Maryam Sabour (Niantic) on Active, Outdoor AR Gaming

The Guest

Maryam Sabour is the General Manager and Head of Business for the AR Headsets group at Niantic, where the goal is to enable everyday adventures and real-life social interaction through location-based augmented reality.

Maryam studied law and business at university, going on to earn a Juris Doctorate at McGill University. Early in her career, she was drawn to entrepreneurship, having founded an e-commerce company and a legal clinic for startups.

Maryam was drawn into the world of VR, where she spent several years working as a founder or consultant across several projects, before taking on the role of the business development lead for Niantic’s then nascent Lightship AR platform about 5 years ago.

Maryam Sabour

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Niantic

The Conversation

In this conversation, Maryam shares her path from law to entrepreneurship to Niantic, and explains why Niantic became a hardware innovator.

Maryam goes on to discuss:

  • the tradeoffs and challenges in making a device suitable for outdoor gaming,

  • some lessons learned from early explorations,

  • how the hardware fits into the broader Niantic strategy,

  • and how the company thinks about privacy.

Jason McDowallhardware, AR smartglasses, games