Ivan Poupyrev has helped make orchids sing and doorknobs “smart” (programmed to lock, unlock, or even leave a message at the touch of a finger), and he invented a device that weaves technology into the very clothes we wear, like a jacket that answers calls, plays music, or even takes photos right from your sleeve. As a researcher, scientist, and inventor working at the forefront of design and interactive technology, he believes technology can be integrated into everyday products — so that we do not have to spend all of our time looking at screens and typing on keyboards.
Poupyrev is director of engineering and technical projects lead at Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects division, the tech giant’s “hardware invention studio.” Before that, he was a research scientist at both Walt Disney Imagineering and Sony Computer Science Research Labs. Fast Company magazine called him one of the world’s greatest interaction designers, and he won Cooper Hewitt’s National Design Award in 2019.
In a 2019 TED Talk, he controlled the presentation — moving the slides back and forth — by swiping an everyday thing, the sleeve of his jacket. Poupyrev asked the audience, “Can things become the way for us to interact with our digital life? … Can the world become your interface?” For more than 20 years, he has worked to show that the answer to those questions is, “Yes.”
Poupyrev grew up in the Soviet Union. Following its collapse, funding for scientific research became an ever-greater challenge. So, in 1994, he left, splitting his time between the United States and Japan studying. He later worked for Sony in Japan. Regardless of where he was based, Poupyrev has long had the same goal: “to create fully seamless, helpful, humane, and inclusive digital space that makes us better as humans and as a society.”
http://www.ivanpoupyrev.com/
