2015–2021 Case file
GreyKernel — founder and CTO
Founder and CTO chapter
I co-founded GreyKernel and led technology for six years, building immersive products and games alongside client work for companies including JPMorgan Chase and Anglian Water.
On this page
From game systems to a multidisciplinary product studio.
Building a company across products and client systems
GreyKernel started in 2015. Over the next six years we worked across immersive learning, enterprise XR, games, simulation, robotics, and physical training systems. The output looked different each time, but the work underneath was similar. We had to understand the real task, choose how people would interact with it, and build the systems around the experience that made it usable.
A portfolio with different operating requirements
| Area | What we built | What the product had to account for |
|---|---|---|
| IRA VR | Immersive lessons, virtual labs, learner applications, teacher controls, and assessment | A classroom session involves teachers, students, content, devices, and reporting |
| Enterprise XR | Onboarding, cybersecurity, industrial training, 360° tours, and empathy exercises | The right medium depended on whether someone needed to see a place, practise a procedure, or discuss an experience |
| MysticMojo | Casual mobile and AR games, including Chhota Bheem Jungle Rescue through Nazara | Controls, feedback, content production, and performance on the devices children used |
| Defense and robotics | Simulation software, physical controls, instructor systems, motion tracking, and robot-control research | Software and hardware had to respond as one training or control system |
The less visible half of an immersive product
The headset or game screen was usually the part people remembered. The harder product work often sat around it. IRA VR needed teacher controls and assessment. Training systems needed instructor setup and evaluation. Location experiences needed production workflows and a clear navigation model. Hardware-based simulation needed sensor input to agree with what the software displayed.
That changed how I thought about immersive technology. Presence was useful only when it supported the task. A realistic environment could still fail if the instructor could not run the session, the participant did not understand the next action, or the system could not recover when a device lost tracking.
My role
As CTO, I worked on product definition, systems architecture, and technical delivery, and on the decisions that connected our software with content, production teams, and specialist hardware. I stayed involved in implementation as well, working alongside engineers, artists, and domain specialists.
The balance changed with the project. Some needed a product direction and architecture. Others needed a prototype that could answer a specific interaction question. Client systems also needed a practical delivery plan that the team could support after the demonstration.
What carried forward
GreyKernel is where I learned to treat the experience, the operating workflow, and the delivery system as one product problem. When I later moved into design software and applied AI, I kept asking the questions that came out of it: what the user needs to control, which decisions have to stay stable, what happens after the visible interaction, and what the next person or system needs to receive.
Related work
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