Throughout this NR50 series, we have talked about the incredible growth the augmented and mixed reality space has seen in the last year. More devices, software, developers, and use-cases seem to arrive daily. For this growth to have occurred, it took the work of many people, from many different backgrounds and skill sets — and Next Reality wants to recognize them for all that they have done and are doing.
The "50 People to Watch in Augmented and Mixed Reality" list, or NR50 as we like to call it, is really a big "thank you" to those that have worked so hard to help this new idea of the future come true.
Starting this week, we will begin releasing a weekly profile of the people on this list. In some cases, we will talk with them about their accomplishments and what lessons they have learned in failure. In other cases, we will dig deep and aim to learn what drives them.
If we can help provide even just a moment of inspiration for the people that are working hard to find and make new use-cases or fit the newest processor into an even smaller form factor to provide a better AR/MR experience than is available today, then this was a success.
Without further preamble, here are the 50 people to watch in augmented and mixed reality right now. For more information about these people, check out the "Don't Miss" links within this article.
50. Otavio Good
Computer programmer and inventor working for Google. Creator of the amazing AR technology known as Word Lens. Follow him on Facebook or LinkedIn.
49. Tipatat Chennavasin
Founder and general partner at The Venture Reality Fund. Investor and consultant for augmented and virtual reality incubators and accelerators. Follow him on LinkedIn or Twitter.
48. Juergen Lumera
Director of Global TIS Product Management and Innovation at Bosch Automotive Service Solutions. Someone highly interested in AR for technical documentation and an active speaker in the AR space. Creators of the Bosch Common Augmented Reality Platform (CAP). Follow him on LinkedIn or Twitter.
47. Ethan Xie
Senior investment director at Alibaba. Massive investment in the AR space including Magic Leap and InfitityAR. Follow him on LinkedIn.
46. Parham Aarabi
Founder and CEO of ModiFace. ModiFace is the creator of Sephora's popular AR beauty app. Follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or his personal website.
45. Quinn Li
VP and global head at Qualcomm Ventures. Invests in Magic Leap, Blippar, and Neobear. Follow him on LinkedIn.
44. Dr. Sung-Hoon Hong
VP of Samsung Electronics. The lead in Samsung's technology push toward augmented reality. Follow him on LinkedIn.
43. Valérie Riffaud-Cangelosi
Head of New Market Development for Wearables and Connected Devices for the EMEA division at Epson. Epson has created multiple generations of augmented reality smartglasses. Follow her on LinkedIn or her personal website.
42. Ameet Bhansali
Managing director of the New Technologies Sector for Intel Capital. Under his leadership, notable investments include Meta and ScopeAR. Follow him on LinkedIn.
41. Yoni Nevo
Co-founder and CEO of Cimagine Media. Cimagine, which was bought by Snap in 2016, is an augmented reality commerce platform. Follow him on LinkedIn or Twitter.
40. Ali Rowghani
CEO of YC Continuity. Investors in Meta, ScopeAR, and InsiteVR, among other tech companies. Follow him on LinkedIn or Twitter.
39. Amitt Mahajan
Managing partner with Presence Capital. Co-creator of FarmVille and invests in Meta and ScopeAR. Follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, or his personal website. And find out more about Amitt in his NR50 profile.
38. Phil Keslin
CTO at Niantic. One of the technical minds behind Pokémon GO. Follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter.
37. Johnny Chung Lee
Technical program lead in the Advanced Technology and Projects group (ATAP) at Google. Leads the team behind Project Tango, Google's augmented reality computing platform. Follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or his personal website or blog.
36. Jerome Etienne
Creator of AR.js. Open-source enthusiast, developer, and a former senior staff engineer for DAQRI, the maker of smartglasses and smart helmets. Follow him on GitHub, LinkedIn, Twitter, or his personal website.
35. Jesse McCulloch
Founder and owner of Roarke Software. Mixed reality development community leader, mentor, and creator of the HoloDevelopers server on Slack. Follow him on LinkedIn or Twitter.
34. David Cohen
Co-founder and co-CEO of Techstars. Backer of augmented reality projects such as Avegant and Occipital, through Techstar Ventures. Follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, or his personal website.
33. David Brown
Co-founder and co-CEO of Techstars. Backer of augmented reality projects such as Avegant and Occipital, through Techstar Ventures. Follow him on LinkedIn or Twitter.
32. Vanessa Arnauld
Product marketing manager for Microsoft HoloLens. As a HoloLens development community enabler, she is often seen out at the conventions helping answer developer questions and find solutions to problems. Follow her on Linkedin or Twitter.
31. Christopher Croteau
GM of Head Worn and Augmented Reality Products for Intel's New Devices Group. Manager of the team producing Intel's Project Alloy and an active speaker in the augmented reality community. Follow him on LinkedIn or Twitter.
30. Aviad Almagor
Director of the Mixed Reality Program for Trimble, Inc. Leads the Trimble team in their mixed reality application development — the solution to Trimble's clients' problems with efficiency. Follow him on LinkedIn or Twitter.
29. Neeraj Wadhwa
Senior software engineering lead for Microsoft. Curator of the HoloToolkit. Follow him on Twitter, or LinkedIn.
28. Eric Mizufuka
Product manager in the New Ventures group at Epson America, Inc. Epson is the creator of multiple generations of augmented reality smartglasses including the current BT-300 model. Follow him on LinkedIn or Twitter.
27. Remi El-Ouazzane
VP of Intel's New Technology Group. Former CEO (and current GM) of Movidius, creator of low-power processor chips for computer vision and deep learning who were bought by Intel in November 2016. Follow him on LinkedIn or Twitter.
26. Tim Cook
CEO of Apple. Apple is one of the most successful technology companies in the world. Even rumors of their moving into the AR/MR space has caused ripples in this industry. Follow him on Facebook or Twitter.
25. Caspar Thykier
Co-founder and CEO of Zappar. Zappar created the recently successfully kickstarted ZapBox, as well as the augmented reality software toolset Zapworks. Follow him on LinkedIn or Twitter.
24. Philipp Nagele
CTO of Wikitude. Man behind the simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) augmented reality software solution at Wikitude, and active augmented reality speaker. Follow him on LinkedIn or Twitter.
23. Motti Kushnir
Co-founder and CEO of Infinity Augmented Reality, Inc. Raised $18 million from Alibaba late last year to work AR into a variety of uses for training, gaming, and more. Follow him on LinkedIn or Twitter.
22. Aileen McGraw
HoloLens storyteller and product marketing manager at Microsoft. One of the drivers of the HoloLens development community, listening to developer pains and helping developers find the answers they need. Follow her on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter. And find out more about Aileen in her NR50 profile.
21. Paul Travers
Founder and CEO of Vuzix. Vuzix is one of the earliest creators of smartglasses and video eyewear. Follow him on LinkedIn. And find out more about Travers in his NR50 profile.
20. Jeff Norris
Director of the Mission Operations Innovation Office at NASA JPL. Directly involved in the use of HoloLens with NASA on applications like OnSight. Rumored to be working with Apple now on a new AR device. Follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, or his personal website.
19. Astro Teller
Director of Google X laboratories. Scientist, entrepreneur, and three-time author with expertise in the field of intelligent technology. One of the minds behind Google Glass. Follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, or his personal website.
18. Lorraine Bardeen
GM of Windows and HoloLens Experiences Production and Strategy at Microsoft. A major mind behind the HoloLens strategy. Follow her on LinkedIn, or Twitter, or the Windows blog.
17. Ambarish Mitra
Co-founder and CEO of Blippar. Leads a team that combines augmented reality, machine learning, and artificial intelligence into a visual search application. Follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter.
16. Jeff Powers
CEO of Occipital, Inc. Occipital created the Structure Sensor and Bridge, an iPhone-based head-mounted display. Follow him on LinkedIn.
15. James E. Heppelmann
President and CEO of PTC. PTC are the owners of Vuforia and creators of ThingWorx IoT platform. Follow him on Twitter.
14. Ben Horowitz
Co-founder and general partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). A16z is a venture capitalist group with investments in Magic Leap and Leap Motion, among other things. Horowitz has served in leadership positions for a variety of tech companies. Follow him on LinkedIn or Twitter.
13. Marc Andreessen
Co-founder and general partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). A16z is a venture capitalist group with investments in Magic Leap and Leap Motion, among other things. Andreessen is a long-time entrepreneur, investor, and software engineer known for co-creating Mosaic and co-founding Netscape. Follow him on Twitter or his personal website.
12. Timoni West
Principal designer at Unity Labs. One of the primary minds behind EditorVR, the immersive editing branch of Unity 3D, the popular development environment. Follow her on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, or her personal website. And find out more about Timoni in her NR50 profile.
11. Rony Abovitz
President, CEO, and founder of Magic Leap. This famous or infamous start-up has stirred up so much hype between how secretive they and the constant stream of rumors and leaks. Follow him on LinkedIn or Twitter.
10. Neal Stephenson
Chief futurist for Magic Leap. New York Times best-selling American author of speculative fiction of many genres; His novels have been influencing the technology space since the mid-'90s. Follow him on Twitter or his personal website.
9. Ralph Osterhout
Founder and CEO of Osterhout Design Group (ODG). ODG has created multiple generations of smartglasses including the soon-to-be-released R-8, R-9, and R-7HL. Follow him on LinkedIn.
8. Tom Emrich
Producer of Augmented World Expo (AWE) and partner at Super Ventures. A highly active and prominent face in the augmented reality and wearables culture. Follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, or his personal website.
7. Evan Spiegel
Co-founder and CEO of Snap. A major influence in bringing augmented reality to the mainstream as the creator of both Snapchat and Spectacles. Follow him on Facebook or Twitter.
6. Meron Gribetz
Founder and CEO of Meta. Meta created the Meta and Meta 2 augmented reality headsets. Follow him on LinkedIn or Twitter.
5. Ori Inbar
Co-founder and CEO of AugmentedReality.org. He is also the founder and GM of Super Ventures, as well as co-creator of the Augmented World Expo (AWE). Follow him on LinkedIn or Twitter.
4. Robert Scoble
Blogger, author, and technology evangelist. Co-author of The Fourth Transformation, a book on how augmented reality and artificial intelligence will change the world. Follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube.
3. Tony Parisi
Global head of VR/AR for Unity. A long time pioneer in the virtual reality space, co-creator of multiple mobile-aimed 3D formats including VRML, X3D, and glTF. Follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, or his personal website. And find out more about Parisi in his NR50 profile.
2. John Hanke
Founder and CEO of Niantic. Led the teams that created Pokémon GO and Ingress, and helped augmented reality become a mainstream term. Follow him on LinkedIn, Google+, or Twitter.
1. Alex Kipman
Technical fellow at Microsoft's Windows and Devices Group. The mind behind the Kinect and HoloLens who revolutionized mixed reality. Follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, or the Windows blog.
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Cover image by Justin Meyers/Next Reality
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