About Plenoptic Cognition

Team:

Our Core Members

VectorField is being developed by a team of Hollywood insiders.

Ido Banai

CEO/Founder

Ido has been working in Hollywood for almost 20 years helping craft VFX and technology solutions to create movie magic. He has been in the forefront of helping Hollywood productions figure out how to cross the finish line when working with new technologies such as stereoscopic, VR and Volumetric content. From working on the box as a production artist to supervising VFX, developing pipelines and designing entire studios, Ido had the privilege of seeing how professional content production works from the inside. His focus is on synthesizing and shepherding a new vision for how we can all collaborate creatively to produce content in a more sustainable and equitable way that helps all artists thrive.

James Coulter

Principal Engineer

James started writing non-published computer games for fun as a young teenager in the early 80s. With a passion for math, programming, and computer graphics, James developed his career from a Technical Animator at a boutique shop through roles including Technical Director, R&D Developer, and Director of Development for one of the world’s largest VFX shops. As James broadened his skills as a developer, he moved to roles of Senior Engineer III at Amazon and now Principal Engineer at Plenoptic Cognition. James also studies and promotes the use of formal specification (a way to mathematically describe the behavior of systems) towards the creation of powerful systems that are high-performance, have low failure rates, and resistant to misuse.

Steven Hammersly

CFO

Steven Hammersly has extensive experience with early-stage companies, as an entrepreneur with two exits, and multiple assignments as a CFO over the past seven years. Previously, as the head of Strategic Alliances for Pearson, the world’s largest publishing company, his work included analyzing potential acquisitions, and negotiating digital book partnerships with Apple, Google, Amazon and others. In his role as Plenoptic’s CFO, he is responsible for finance and accounting, contracts, capital raising and investor relations, and works with Plenoptic’s exec team on strategy and business development matters. Hammersly has an A.B (Economics) from the University of California (Berkeley) and an M.A. in Media Studies from the New School, where he is also a member of the faculty.

Our Advisory Board

Plenoptic Cognition's advisory board is growing.

Jay Bonci

CTO, SVP & GM

As the former Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Department of the Air Force, Jay brings invaluable expertise in defense technology and the development of critical national security systems. Jay’s insights and guidance will play a pivotal role in advancing our mission to deliver cutting-edge capabilities that support the evolving needs of our mission partners. His experience will significantly enhance our efforts to develop VectorField as the next-generation zero-trust, cloud-native platform for processing mission-critical visual data pushing the boundaries of computer vision, AI, and beyond. Jay currently wrapped his deployment with DAF/USAF and is currently the SVP at Clarity tasked with developing next generation offensive cyber capabilities for public sector clients.

James Jacobs

CEO & Co-Founder

Academy award winner and Ziva Dynamics CEO & Co-Founder, James Jacobs is a seasoned visual effects veteran with 25 years of industry experience. After having lead and contributed to teams at numerous VFX and animation studios, including Weta Digital, Digital Domain, Dreamworks, Mr. X and Method Studios, Jacobs embarked on his own journey to empower artists, developers, and creators with the tools to make better virtual characters, in any space. With Ziva's recent sale to Unity, James has now transitioned to focus more on his creative passions opening a new game studio C-53.

Rex Grignon

Creative animation executive

Rex has been a creative leader in the animation industry for nearly 30 years across Pixar, DreamWorks, Nimble Collective, and most recently, Amazon after he completed his sale and exit of Nimble to AWS. His passion in creating stories through animation, having directed short films and overseen animation units across several major franchises including Shrek, Madagascar, and Kung Fu Panda, all beginning with animating on Toy Story. We are immensely privileged to have Rex as an advisor both lending his experience from developing Nimble for Amazon and his wealth of creative experience leading animated production.

Irit Idan PHD

Investment Advisor at Idan Technology Insights.

Irit is a technology enthusiast who loves to outline strategies and approaches to integrate them with other technologies to create value . She holds a PHD in Astrophysics and was the previous EVP R&D of Rafael Advance Defense Systems. She brings a wealth of experience to helping guide our development efforts for mission critical technology solutions leveraging novel technology and science.

David Stump - ASC, BVL

Director of Photography - American Society of Cinematographers / Berufsverband Kinematografie

David Stump brings over 40 years of experience as a Producer, Director, Director of Photography, Visual Effects Director of Photography, Visual Effects Supervisor and Effects Cameraman. David literally wrote the book about digital cinematography! He has extensive experience with digital camera systems design, developing optics and signal processing solutions, and is a world leader in the use of computational photography for Hollywood and other industry sectors. He is the first cinematographer to use Lytro's (Google) Lightfield camera in production, among many other first's, as he helped Hollywood adapt new imagining technologies into production use. David is instrumental in helping us as we develop the next generation of digital capture technology solutions for VectorField and beyond. Get David's book here - https://a.co/d/8l7frua

Jason Thompson

CEO at 33 Sticks

Jason thompson, Founder and CEO of 33 Sticks, boasts over two decades of expertise in consumer analytics and optimization. His career initiated at Omniture, where he played a pivotal role in guiding global brands such as Major League Baseball and Viacom, applying his deep analytics knowledge and innovative strategies. Renowned for his unique "people first" leadership style, jason cultivates an environment of honesty and personal growth, nurturing a dedicated and passionate team. His influence extends beyond business, as he contributes to education as an Executive Board Member at East Tennessee State University and supports philanthropic causes like charity: water. jason's approach seamlessly integrates technical mastery with a strong commitment to creating positive societal change through his work.

Hila Dahan

COO at 33 Sticks

Hila is the COO and co-owner of 33Sticks, she is a digital intelligence analyst, specializing in creating and running teams that provide insights, recommendations, and value through the capture and use of data. She has been involved in supporting and operationalizing data analytics solutions for over 30 social media platforms from the very early days of data analytics, where she served a key role in helping Myspace establish today's digital advertising sales model.