Did you know the concept of GenAI was first mentioned in the sci-fi story 'Robbie' in 1940?
In fact, the seeds of many emerging technologies shaping our world today originally came from science fiction.
Since I was a kid, stories like these have captivated me. This preoccupation with sci-fi paid dividends, fostering in me a positive attitude toward technology. And I’ve built my career on bringing emerging tech to life in a sustainable way.
I’m a design leader who loves to bury my head in frontier technologies. I believe that using a rigorous design lens to examine the human-tech relationship - and its potential impact on society - is the best approach for actualizing new tech responsibly, sidestepping the ‘catastrophic tech disruption’ scenes from some sci-fi movies.
Design is about more than innovation. At the macro level, it’s about looking at the broader historical timeline: determining how macroeconomics, the workforce, and society impose demands on humans. At the micro level, it’s about delving into human needs to see how they will shape technology. Anticipating how that technology will shape the way humans behave in the future brings it all home in a virtuous cycle.
The no.1 reason UX design leaders don’t get a seat at the executive table is that they prioritize micro level problems and overlook the macro level. The result is products that cater solely to short-term trends or temporary needs, which then become obsolete in a flash.
During my 17 years’ experience in the industry, I’ve helped product and engineering executives build products that have sustainability baked in. My expertise is spotting customer opportunities made possible by emerging technologies, before anyone else does. This has resulted in consecutive years of funding at billion-dollar enterprises and earned me 18 design awards including IDEA, iF, RedDot.
My career trajectory has been anything but linear - I dropped out of high school (not by design to look cool) and had to navigate the VC path to win a place at college. After graduation, I chose to work in consulting to gain exposure to the needs of customers from small to large companies across various industries. I then acquired a Rutgers MBA to broaden my perspective even further. Now, at Dell, my journey from intern to tech leader has seen me driving collaborative incubation efforts with experts across CTO offices. This unlikely path forged the superpower I brought to the industry: a bizarre blend of book smarts and street smarts.
I enjoy sharing my experiences and expertise. I’ve spoken at the Design & Innovation Executive Exchange, the Emerging Tech Social, Dell Technologies TEx and numerous other conferences. My talks cover topics ranging from leveraging emerging technologies in business, to how technologies mold human behaviors, to the new talent paradigm.
There’s one more thing I’m really passionate about. Through my experience of life and work, I've discovered that it’s vital to carve your own niche; to bring a perspective to every discussion that is distinctly yours - something that AI could never replicate. I like to call it `being a Round Peg`.
Reach out to see how my perspective can add insight to your organization or consider inviting me to speak. I'd be thrilled to help.
