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Rony Abovitz
Founder & CEO Sun and Thunder

Rony Abovitz is a technology founder, pioneer, inventor, visionary leader and strategic advisor with a diverse background in computer-assisted surgery, surgical robotics, AI, computer graphics/visualization, sensing, advanced systems, media/animation, spatial audio, and spatial computing/XR. He has a strong intellectual property background, having built multi-thousand patent portfolios in his start-ups.

Rony is currently the founder and CEO of a new creative tech stealth incubator, Sun and Thunder, and its first spin-off company, SynthBee, Inc. He is also a Senior Advisor at the Boston Consulting Group, working with Fortune 500 CEOs and growth-tech founders in the areas of deeptech, medtech, biotech, AI, e-commerce, blockchains, crypto/NFT, telecommunications, web/mobile, games/media, sensing, robotics, lasers, and overall innovation. Rony also advises a small portfolio of innovative tech startups, including Neal Stephenson’s Lamina1 (Layer 1 Open Metaverse Blockchain) and Forsight Robotics.

Passionate about imagining and creating, Rony has a strong history of creating new technology fields and businesses from the start-up garage onward including Magic Leap, the world’s leading spatial computing company he founded back in 2011. Magic Leap invented and developed the core technologies of spatial computing and helped to invent and define the overall field. Under Rony’s leadership, the company launched the first of their kind wearable spatial computing systems: the Magic Leap One, Creator Edition and Magic Leap 1 Enterprise, both of which are currently in use at Fortune 500 companies, major universities, hospitals, developers, defense, and governments around the world. At Magic Leap several world’s first were achieved: Helio, the first spatial computing web browser, MICA (human-centered AI), Magicverse software and tools, Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders (first AAA game for AR based spatial computing), the first wearable multi-focal XR system, the first avatar co-presence communication call, and hundreds of early applications and proof-of-concepts of the possibility of spatial computing.

Rony and his team also led the development of multiple generations of spatial computing systems, including the Magic Leap 2, which became public in late 2021. The Magic Leap 2 recently was awarded two of the world’s most prestigious design awards:

https://ifdesign.com/en/winner-ranking/project/magic-leap-2/348548

(IF Design Gold Award, which was presented in Berlin in May 2022)

https://www.red-dot.org/project/magic-leap-2-55646

(Reddot Best Of The Best Design, 2022)

The Magic Leap 2 also won Best In Show, Augmented Reality at the 2022 Augmented World Expo, and was named of the top inventions of 2022 by Time Magazine:

https://time.com/collection/best-inventions-2022/6228828/magic-leap-2/

Rony is Magic Leap’s founder and was the first CEO until August 2020. He also helped to recruit Peggy Johnson, a senior executive at rival Microsoft, to become his successor as Magic Leap’s CEO.

TALKS

May 31

10:50 AM - 11:15 AM

MISSION CITY BALLROOM
MAIN STAGE

How Can We Invigorate XR?

Charlie Fink | Forbes

Rony Abovitz | Sun and Thunder