Gemma Busoni

Gemma Busoni was born in San Salvador, El Salvador, and her family heritage is Salvadoran. At the age of three she emigrated with her mother from El Salvador to the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry; they lived in FloridaFloridaFlorida is a U.S. state occupying mainly the Florida peninsula, with its capital at Tallahassee; its most populous city is Jacksonville. It entered the Union on March 3, 1845, as the 27th state, and had a population of 21,538,187 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry and in Northern CaliforniaCaliforniaCalifornia is a U.S. state on the Pacific coast; its capital is Sacramento and its largest city is Los Angeles. California was admitted to the Union on September 9, 1850, as the 31st state. Its population at the 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) was 39,538,223, the largest of any state.Open the full entry before settling in Los Angeles.⁠[1][2][3]

She attended USC Hybrid High School in downtown Los Angeles; her mother drove her every day from Chino Hills to downtown Los Angeles for school. Remezcla writes that she was frustrated by her school advisors’ lack of structure, that her mother had to intervene when the school would not offer the PSAT exam to its students, and that she and her classmates had to find their own way to take the SAT for college applications. She had planned to go to college after high school to study computer science.⁠[3][2]

She wanted to learn to code but did not know where to turn. Remezcla writes that this inspired her and her classmate Zach LattaZach LattaZach Latta is a programmer and the founder and executive director of Hack Club, a nonprofit that helps teenagers start coding clubs and run hackathons; he was selected as a Thiel Fellow in 2015.Open the full entry to found Hack Club; the article states that seven years later Hack Club was still going as a nonprofit providing coding resources to inner-city students and running events such as summer hack camps, and that it had received a $1 million grant from Elon MuskElon MuskElon Musk is an entrepreneur who founded SpaceX and has long served as chief executive of Tesla; he also took part in creating PayPal, OpenAI, Neuralink, The Boring Company, and xAI. He acquired Twitter in 2022, and his businesses span spaceflight, electric vehicles, energy, artificial intelligence, and social media.Open the full entry the year before; she credits its community for its ability to attract funding and recognition from prominent technologists.⁠[3]

She graduated early from USC Hybrid High School by passing a special exam so that she could devote more time to her company; a Loyola Marymount University bio also says that she graduated from high school early to start her company.⁠[2][4]

In its April 15, 2016 story El Diario NY wrote that almost a year earlier, after working on and leading technology projects and events in Los Angeles, she had co-founded the company Discovr Learning, which offers virtual reality programs and apps to secondary schools and universities. The story said the company had one office in Los Angeles and another in San Francisco, had hired four computer engineers, counted universities in Canada among its clients and was funded by private donations; it had just made a virtual reality program that lets students explore chapters of the history of Egypt, and some schools ask it for nursing simulations or simulations for history classes.⁠[2]

In April 2016 First Lady Michelle ObamaMichelle ObamaMichelle Obama (born 1964) is an American lawyer and author who was First Lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017 as the wife of Barack Obama and the first Black First Lady; since leaving the White House she has become known for her memoir Becoming and other books, Netflix productions and podcasts.Open the full entry appeared on the cover of the May issue of Seventeen together with two teenagers who had won the chance to interview her; The Root writes that Gemma Busoni and Zaniya Lewis asked the first lady about the advice she had given her own daughters about picking the right university. El Diario NY writes that the photos were taken at the White House and that Busoni appears smiling on the cover of the latest issue of Seventeen; she and Zaniya Lewis were both winners of a Seventeen contest that asked teenage girls to write essays about overcoming obstacles to get into their dream school, and the two spent time with Michelle Obama talking about college and their futures. A Loyola Marymount University bio also says that she shared the cover of Seventeen with Michelle Obama.⁠[5][2][4]

She recalled Michelle Obama telling them that even when there are many obstacles in life you must keep going, and that no one had believed she would get into Princeton UniversityPrinceton UniversityPrinceton University is a private university and Ivy League member in Princeton, New Jersey. Chartered on October 22, 1746 as the College of New Jersey, it moved to Princeton in 1756 and adopted its present name in 1896. Undergraduate education leads to A.B. and B.S.E. degrees and emphasizes small-group discussion, independent research and residential college life. Graduate education spans the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and engineering. As of October 2026, Christopher L. Eisgruber was president. Its 2026–27 operating budget was $3.407 billion, including $342 million for undergraduate aid.Open the full entry or Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private research university in Massachusetts, established by the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature in 1636 and named in 1639 for early benefactor John Harvard. Its principal campuses are in Cambridge and the Allston and Longwood neighborhoods of Boston. It includes Harvard College, graduate and professional schools, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Two governing boards share oversight. Alan M. Garber was president as of October 2026, and the endowment stood at $56.9 billion at the end of fiscal 2025.Open the full entry; Busoni’s verdict was “¡Es Fantástica!” (She is fantastic!). El Diario NY wrote that on the day of the story she was in San Francisco at a social network’s convention, learning about the changes coming to the platform that year, and that she was about to travel to San Diego for an education and technology conference with Bill GatesBill GatesBill Gates is an American entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist who cofounded Microsoft with Paul Allen in 1975 and served as its chief executive and chairman. He later shifted his focus toward global health, education and climate, chairs the Gates Foundation, and manages investments through arrangements including Cascade.Open the full entry. She laughed and agreed that it is right to call her a “nerd,” saying she spends “todo mi tiempo en la computadora, programando, haciendo aplicaciones” (all my time at the computer, programming, making apps). The story said that twelve universities wanted to enroll her; she said she was not “viviendo muy rápido” (living too fast), that “Mi trabajo es bien divertido, lo amo” (my work is really fun, I love it), and that “Siempre quiero tener un trabajo en tecnología porque siempre tienes que estar aprendiendo” (I always want to have a job in technology because you always have to be learning); the story said her plan was to keep creating advances in computing and to encourage others to enter the field.⁠[2]

The 2018 archive of Loyola Marymount University’s College of Business Administration “Business as a Force for Good” annual ethics symposium carries a bio that names her CEO and co-founder of Discovr Labs, describes Discovr Labs as an XR and education content studio and startup that uses VR/AR immersive technology for education and training experiences, and says that she previously worked at Unity as Education Programs and XR Specialist and had recently been featured in Marie Claire.⁠[4]

On June 22, 2018, the Thiel Foundation announced the 20 members of the 2018 class of the Thiel FellowshipThiel FellowshipThe Thiel Fellowship is a two-year grant program started by investor Peter Thiel and run by the Thiel Foundation that funds young people who skip or stop out of college to build new things instead. The program has been criticized by figures in education for encouraging young people to leave college.Open the full entry; she was eighth on the list, with her hometown given as San Salvador, El Salvador / Los Angeles, California, her field as virtual reality / augmented reality and her project as Discovr Labs. The announcement describes her as a co-founder of Discovr Labs, which uses VR/AR immersive technology to deliver the most effective education and training experiences. It states that the Thiel Fellowship, launched in 2011, encourages young people to pursue big ideas and start companies instead of attending college, and that fellows receive $100,000 and mentorship from the Thiel Foundation’s network.⁠[6]

Remezcla writes that she was named a Thiel Fellow on her sixteenth birthday, after which she and her mother had to weigh the pros and cons of not receiving a college degree; Busoni explains, “You essentially have to not go to college to prove his hypothesis that you don’t need college to be massively successful.” Remezcla writes that her mother was at first afraid of her daughter essentially skipping college, and Busoni says that winning the Thiel Fellowship alleviated her mother’s concerns.⁠[3]

Remezcla writes that after she won the fellowship, she and her mother drove 400 miles from Los Angeles to San Francisco every weekend to meet potential investors. She secured a $100,000 investment for her company from Mike Rothenberg of Rothenberg Ventures and then moved to San Francisco. “I lived and breathed start-ups,” she said, with no work-life balance at all; she explains that VR companies are attractive in the news but not to investors, to whom they look like “money pits” because there is not a huge consumer market. Once she and Discovr Labs had comfortable funding and enough clients, she moved back to Los Angeles to get away from the grind of Silicon Valley.⁠[3]

Remezcla writes that in 2019 she and her Discovr Labs co-founder Josh Maldonado were named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, and that Discovr Labs also made TechCrunchTechCrunchTechCrunch is an American technology news outlet founded in 2005 by Michael Arrington and Keith Teare and headquartered in San Francisco; it mainly covers technology companies, startups, and venture capital, and hosts events such as TechCrunch Disrupt. Its ownership passed successively through AOL, Verizon, and Yahoo, and in 2025 Regent announced its acquisition.Open the full entry’s list of the “Top 10 VR companies.” She describes these accomplishments as “seals of approval”; the article states that she is focused on the progress.⁠[3]

On March 28, 2022, Remezcla published a profile of her by Helen Fernandez. It states that she builds curriculums and sources content for Discovr Labs, and that she enjoys going to the schools the company partners with and seeing the children use their VR headsets; she said, “Rolling in the headset cart is very similar to when teachers would roll in the projector.”⁠[3]

She focuses on low-income schools that cannot afford headsets, saying, “It’s us having to campaign to companies like Oculus”; the article states that several schools have received headsets free or at a reduced price. When a school says it has no budget for Discovr Labs headsets, she asks, “Did you guys have a yearbook club?” and suggests contacting the yearbook teacher, the article noting that such clubs are likely to have old funds that can go toward a headset budget.⁠[3]

She wants to expand Discovr Labs into adult training; the article states that many companies have to train employees who deal with heavy machinery and that there is a huge market for virtual reality to make training safer and cheaper. She said, “When people hear education, they think about schools.” Looking back, she said, “When we started, we wanted to be a consumer company, which was so wrong,” and the article states that her investor knew from his years of experience how to steer her in the right direction. Grateful for the chances people took on her as a teenager and on her start-up, she said, “I feel like a lot of people deserve those chances.” She hopes to become an early-stage investor in other companies and, whether as an investor or in venture capital, to give back to her community: “A little bit of money goes a long, long way.” Her advice to people who want to work in technology is to be diligent and put themselves out there, because “there are plenty of people who really want to help you.”⁠[3]

El Diario NY wrote in 2016 that she had organized events to recruit Hispanic students into science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, where Hispanics are underrepresented.⁠[2]

A Technolochicas profile lists her as Developer Operations at Discovr Labs, managing business development and developer operations, and describes Discovr Labs as a company that uses virtual reality for education, building immersive learning experiences and tools to manage them for higher-education and training institutions. In the profile she encourages Latina girls to consider careers in science and technology: few women work or study in technology while demand in the industry is growing faster than supply, and the stereotype that men are better at STEM discourages many girls and is untrue. “We need more women in tech,” she says.⁠[1]

Remezcla wrote in 2022 that as an immigrant she wants to uplift Latinos in technology, which is why she hosts more Latine-focused events and is intentional about this when hiring for Discovr Labs.⁠[3]

She describes her mother as someone who loves learning and has seven degrees; her mother believes that education, once acquired, is something no one can take away. Her mother was confident in her business ideas; Busoni said, “She was the one who helped me incorporate my LLC.”⁠[3]

On her age: in El Diario NY’s April 2016 story she said, “Sí, tengo 17 años” (yes, I am 17); Remezcla wrote in March 2022 that she would turn 24 that year.⁠[2][3]

Remezcla wrote in 2022 that she lives in downtown Los Angeles, not far from her old high school, and spends her weekends rollerblading with friends; she completed a 40-mile skate that February and was determined to complete a 50-mile skate next.⁠[3]

Thiel Fellowship: Official website: https://thielfellowship.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[7]