Wisdom From The Women Leading The VR, AR & Mixed Reality Industries, With Lenovo’s Mayan Shay May Raz

The Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality & Mixed Reality Industries are so exciting. What is coming around the corner? How will these improve our lives? What are the concerns we should keep an eye out for? Aside from entertainment, how can VR or AR help work or other parts of life? To address this, as a part of our interview series called “Women Leading The VR, AR & Mixed Reality Industries”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Mayan Shay May Raz.

As Lenovo’s AR/VR Senior Software Product Manager, Mayan Shay May-Raz manages the software for Lenovo’s AR commercial products. She is an AR specialist with a background in UX/UI research and design for spatial computing. Previously, Mayan worked as an SDK product manager at Meta, a pioneering company in AR.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory and how you grew up?

I was born and raised mostly in Israel with some of my younger years spent in Singapore and I’m the youngest of three children. My mom was a biochemist and my dad spent most of his career in the military.

My BA is in Visual Communications and my MA studies revolved around the interlacing of design, neuroscience and technology.

Is there a particular book, film, or podcast that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

One of the movies that impacted me the most is Ex Machina by Alex Garland. I see the purpose of art as mirroring life truths and floating questions about those truths. Ex Machina is like the ultimate Turing test, it asks questions about human intelligence and artificial intelligence, the aesthetics is impeccable and serves the story — highlighting the essence of it. I study and cherish the connection between art and technology and find them intertwined — one serves the other and this is a perfect example.

Is there a particular story that inspired you to pursue a career in the VR, AR & Mixed Reality industry? We’d love to hear it.

Actually, my story is a little unusual. As I mentioned before, my background is in design and I studied Visual Communications. My (now) husband and his (now) working partner had created a short film as a graduation project which I was involved in. This was a short eight-minute film called “Sight.” It’s about “a day in the life” of a guy who is seeing the world through Augmented Reality lenses. It came out at the perfect time — right when Google Glass came out and Black Mirror (the first season) was coming out. It spread like wildfire and pretty soon after we were approached by Meta — an Augmented Reality start-up in Silicon Valley which brought us over to help bring our AR vision to reality.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this fascinating career?

I think that the early days were the most fascinating. It really felt like we had to redefine how the human-computer interface should behave. It was a huge challenge because we had to do that while the technology wasn’t quite there yet… it is still in the works but as an industry, we are in a much better place today.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Some of my mistakes were more cultural I think. Since I’m Israeli, I used to be much more direct than I am today — no sugar coating, disregard of organizational hierarchy, brutally honest. I had to learn the hard way I should bring it down a notch when I told a VP to “get out of a room,” but with a smile.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

The person who mentored me and I feel like I owe a lot for guiding me through my AR beginning is Dr. Stefano Baldassi. He is an esteemed neuroscience professor (previously at Stanford University) and worked at Meta as the Senior Director of Analytics and Neuroscience. He had been generous with his knowledge and supportive of my career growth and I will forever be grateful to him for giving me a kickstart.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

I am working on a very exciting project! I am working on the release of our Lenovo ThinkReality A3 smart glasses (small form factor AR glasses) that connect to a Moto G100 phone as well as laptops. This multi-functional device is going to change how we interact with our extended brains (i.e. our computers and mobile devices,) and is going to lead the way for overlaid AR content to be more accessible to more people.

Ok super. Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. The VR, AR and MR industries seem so exciting right now. What are the 3 things in particular that most excite you about the industry? Can you explain or give an example?

I am excited about WebGL, the progress that’s being made on the AR cloud and the introduction of 5G technology. 5G will enable and enhance the AR experiences with lower end-to-end latency, enhanced processing, and formatting via the cloud.

What are the 3 things that concern you about the VR, AR and MR industries? Can you explain? What can be done to address those concerns?

I would say I’m mostly concerned about how people could use these technologies and the fears or misunderstandings they can generate. Artistic visions like Sight, Ex Machina and Black Mirror highlight the potential negative sides of technology. However, smarter technology in the hands of more people can be hugely beneficial for individuals and society. I think historically this has been the much more prevalent trend.

I believe progress is always good and technology is a tool, it should be considered as an enabler but we need to make sure it enhances our human capabilities, making us more capable as humans — not necessarily replacing us. I’m happy I work on a team that shares this vision. A tool like the smart glasses I’m working on will make workers more productive, safer and hopefully make their jobs more fulfilling.

I think the entertainment aspects of VR, AR and MR are apparent. Can you share with our readers how these industries can help us at work?

The most obvious aspect would be gamification. It has been proven by research studies that gamification can improve productivity, training, attrition rate and overall enjoyment — especially by younger, digital-native generations. This has big implications for work, learning and health as we use digital assistants to help achieve personal goals like knowledge building in VR learning or more enjoyable exercise experiences in real or virtual environments.

Are there other ways that VR, AR and MR can improve our lives? Can you explain?

XR can improve almost every aspect of our lives, making communication more accessible and tangible, creating a layer of metadata on top of the world — making information much more visible and contextually relevant. It’s the continuation of the process of decentralizing knowledge.

Let’s zoom out a bit and talk in broader terms. Are you currently satisfied with the status quo regarding women in STEM? If not, what specific changes do you think are needed to change the status quo?

I think we’ve come a long way but we still have a long way to go. I am still the only woman in many of the meetings I attend. I think we should be mindful of biases. One of those biases is that men get judged based on their potential vs women who get more frequently judged based on their past performance. No one was born a manager and you can only get ahead if you are given the chance to prove yourself. I think we should more deliberately decide to give those chances to women, otherwise, nothing will change.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about working in your industry? Can you explain what you mean?

If there’s a myth that tech and engineering is boring, then that needs to change. I love AR/VR technology and truly believe it’s the future. I am working with cool hardware and amazing software. I am part of a team that is truly helping revolutionize the way people will work in the years to come.

What are your “5 Leadership Lessons I Learned From My Experience as a Woman in Tech” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

KNOW YOUR WORTH

Always pre-align with the team before going into big meetings — show a united front

Make allies — it takes a team to succeed

LISTEN, be present, understand the nuances

Delegate, trust your team

I probably have dozens of little stories or incidents that help me learn these things, we all have to make mistakes to grow. For every suggestion I offered, I probably had to stumble and fall before standing back up and learning the lessons. Like I mentioned I used to be very straightforward, and I learned to be more diplomatic to build alliances and trust. Even if you are right, more often than not, people really need to be given information in a style that helps them accept it, and even if you mean well, they need to feel it too.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I am passionate about advancing Women in Technology, there are many groups that are already working in this space but I think there is much more that can be done. I hope more young girls realize that they can change the world by learning STEAM and developing careers in these fields. Early on, I was probably most interested in the art of design, the ‘A’ in STEAM. But then I recognized I needed the technical chops to make things happen that I wanted to do. I did a lot of self-teaching on coding and computer vision among others.

We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them :-)

I would love to meet with Sheryl Sandberg. I have read her book ‘Lean In,’ and feel very inspired by her story. I think in some ways she is paving the way and I would love to walk in her footsteps and be able to help others too.

Thank you so much for these excellent stories and insights. We wish you continued success in your great work!