James Ashley specializes in designing and developing Magic Leap, HoloLens, ARKit, HTC Vive, Oculus and gestural experiences. (http://www.imaginativeuniversal.com/portfolio). He combines a background in academic philosophy, digital marketing agencies and enterprise software architecture to create innovative experiences for his clients.

He is a Microsoft Windows Development MVP. Before that, he was a Microsoft MVP in Emerging Experiences, in Kinect for Windows, and even before that in WPF and Silverlight. He also helps run the XR Atlanta Meetup.

James co-authored the LinkedIn Learning video course HoloLens App Development to provide inspiration and a kickstart for mixed reality (spatial computing) developers. He also wrote the Apress title Beginning Kinect Programming with the Microsoft Kinect SDK. This book gave thousands of developers their first taste of gestural programming and inspired a new generation of creative technologists working in the Microsoft stack.

He has a background in computer vision and machine learning. He is currently deeply involved in using the power of Artificial Intelligence to build better user interfaces in Mixed Reality.

James has never been referred to as the David Foster Wallace of bleeding edge technology.

In a previous life, he pursued a PhD in Philosophy at Emory University.