Samantha John

Samantha John (born ) John became interested in computers and programming in her senior year of college when she began working on a website for a student club. Before developing Hopscotch, she had worked as an engineer and a developer at Pivotal Labs. She had been one of the only women developers at the company. After partnering with Hopscotch co-founder and fellow Columbia alumna Jocelyn Leavitt, John created her first app named "Daisy the Dinosaur" in 2012. Glamour magazine named John and co-founder Leavitt in their list of "35 Women Under 35 Who are Changing the Tech Industry" in 2014. In 2015, she was listed as one of BBC's 100 Women.

Hopscotch John created Hopscotch at the age of 26 with educator Jocelyn Leavitt, who noticed a lack of women and people of color in engineering. Hopscotch, which is aimed at children ages eight to 12, was downloaded 20,000 times in its first week. John and Leavitt first launched the app for iPad in 2013, and have since developed the app for iPhone. Within one year, users created over 2.5 million projects. In addition, John notes inspiration from her mentor, Alan Kay. Hopscotch has received the Best Education Tech App Awards by Parent Magazine.