Adaora Udoji is an emerging technology strategist and maker. She has worked in artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality and other new digital technologies.
Currently, she is the Director of Corporate Innovation at New York City’s RLab, the first city-funded hub focused on the next generation of user interfaces including virtual and augmented realities and related technologies. She is also an adjunct professor at NYU Tandon School of Engineering and the Interactive Telecommunications Program at the Tisch School of the Arts.
She is on the board of NEW Inc of the New Museum and advises SXSW Pitch 2019, VRAR Association, and the Guggenheim Museum Global Innovation Council. She serves a Jury member to the Storyscape Awards at Tribeca Film Festival 2019. She also mentors at the Op’Ed Project and the 92nd Street Y Women in Power and is a former Entrepreneur-in-Residence at WeWork Labs.
Adaora supports women founders and entrepreneurs: Pipeline Angels, The Helm and SheEO radical Generosity.
Her career began at ABC News after graduating from the UCLA School of Law and the University of Michigan. For more than a decade she reported on breaking news, features and politics from Boston to Baghdad for that outlet, CNN and public radio. For her contributions, she won numerous awards including recognition for her work from The National Academy of Television Arts.
In her spare time, she supports and produces short films and documentaries. Adaora holds dual American and Irish citizenship and has lived on four continents.
In this interview, Adaora talks about her incredibly innovative work in virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality as well as how she decided to make the jump from broadcasting with ABC to serving in strategic roles in emerging tech media. Additionally, she talks about what inclusivity looks like in the converging worlds of tech and media for people with limited hearing or vision and the best advice she has ever received.
