04 Mar Influential Women in XR and Tech
We will take any opportunity to celebrate the women in our lives. Whether that be the women we know personally, the ones who we have not met, and the ones that have made an impact on us from afar. With International Women’s Day coming up, we thought it appropriate to highlight some of the leading ladies in the XR and Tech industries, and who have helped and contributed to its community in their own special way.
It’s difficult to choose just a handful of women who have made an influence, and it’s exciting that the community has grown so much that there are many incredibly talented women to choose from, but here are some that came to mind.
The late Katherine Johnson was an American mathematician and was one of the first African American women to work as a NASA scientist. She was a master at complex calculations, which later played a role in the Space Shuttle program. Katherine had incredibly strong skills with numbers and graduated high school at the young age of 14. Until her retirement in 1986, she worked as an aerospace technologist. Her legacy of being a cultural influence and a pioneer in space science will continue to live on. She has been honored, awarded, and played an important role in the Apollo Moon landing program. Thank you for helping to pave the way for women to have a place and a voice in the technology space.
Amber Osborne has an impressive list of accomplishments in the XR community. She is a VR/AR Marketing Strategist, an award-winning marketing consultant who specializing in the immersive tech industry, not to mention she’s also listed as one of the top 25 VR Influencers. Amber has helped to shed light that not all developers and AR/VR industry people are men and that we have a very large community of women, too. Follow Amber and other #WomentoFollow on Twitter.
Jenn Duong is an immersive Director, Producer, and creator. In 2015 she co-founded Women in VR/AR, giving women the space and resources to develop and grow within the industry. Thank you, Jenn, for giving women who love tech a place to flourish.
Cathy Hackl is an American futurist, author, speaker, XR enthusiast and one of the AR/VR original influencers. She is the #4 Top Technology Voice on LinkedIn. She is a leader, a VR evangelist who is currently working on her second book and is also a friend to us at Futurus. If you ever need to know what’s happening in the world of XR, let Cathy be your guide.
Joanna Popper is HP’s Global Head of VR for location-based entertainment, and a Hollywood and Silicon Valley media executive. She was one of the women selected in “50 Women Can Change the World in Media and Entertainment”, and “101 Women Leading the VR Industry”. She loves the VR industry and “sees it as the future of computing as well as the future of media and entertainment. It brings together inspirational storytelling with innovation, technology, immersion, and interactivity. The industry is focused on building the future, bringing in new voices and representation and discovering new ways for technology and story to work together.” Telly Awards
Nonny De la Peña has been called the “Godmother of Virtual Reality” by Forbes, Engadget, and The Guardian. Nonny is also a TED speaker, journalist, entrepreneur, and founder and CEO of Emblematic Group (a digital media company that focuses on immersive and extended realities). The Emblematic Group has created digital stories with emphasis on having empathetic engagement from the viewer.
Her start in VR began in 2006. But in 2009 as a senior researcher, Nonny began experimenting with VR headsets, and by 2010 she began working on a project called “Hunger in Los Angeles” which became the first-ever VR documentary to be showcased at the Sundance Film Festival in January of 2012. With many awards and honors under her belt, one that sticks out was being listed as one of the “13 People Who Made the World More Creative” by Fast Company.
We celebrate women every day, not just one day out of the month each year. We would love to hear who inspires you in the XR and Tech community.
