T.Jacket Travelogue: Pixar Animation Studios!!

T.Jacket Travelogue: Emeryville, CA. USA
Location: Pixar Animation Studios
When: July 2013

For T.Jacket's Travelogue, we'll be looking at the places T.Jacket has been, be it for users, conferences, presentations or any other thing! We'll look at them all! We have some Travelogue photos on Facebook as well, so you can catch some there! 

So, we were reminiscing, and thought our first Travelogue entry should be somewhere everyone knows - Pixar Studios!

HELLO LUXO JR.!!!!!!

Fact bite: The iconic Pixar lamp you see, Luxo Jr., is from Pixar’s first animation – Luxo Jr. He is the small hopping lamp that’s now in Pixar’s logo. 

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Through a friend, our CEO, James Teh, was invited to speak at Pixar Studios in Emeryville, California! James spoke about T.Jacket at the Steve Jobs building during the Pixar Academy, an educational talks session for Pixar employees.

At that time, Disney and Pixar had just released Monster’s University. So I’m sure you can guess what the flavor of the month was!

Speaking at Pixar Academy

Here’s James at the Monsters University podium doing his thing – sharing about T.Jacket and haptics technology!

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James spoke of how the idea of T.Jacket came into existence, the T.Jacket ecosystem, the population that T.Ware works with (mostly Autism and SPD as of then) and our collaboration with therapists and caregivers in the community. 

It was one thing to just engage the audience, but it was definitely another to emotionally engage them. There were members of the audience who either had a child with Autism, or who knew of a close friend or relative who did, so the T.Jacket felt close to their hearts. And it was a good feeling knowing that we are doing something in this field to help people. Of course, the audience also got to try the T.Jacket, and we’re glad it drew great reactions! 

The biggest compliment that we were paid? Well, the audience at Pixar felt T.Ware was doing some really meaningful work. It truly is humbling and inspiring to know that such an important and influential organization recognizes and is inspired by T.Ware’s efforts to develop and utilize technology to help people's lives. 

Exploring Pixar Animation Studios

Like all things that seem like fun work, animation is also a lot of hard work. And we mean a lot. The idea for a movie can take 5 years to come into fruition. In that time, you need to have a hook to make people believe your movie is worth bringing to life. You also go back to the drawing board to invent and reinvent characters and plots countless times. (Can you imagine Buzz Lightyear V1? He would be totally different from what we know of him now!) In a way, that’s like what we’re doing here at T.Ware with our product development – we came up with an idea worth taking further, and we’re now in the process of refining it.  

Though Pixar is such a giant in the world of animation, it was tough not to feel at ease, creative and inspired with Pixar’s creations (Cars, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo) and their creators out and about everywhere! Everyone seemed really relaxed, but enthusiastic and dedicated about their work. 

 

 

 

 

So with that, thanks Pixar for having us!!! The Pixar Animation Studios Grounds truly is a treat for the eyes and soul. That’s definitely something worth remembering for us – that everything we do has the ability to make an impact on people, and to be something significant in people’s lives. 

Cheers!
T.Ware