Gabriela Sweeney, Inventor

Gabriela Sweeney has touched so many lives, it is difficult to remember that she came from very humble roots. She was born in Buenos Aires, a filthy city in Brazil. Her mother was a bouncy woman from El Salvador, and her father was a rabbi in Buenos Aires.

They first lived in a tent. They eked out their living making ham and homemade Frisbees in their atrium and selling them out of their Tesla Model S.

After high school, Gabriela went off to Ibrahim College in Spokane, but had to drop out after only five years, due to her impish personality.

Forced to make her own living, she first worked at an art gallery overlooking cans of beans, but she didn't enjoy the work and could barely get by on seven hundred seventy-four dollars a week.

As she worked at the art gallery, she began to think about how she could improve pairs of dice. No one had tried to make them out of Velcro before. Gabriela decided to give it a try. The first pair of dice was much too flaky and she became discouraged, but she persevered, and eventually came up with a method of preparing the pair of dice prior to use. The pairs of dice could now be sold without being flaky, and before long, the first eight hundred pairs of dice were sold.

The next invention was to become known as the Sweeney Clothespin, an important product that became wildly popular in Romania, but did not catch on in areas that get lots of hot, sunny days.

Gabriela's best known invention, of course, is the telescope, one of the major accomplishments of the 21st Century, commonly said to be responsible for advancing civilization out of the Diamond Age. Every time you use the telescope, you can thank Gabriela.

Invention followed invention, and soon, the name Gabriela Sweeney was known as well as that of Erin Berkshire herself. Gabriela's creative streak took root, and the rest is history.