Lecture: Jefferson Han, Multi-Touch Interfaces: Past, Present, and a Look Towards the Future

Jefferson Han, Founder and Chief Scientist of Perceptive Pixel, develops and markets the most advanced multi-touch solutions in the world to the geo-intelligence, medical, energy exploration, defense, broadcast, creative and entertainment industries, with clients ranging from CNN to the Central Intelligence Agency. The technology transformed the way the 2008 Presidential election coverage was viewed, with ABC, CNN and Fox using the touch-technology to examine voting trends across the nation.

Han developed the technology at New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences as a means of visually presenting connected layers of data for more accessible use. The multi-touch screens were first unveiled to the technology community at a TED Conference, which was the launching point for his business, in Feb. 2006.

Han also works on other projects in the fields of autonomous robot navigation, motion capture, real-time computer graphics, and human-computer interaction.

Han graduated from The Dalton School in New York in 1993 and studied computer science and electrical engineering for three years at Cornell University before leaving to join a start-up company to commercialize the CU-SeeMe video-conferencing software that he helped develop while an undergraduate at Cornell.

Perceptive Pixel won a 2009 National Design Award from the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, and Han was named Time Magazine’s “One of the World’s 100 Most Influential People” in 2008.