Inspiring the next generation of innovators

16 August 2023

It’s fair to say that tech entrepreneur and new CIE mentor Mike Evans has covered a lot of ground in his 25-year career – both literally and figuratively. Since graduating with a BCom/BSc in Computer Science and Management Information Systems from the University of Auckland Business School in 1997, Mike has worked in Auckland, London, Brussels, and Los Angeles in roles that ranged from a contract programming position with the European Commission to his most recent role as Senior Manager of Platform Products at Snap Inc (the parent company of Snapchat).

Mike’s entrepreneurial flair emerged early in his career. Identifying the growing demand for e-commerce in the late 90s, he started his first company, Corbus, with two friends when he was only a couple of years out of university. In early 2000 he left Auckland for London and after some “well-remunerated” contract work, in 2005 he started his second company, Harmonypark, which developed web and mobile products for clients and other start-ups and worked with many large multinational companies (including Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Unilever, and the BBC). “The best thing about a tech start-up is the ability for a few people with very limited resources to create something out of nothing and, with lots of luck, grow a user base and ultimately a business in a way that would have been impossible in the pre-internet era,” he observes.

More success followed with Seene, Mike’s third and most high-profile start-up. Founded in 2012 by Mike and three others, Seene developed computer vision technology for mobile devices. Mike worked as COO, working on strategy, business development, and partnerships alongside product management and operations. Although Seene began as an offshoot of Harmonypark, it eventually eclipsed it, he says. “Whereas the previous companies were largely agencies that generated revenue by selling services, Seene developed novel technology through R&D that was licensed to customers, as well as its own photography app.” The Seene team’s ability to execute on both technology and product development soon attracted the interest of bigger players in the tech industry, and in 2016 the company was acquired by social media giant Snap Inc.

“Snap were looking to jumpstart their augmented reality group,” explains Mike. Augmented Reality – the merging of the physical world with the digital – has been Mike’s particular area of interest over the last decade. “AR has the potential to let us more fully engage with the real world,” he explains. “Rather than mediate our lives through the small rectangles of our phones, overlaying computing on the world when, and to the degree desired, via wearable devices like AR-enabled glasses could help to resituate us back in the space we’re actually living in.”

For most of Mike’s time at Snap, he worked in the group responsible for augmented reality. He led the product management team that develops Snapchat Lenses (often referred to as filters) and the Lens Studio desktop application used by hundreds of thousands of creators to build millions of AR experiences for Snap platforms (Snapchat, Spectacles, and the Camera Kit SDK). “It was intense but rewarding,” he remembers. “I’m very grateful to have had the opportunity to work inside a large tech company of around 5,000 people, in addition to our own entrepreneurial efforts.”

This invaluable experience aside, what really matters to Mike about working in tech is its potential for positively impacting people’s lives. He relishes having the ability “to work with exceptionally talented people on products that have such an enormous reach and, when done well, really positive outcomes. Few industries have such a direct connection to hundreds of millions of people globally, and even at reasonably large companies like Snap, one’s actions can result in substantial measurable impact.”

Mike now volunteers at the University of Auckland Business School’s Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE). As a mentor for CIE, Mike hopes to create a measurable impact at a more local level, bringing his entrepreneurial skills and wide-ranging experience to encourage and inspire the next generation of innovators. “I hope I can offer students something through the experience I’ve gained over the years,” he explains. “I’m also very excited to hear what a new generation of entrepreneurs and technologists are themselves excited about! The pace of change in tech is so great with new developments constantly, and younger generations have a much broader and current feel for this than us older folks do.”

His own pick as the next big thing in tech is, unsurprisingly, AI. “Inevitably AI will be a bigger and bigger thing with increasing impact across all areas of the tech industry, including social media. It seems likely that AI will result in substantial productivity improvements through the tech sector and eventually across the business world…it has the potential to be the next fundamental step change that could produce a new wave of tech incumbents post-FAANG [the acronym for tech titans Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google], though it comes with a novel set of risks.”

For Mike personally, the future is wide open. Now “fortunate to be able to take a pause” and back in Aotearoa after living overseas for so long, he’s enjoying the opportunity to reacquaint himself with Auckland and the rest of the country – and he’s eager to contribute in any way he can. “I’m keen to connect with anyone who thinks my journey might be relevant to theirs – and am always happy to have a chat and see if I can help!” As someone who’s worked for so long at the cutting-edge of tech, he’s always excited to explore new ideas – and thus anticipates his new role as CIE mentor to be one that is mutually beneficial. “I’m very interested to hear about the ideas and aspirations of CIE innovators and entrepreneurs. It’s a privilege to be a small part of their journey, and I’m looking forward to it.”

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