Motorola hires a former Sony and Disney employee

After eight years at Sony and five years spent elevating Disney Research to one of the premier interaction design labs in the world, Ivan Poupyrev is leaving for Motorola Mobility where he’ll help develop new products to compete with dominant hardware companies like Apple and Samsung. In other words, Motorola is about to become a UX juggernaut.

Motorola has hired one of the world’s premier interaction designers, Dr. Ivan Poupyrev. Poupyrev, voted one of the world’s most creative people in 2013 by Fast Company Design, comes to the Google-owned phone manufacturer from Disney Research. He joins Motorola to work in the Google-owned company’s Advanced Technology and Products department, run by Regina Dugan, the former head of DARPA. The first phone produced by the department under Google, the Moto X, hasn’t yet been a sweeping commercial success. But the customizable smartphone does incorporate innovative interaction technologies: Poupyrev’s specialty.