Mary Lou Jepsen | |
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Jepsen in 2009
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Born | 1964/1965 (age 51–52) |
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | Brown University |
Occupation | Technology Pioneer |
Known for | Co-founder, One Laptop Per Child |
Website | MaryLouJepsen |
Mary Lou Jepsen (born 1965) is a technical executive, inventing and leading groups in the fields of display, imaging and computer hardware.
Her most recent endeavor is OpenWater, a startup aiming to make fMRI-type imaging inside the body practical at the price level of consumer electronics and in wearable form factors. In 2016, she joined the board of directors of Lear Corporation, a Detroit-area maker of seats and electronics for cars.
She was previously an executive at Facebook / Oculus VR. Among her objectives at Facebook was leading a concerted effort to bring Virtual Reality to the next level. Previously she was Head of the Display Division at Google X where she led more than one "Moon Shot" program, reported to Sergey Brin, and advised and directed display and consumer electronic programs throughout Google. The Wall Street Journal reported that among her projects there she created Google Lego TV: displays composed of smaller screens that plug together like Legos to create vast, seamless images and "live walls" .. in other words from wall size interaction, television, video conferencing and gaming to virtual reality without having to wear anything on your face or body.
She is also founder and former CEO of Pixel Qi in Taipei, Taiwan, focused on innovative opto-electronic architectures and the manufacturer thereof. Pixel Qi delivers high performance, low-power, sunlight-readable screens for mobile devices. The long term vision of Pixel Qi was to create devices that never need be recharged through a two prong approach 1) lowering the power consumption of the device through innovative screen and power management technology and 2) using alternative power generation and battery technologies.
She was the co-founder and the first chief technology officer of One Laptop per Child (OLPC) a non-profit that generated more than $1B in revenue and helped create $30B in revenue for its for-profit partners. There she architected the $100 laptop with new screen architectures, new very low power management architecture, new battery technology, new mesh networking protocol, and new user interface all in record time – and shipped millions of them in an effort to start to transform education opportunities for children in the developing world.
She was named to the "Time 100", an annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world according to Time Magazine. In 2013 she was named one of the CNN 10: a list of top 10 thinkers in science and technology by CNN for her work in rethinking functional brain imaging with higher resolution more compact systems which can ultimately lead to communication directly via human thought.