Top Stories of 2017: Oxford Native Selected to Forbes' "30 Under 30" List

Oxford native Sylvester “Sly” Lee has been named to Forbes’ prestigious “30 Under 30” list for a breakthrough in augmented reality (AR) technology.
Lee, a marine scientist turned designer and entrepreneur, is the son of Peng and Maria Lee of Oxford. He graduated from Oxford High School in 2007 and earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in pharmacy from the University of Mississippi in 2010 and 2012. He currently lives in Los Angeles.
Lee, 28, made the “30 Under 30” list in the category of Manufacturing & Industry, which focuses on “creating the products, methods and materials of tomorrow.”
Lee is cofounder of a Los Angeles company called Emerge. According to Forbes, Lee and his partners “invented a hardware device that enables users to physically feel virtual objects in AR without the need for wearables, controllers or gloves. Instead, it uses a proprietary tech to create precise force fields mid-air. This allows users to physically feel shapes, volumes and even textures.”
Prior to launching Emerge, Lee, who’s also an accomplished photographer, worked for the National Parks Service, where he pioneered a technique using ordinary cameras to capture underwater coral images and generate interactive 3D models to measure the long-term effects of climate change.
In addition to cofounding Emerge, he is also cofounder and a board member of The Hydrous, a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating open-access oceans “so that all people may explore, understand and engage with marine environments, which are severely threatened by climate change and human impacts,” according to the organization’s website.
In 2015, Lee was selected to participate in Singularity University’s Global Solutions Program, sponsored by Google and NASA.

---

Rick Hynum is HottyToddy.com’s editor-in-chief. Email him at rick.hynum@hottytoddy.com.