EXCELLENCE IN TECHNOLOGY

HP EXECUTIVE LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

Mirjana Spasojevic leads a diverse, passionate, entrepreneurial team of allstar researchers driven to anticipate and study the way people will engage with technologies that don’t yet exist. This team of designers, researchers, prototypers, and free thinkers are trained to look years ahead and design interactions and experiences that people will want to have with new technologies.

As vice president and head of the Immersive Experience Lab at HP Inc., Spasojevic is a driving force behind groundbreaking contributions to technology. At the heart of the lab are forays into the future, where Spasojevic is guiding innovation in products and technologies for years to come in the areas of blended reality, UI/UX, new devices, applications and services. Her team understands and fulfills the promise of valuable, delightful experiences through data-driven, and user-focused solutions with a focus on PEOPLE.

Spasojevic has over 20 years of experience in mobile, web, file and distributed systems and is a recognized expert in Human-Computer Interaction and Ubicomp fields with work cited over 2,000 times.

During her career, she co-founded educational startup Kindoma, and served as director of exploratory research at the Nokia Research Center in Silicon Valley. She has also led research activities and technical teams at HP, Yahoo and Transarc and served as an assistant professor at Washington State University.

In the words of Mirjana Spasojevic:

How can the world increase diversity in STEM fields?
“This is a significant issue that ultimately affects us all since new breakthroughs in the STEM field are needed to improve the conditions of all people everywhere on this planet. Diversity is one of the key pillars of new ideas. To increase diversity in STEM we need focused efforts and partnerships among academic institutions, governments and corporations.”

How is the world changing with respect to STEM?
“There are changes, but they are slow and not easy to notice. For example, the uptick on the number of women in the CS majors is encouraging. Girls Who Code and similar organizations are removing some of the stigma from the cliché of these areas being boy’s domain.”

What can be done to move women forward in STEM?
“I believe that the future of technology advancement and solving big problems will require multidisciplinary team efforts. This is something I work hard in my own team when I hire and set up teams with goals and projects.”

Where do you see women in STEM in five years?
“This is really hard to predict. I am truly hoping that the global numbers will improve. More importantly, I hope that the leadership positions in STEM fields will be more occupied by women.