We are very happy to welcome Priscilla Koukoui to our ADAPTOVATE team in Australia. Although when you read this article you will see she has an international background.
Q: Hi Priscilla, welcome to the Australian ADAPTOVATE team! We’re happy to have you join our Sydney family.
A: I am very happy to have joined ADAPTOVATE! I already love my colleagues 😊!! I am driven by the will to do – and maybe be – better.
Q: We’re excited that you are returning to consulting – can you share your experience in that area?
A: My background is in business and management.
I have a masters in Corporate Finance and Information Systems, studied full-time 2 MBA programs in IIFT Delhi and AIT Bangkok.
However, it is by trading bangles in the streets of Jodhpur (India) where I refined my best business negotiations skills, and by visiting all the Oil & Gas companies in Myanmar that I learned about agility.
I lived and was a business consultant mainly in South-East Asia for about 10 years before sharpening my project skills for Blue chip companies in Australia: I’ve set-up PMO/large programs for Australia Post, Sydney trains, Fuji Xerox and GSK etc…
20+ companies (countless clients) in 10+ countries, I am industry agnostic, a “specialist” at learning, and blending ideas/concepts to innovate. I love organising chaos, teams and driving innovative ways of working.
I mainly worked/work with innovation and emerging technologies, leading teams that have strong technical backgrounds, leading teams that have strong technical expertise – and learn from them, in the process.
Q: We know your background is in working with tech, and you are a specialist in XR (VR and AR) technologies. How did you get involved in that?
A: XR stands for Extended Reality – It is a continuum including Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) and all the realities in between.
I got lucky enough to have time to develop a passion for immersive technologies. It is at the cross-roads of Business Design, Creativity and Business, when these skills are used to solve business challenges.
When working for my clients in immersive tech, I actually need to understand their problem to add value -UX Designer hat-. I then have the knowledge to use the right technical tools, and to build the right teams to deliver -Agile project manager hat-.
As the founder of a company offering XR as business solutions for organisations, mainly engineering companies, with my teams, we had interesting clients’ business challenges during the pandemic.
We assisted clients to deploy covid-safe remote solutions to work or learn. For a solar company in Sydney, we designed a zero contact training in VR for them to train their teams in South America, while we couldn’t travel.
Q: Do you have a particular passion project with XR that you are exploring outside of your consulting work with ADAPTOVATE?
A: I love experimentation and develop creative projects outside of work as a multi-sensory designer for immersive environments (virtual and augmented worlds)!
I create “atmosphere”, immersive multisensory experiences to help change people’s perspectives on any topic. I do this by using the five senses: especially smell, sounds, light, temperature to make the audience feel and have a stronger connection to their XR experience/story.
I am currently working on 2 amazing multi-sensory stories: one is a collaboration for an art exhibition, and the other is an experiential activation for a restaurant.
Q: At ADAPTOVATE we have lot of people from different backgrounds and walks of life including engineers, designers, marketers. Why do you think having a tech background specifically lends itself to a consulting career?
A: I see myself as a creative rather than a tech person – crea tech maybe – with a deep interest for novelty. I love creating, experimenting, and making things happen.
What always bring me back to consulting is my thirst for knowledge and discovery: Solving challenges for diverse clients, in diverse industries and countries with ADAPTOVATORS – the best team!
I bring a creative way of seeing things and a different approach to solving complex problems, an infectious optimism and a strong will to get things done.
Q: What changes have you seen in technology, that you couldn’t have imagined 5 years ago?
A: The speed of change in emerging technologies is exponential. What you imagine being the Future – not sure of your imagination – may already exist.
I am amazed by the way technologies modify the way we work, live and play.
We blend technologies together to solve problems. I’ve created virtual training using machine learning to adapt to the trainees, developing Covid-safe solutions during the pandemic.
I love strategy and delivery: from the clients to understanding their pain points, what their customer wants, and how to deliver the solution in the best way.
Q: Do you have any recommendations for our readers on interesting XR experiences being developed or that we should keep an eye on?
A: Technology solutions are just tools. It is for us humans to decide what we want to do with the technology: use them for good, or not.
Data analytics blending with XR/any emerging tech, human rights and ethics in technology should be at heart of the digital citizen we all are.
Keep an eye open on who harvests/gathers, owns your data, their data policies, and the level of transparency they do with them. Be vocal about it.
I regularly share accessible XR information on XR as a speaker, and on LinkedIn if interested in this topic.
To finish on a more positive note:
Don’t forget to be yourself on the way. You’re unique! Make sure everyone knows!
