Teddy Seyed
He's a global leader in a fast-emerging field, his pioneering work in wearable technology taking him around the world and capturing the attention of scientific journals and leading news publications such as Forbes.
If you ask Teddy Seyed what has propelled him to the forefront of a Us$32-billion (and growing) industry, though, the 34-year-old will say it's simply hard work. “I'm not always the smartest guy in the room,” says Seyed, a University of Calgary alumnus who was awarded the Bill Buxton award for best PHD dissertation in Canada, in the field of human-computer interaction. “But I'm not supposed to be, many of my colleagues are world-famous in their field.”
Those colleagues work with Seyed at Washington-based Microsoft Research, where he leads its wearables research and initiatives (anything from environmentally sensing scarves to mother-daughter dresses that light up when near one another). It's a dream job for the longtime Calgarian, combining his love of science and the arts.
While he didn't start out as a straight-a student — “I was a bit of a wild child for a while” — the example set by his immigrant parents, along with discovering martial arts in his teens, helped him focus. “I became passionate about the hardcore sciences,” he says.
For Seyed, who also loves to draw and was a big fan of the Spawn comic series created by fellow Calgarian Todd Mcfarlane, computer science wasn't on his radar until year three of his U of C undergrad degree.
He discovered there was more to the field than coding, that “I could still be creative.”
Seyed's work has attracted some of the world's major fashion houses and, during the COVID-19 pandemic, he's collaborated with famed tech designer Maggie Orth on creating masks and other wearables for people with disabilities.
He's also passionate about giving back — one of his initiatives being the non-profit SOFIE Foundation, which mentors Canadian youth in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics). His Project Brookdale allows fellow wearables researchers to exchange knowledge between the fashion and tech industries.
“I would love one day to do philanthropic work full-time,” says Seyed, who also received the U of C's first Entrepreneurial PHD in 2019.
“And have a global influence.”