Wayve appoints former Partner Director of Science at Microsoft, Dr. Shotton, as Chief Scientist, bringing his expertise in machine learning to this next generation autonomous vehicle start-up.
World-renowned AI technology research and development leader Dr. Shotton has joined self-driving company Wayve. Dr. Shotton has been at the forefront of applied AI research for the past 20 years. He has shipped foundational features in multiple products including Kinect’s body tracking, HoloLens 2’s hand and eye-tracking that enables it’s instinctual interaction model, and Microsoft Mesh’s presence technology. He has won numerous best paper awards, and most recently in June 2021, was awarded the prestigious Longuet-Higgens prize to recognise his contribution to the field of computer vision.
Dr. Shotton will leverage his expertise to drive Wayve’s autonomous vehicle progress, specifically around building its Driving Intelligence based on AV2.0, a data-learned approach to self-driving. Dr. Shotton will be leading Wayve’s R&D teams tackling the grand challenges for learned driving, such as adaptability to real world complex environments. Overcoming these challenges is key to building a scalable self-driving system based on machine learning.
Alex Kendall CEO Wayve says:
“Developing an intelligent autonomous driving system is a truly generational problem, requiring important scientific leadership and technological advancements. With his shipping of Hololens and Xbox Kinect alongside multiple academic contributions, Dr. Shotton has been at the helm of key scientific and industry breakthroughs throughout his career. He has opened up the minds of the industry to tackle the world’s most ambitious AI challenges like autonomous driving.”
“Having a world-class leader like Dr. Shotton on the team is hugely exciting to Wayve and we can’t wait to learn from his unrivalled expertise. With a history of developing groundbreaking mixed reality and computer vision systems, we are excited to see his leadership elevate our Driving Intelligence to the next level.”
Dr. Jamie Shotton, Chief Scientist Wayve says:
“Autonomous vehicles are the natural next step in taking AI technology out of the lab and delivering real-world impact. I have been fascinated for many years by both the deep technical challenges as well as the opportunities for positive impact that autonomous driving will bring. To build a self-driving solution that’s capable of driving in complex urban settings like London will transform mobility. Wayve’s data-learned approach AV2.0 is ahead of the curve, working at the intersection between machine learning and robotics. I am thrilled to join Wayve and work with the team to continue to guide this pioneering approach.”
Over the past 13 years, Dr. Shotton led Microsoft’s Mixed Reality and AI Labs across Cambridge, Zurich and Belgrade, with the goal of taking cutting-edge technologies from research inception into shipping products. His research focuses at the intersection of computer vision, AI, machine learning, and graphics. He has explored applications of this work for mixed reality, virtual presence, human-computer interaction, gaming, and healthcare.
On top of his robust industry experience and PhD in computer vision from Cambridge where he won the Engineering department’s prize for Outstanding Dissertation, Dr. Shotton has received multiple Best Paper and Best Demo awards at top academic conferences. He was awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering’s MacRobert Award in 2011, and he shares Microsoft’s Outstanding Technical Achievement Award for 2012 with the Kinect engineering team. In 2014, he received the PAMI Young Researcher Award, in 2015 the MIT Technology Review Innovator Under 35 Award, and in 2020 the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Silver Medal.
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