic C64 games.

Not a one hit wonder by any stretch, the multi-talented, self-taught hardware engineer also restores vintage pinball machines for fun, built and raced her own stock car, enjoys roller skating, hacked her own Commadore 64 keytar, has a huge following for her YouTube Channel and is a frequent and welcome attendee of Maker Faire.

Jeri worked as a hardware developer for the game platform company Valve Software, before leaving to co-found her own company Technical Illusions. She and co-founder Rick Johnson are developing an augmented reality system called castAR, which debuted last year at the Bay Area Maker Faire. The castAR system is looking to be, quite literally, a game-changer. Developers have been hungrily awaiting its release since it was announced.

Jeri is an amazing person, who any aspiring engineer or technical entrepreneur can look up to.