I am a naturally curious person and there are any number of things I am thinking about, reading about, learning about in a given day. And it’s not just technology that interests me. I am just as fascinated with the arts, philosophy, fashion, design, theology, and science as I am with computers. I’ve been this way for as long as I can remember and it’s made me inadvertently push boundaries and seek out opportunities whenever my horizon for learning felt limited.
Take Buraq Space Camp above as an example. I was probably 15 when I saw the advertisement for camp entrance exam in the newspaper. The actual camp would be a 10-day event held in a different city which was 2 hours by plane. I somehow managed to convince my dad to take me for the test, which I also somehow managed to pass, and, thanks to a miracle of miracles, my parents let me fly and stay on my own for the first time ever. That trip was an impactful moment in my life because of all the fascinating ideas I was introduced to and because, from that moment on, I realized that there are countless more opportunities out there than what I had been exposed to so far.
My friend Wikipedia has a bunch of different definitions for the word Innovation, but the one that stood out for me the most is this: “An idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption.” I am fortunate to have worked in innovative companies and areas in my career so far. At Microsoft, I worked on developer tools, search and machine learning. I immersed myself in learning novel ways of ranker training. At eBay, I was able to build upon this foundational knowledge of distributed systems and machine learning and apply it to a new domain — ecommerce — to transform ideas into revenue generating product lines. Electronic Arts was a dream job, combining a passion for technology with the love of gaming. There were so many innovative applications of machine learning, facial recognition, distributed systems and AI across gaming and I was constantly drinking from the fire hose in an effort to deepen my learning and make an inpact. And when I decided to pursue a growth opportunity outside the company, by co-founding a VC backed logistics tech startup called FreightWeb as its CTO, the leadership team at Electronic Arts was nothing but supportive. I was given more farewell parties than I can remember and both peers and leadership consistently reached out during the company building process to offer their support and advice.
In early 2021, I decided to step away from my operator CTO role at FreightWeb and instead continue as Board Member. The reasons for this decision are multiple and will be explored in a separate post, but it left me open to discover new horizons once again. I talked to many hiring managers, CEOs, Founders, and Senior Leaders at multiple companies but none of the opportunities were as compelling — or as open for exploration and innovation — as the role I was offered at Electronic Arts. And none of the companies were as welcoming or as thoughtful about my needs and career goals as EA has been. So it was a no-brainer.
When it comes to Innovation, I will always have my hands full! As the Vice President for Technology Growth Strategy, I get to take my years of technical experience and combine it with my love for learning new things to create business impact. I also get to utilize my experience as a startup founder and investor to bring that 0 to 1 thinking when building within a large corporation and identifying key technology areas in gaming that Electronic Arts needs to be innovating in. This role gives me the ability to drive the company’s technical strategy towards future gaming trends: What is our stance on crypto in games? Do we plan to innovate with NFTs? How are we planning to incorporate the Metaverse? Whats new with game engine and game services technology? How do we want to innovate for our content creator community? How can we create even more realistic cloth simulation or 10x our gesture control technology?
The opportunity to define the future of technology in gaming while partnering with the sharpest minds at EA and around the industry is a privilege. There are as always a lot of unknowns to discover, new avenues for growth and a real desire to create massive impact through Innovation. And I am beyond excited for this next chapter!
