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About us

Founded by two leading scientists – Emanuela Maggioni and Marianna Obrist – OW create digital smell technology that will transform an ecosystem dominated by sound and vision.

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Our Story

Originally formed as OWidgets off the back of our first European Research Council proof-of-concept award, our works crosses the arts, the consumer industries, healthcare and research.

Our Values

We design reliable and innovative technologies: hardware and software solutions that allow us to identify smells and their unique perceptual effects. With each new project, we are learning about novel ways in which our products can enhance sensory experiences.

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Meet the team

Our growing team brings together decades of experience and passion from technological innovation, academia and administration. 

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Emanuela Maggioni

CEO & Co-Founder
 

Emanuela has over 15 years of experience in research and consultancy related to smell, including working with Unilever, Benetton and IFF. With over 30 scientific publications and a PhD in Psychology of Smell Perception and Emotions, she is also a Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Fellow and Honorary Research Fellow at the UCL Department of Computer Science. Her work and research has led to two invitations to exhibit novel smell technology at the World Economic Forum.

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Nimrata Boora

Chief Operating Officer
 

Nim joins OW with 12 years’ finance experience working with early-stage deep tech companies. She held CFO and board level leadership positions in a number of venture backed university spinouts and start-ups, including Redux, which successfully exited in 2017. Nim trained and qualified as a chartered accountant with Deloitte, specialising in tech sector SME audit.

 

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Richard Hopper

Hardware Engineer
 

Richard is a research and development engineer with over 8 years of experience working in various companies and universities, including Cambridge CMOS Sensors, Sensors UK and Cambridge University. He has extensive expertise in the fields of sensor development; characterisation; data analysis and electronic, firmware and hardware development. He is working for OW as a hardware engineer focusing on the characterisation and optimisation of scent-delivery.

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Andreas Keller

Scientific Advisor
 

Andreas is a New York-based academic with PhDs in Neuroscience and Philosophy who is interested in olfactory perception. He has over a decade of experience in Olfactory Psychophysics and the clinical aspects of olfaction. He is the author of The Philosophy of Olfactory Perception and the owner of Olfactory Art Keller, an art gallery dedicated to olfactory art.

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Chris Dawes

Researcher
 

Chris comes from a background in cognitive psychology with interests in computer science. He completed his BSc and MSc in Psychology at The University of Nottingham, where he is also finishing his PhD in schizophrenia and Virtual Reality. Chris is also a Research Assistant at UCL Computer science investigating multi-sensory experiences.

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Marianna Obrist

Chief Scientific Officer & Co-Founder
 

Marianna is Professor of Multisensory Interfaces at University College London, part of UCL’s Multi-Sensory Devices research group and the Deputy Director (Digital Health) for the Institute of Healthcare Engineering. Alongside a recent book publication and international recognition in Human-Computer Interaction and User Experience, she is also working on a number of research projects funded by government funding bodies, from the ERC to UKRI and Innovate UK.

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Paul Smith

Head of Business Strategy
 

Paul has 25 years experience in senior executive roles in high volume, international consumer electronics and technology businesses. He was on the executive board of Imagination Technologies and CEO & co-founder of Pure International for over 15 years – growing it to become the biggest global digital radio company. Paul left Pure in 2018 and helped set-up the commercial operations for Yoto (a leading children's audio platform). Alongside his role at OW, his time is shared between SAB Power (under the brand qBLOC - a rechargeable power products business) and a part-time advisory role for Rithum Limited (a smart home technology company).

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Devarsh Patel

System and Application Engineer
 

Devarsh is a multi-skilled Mechatronic Systems Engineer, with core skills in 3D modelling, process improvement and programming. He has experience of working at all stages of product life-cycle, taking several projects from ideation to product delivery and deployment.

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Pablo Meyer

Bio-Computational Advisor
 

Pablo Meyer is Manager of the Biomedical Analytics and Modeling group at IBM Research, Director of DREAM challenges, and works applying AI to biological/biomedical problems such as Systems Biology, Olfaction and Disease/Digital Health.

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Elena Calzolari

Researcher
 

Elena has a background in cognitive neuroscience, with over 10 years of experience in psychophysics, behavioural research and conducting experiments – both with healthy volunteers and patients with traumatic brain injury. She has a PhD in Experimental Psychology, Linguistics and Cognitive Neuroscience from the University of Milano-Bicocca, and has worked as a researcher at Imperial College London, Birkbeck University of London and Sussex University.

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Mike Hollier

Chair
 

Mike is an experienced international executive who has built teams across several disciplines and created multiple new businesses. He is currently VP Technology Incubation at Dolby Laboratories, with a focus on innovation for growth. Previously he spent 10 years as founder/CEO/CTO of VC backed start-up Psytechnics Ltd, and prior to that he was a Technical Group Leader at BT Labs pioneering voice and video quality measurement.

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Florin Udrea

Director & Technical Advisor
 

Florin is a professor in Semiconductor Engineering and head of the High Voltage Microelectronics & Sensors Laboratory at Cambridge University. He is the author of more than 150 patents, founder of five companies and recipient of a number of prestigious prizes – elected a Fellow of The Royal Academy of Engineering in 2015, he has been awarded the Silver Medal from the RAEng and the Mullard medal from the Royal Society in 2018, amongst others.

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Viktor Pešek

Front End Software Developer
 

Viktor is a software architect and full stack and android developer, with specialties in application development, android mobile development, scrum process and test-driven development. With both bachelors and masters degrees from Prague’s Czech Technical University, he has worked as both a lead and senior developer for a number of companies.



 

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Julian Gardner

Technical Advisor
 

Julian is Professor of Electronic Engineering at Warwick University, best known for his contributions to the field of gas and odour sensing (the ‘electronic nose’). With over 500 papers to his name – including 9 books – he is a named inventor on 20 patents. He has led to the establishment of two spin-off companies (Neotronics Scientific Ltd and Alpha MOS SA), and is the recipient of 11 awards, including the IET JJ Thomson Medal, an IEEE Technical Award, and a Royal Society Mullard Innovation Award.

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Declan Pleydell-Pearce

Executive Assistant & Office Manager
 

Declan has worked in the arts for over fifteen years, with a background in language, literature and music. He has both a BA in Linguistics and Phonetics from the University of Leeds and an MA in Creative and Life Writing from Goldsmiths, University of London.

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