Lauren Elliott

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Lauren Elliott is an American video game designer, internet entrepreneur, publisher and inventor. He helped create Carmen Sandiego, the best-selling educational game series and a pioneer in edutainment.

He is described as the grandson of Hall Roosevelt and the brother of Eleanor Roosevelt. Elliott attended Millbrook School, started at Cornell University, then transferred to the University of Colorado Boulder, where he earned a degree in architecture. He also studied environmental design briefly at the University of Pennsylvania under Ian McHarg and completed two years of graduate work in ecology at UC Davis.

In 1983, Elliott walked into Broderbund Software in San Rafael with a sketchpad of game ideas and was hired if he could persuade a programmer to take on one. Over the next 13 years, he wrote and worked on more than 23 titles. His games have sold more than 30 million copies, and he has won over 50 awards for originality and lifetime sales.

While at Broderbund, Elliott and Gene Portwood served as Will Wright’s project managers on his first game, Raid on Bungeling Bay, in 1984. In 1996 he left to start Elliott Portwood Productions with Portwood, producing titles for The Learning Company, Maxis, Virgin Software and The Software Toolworks.

In 2002 Elliott founded Dream Zero, an internet gaming company that was later acquired by The Big Network. In 2005 he published a book, With Love, Aunt Eleanor, written by his mother, who is Eleanor Roosevelt’s niece. Today he is the Executive Producer of Proxi.