Alumnus Mark Yahiro will speak at College of Engineering commencement

When the College of Engineering hosts its graduation ceremony May 9 at Credit Union 1 Arena, they will hear from commencement speaker Mark Yahiro, a UIC alumnus and the vice president of RealSense, Inc., and advisor to a number of start-ups.

Over his career, Yahiro has worked for both large-scale businesses and startups, and contributed to a series of industry firsts in computing and graphics. Now, he is focused on robotics and AI-powered vision systems. He also holds four patents on computer vision interaction.

Yahiro hopes to share a bit about his path, and what he sees for today’s graduates.

“I know today’s graduates are focused on whether they will have a job in their field of choice,” Yahiro said. “Those with an engineering degree can do just about everything.”

Yahiro said one of UIC’s strengths is the exposure to fellow classmates from diverse backgrounds, which drives curiosity and new ways of thinking.

“The key to success is perseverance and empathy, things you develop when you are studying engineering at UIC,” Yahiro said.

Yahiro grew up in Glenview and first attended the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign after high school. He soon returned to the Chicago area, wanting to pay his own way for college. He spent two years as a fine arts major at the School of the Art Institute Chicago before transferring to UIC, where he earned his BS in software engineering in 1985.

Of the decision to attend UIC, Yahiro said he wanted to attend a strong engineering school in Chicago, to get in on the early stages of software development for gaming and entertainment. After graduating from UIC, Yahiro attended DePaul University, where he received an MBA in international business.

Yahiro’s career highlights

Yahiro began his career at AT&T Bell Laboratories as a member of their technical staff, where he led the development of one of the first graphical windowing systems AT&T brought to market.

Yahiro then joined the Santa Cruz Operation, Inc (SCO) as their director of marketing. The company helped big retailers connect their point-of-sale terminals at their branches to backroom servers or mainframes at a company’s headquarters. But the company saw the potential of connecting consumers with the internet and letting them place orders online. Yahiro secured the first commercial license of the Mosaic Browser, and, with Pizza Hut, launched PizzaNet, a user interface that allowed people to order pizza from their computer. The tool was launched on the University of California, Santa Cruz campus in 1994.

When he was president and CEO of Pulse, a company that builds web-enabled software for internet applications, Yashiro and his team launched a “Virtual Jay Leno” modeled after Tonight Show host Jay Leno. Yahiro and his team launched the Virtual Jay Leno on nbc.com during a live Tonight Show broadcast, doubling traffic on the NBC site and making it the fifth most-trafficked site on the internet in the week following the launch.

At PureDepth, a company that produced the Multi-Layer Display, Yahiro secured partnerships with multiple companies, including Samsung, Sanyo, and International Game Technology. There, he led the deployment of the first dual-screen entertainment systems for global casinos and Japanese pachinko machines, redefining interactive gaming experiences.

Yahiro then went to Intel, spending 15 years with the company. He and his team developed the first formal incubator at Intel, including a worldwide, 12-week program focusing on customer pain points, key Intel technology differentiation, and large, scalable market opportunities ranging from AI-based business-to-business solutions to business-to-consumer technology that connects the deaf with the hearing through AI.

“I was always drawn to start-ups, and when the opportunity came to develop and lead the incubator at Intel, it was a great fit, and I was able to hire great people from within,” Yahiro said.

Following his retirement from Intel, Yahiro went to RealSense, Inc, a spinoff from Intel. There, he focuses on advancing robotics and AI-powered vision systems.

Yahiro also actively advises early-stage startups, bringing decades of experience in innovation, commercialization, and strategic growth.

Looking back, Yahiro said accomplishing a lot of industry firsts was very rewarding, but he values other aspects of his career equally.

“It was very rewarding to develop products that everyone could use, and be truly entertained by and immersed in,” Yahiro said. “But the biggest highlights came when I could lead and mentor my teams to be successful – lots of times from our past failures, and by understanding how to focus on individual strengths that would play well within a strong team –both from my own start-ups as well as at Intel’s incubator.”

Personal resilience

Yahiro says that his personal resilience has helped him focus on what is important in life. He is a two-time heart transplant recipient.

“During my recoveries, I gained a fresh perspective of what was truly important, and that is that time is the one commodity that we can control – how to use it, give it, waste it,” Yahiro said. “I believe I gained a better understanding of how and why empathy is fundamental in what and how we work together, understand customer and consumer needs, and hopefully how we develop and make a more caring world.”

A final note to graduates

Yahiro was honored to be asked to speak at commencement and hopes his story can inspire today’s graduates.

“This is a great opportunity, especially for first-generation students. I know their families have sacrificed a lot for them to be here,” Yahiro said. “Perseverance is an old ‘friend’ that will take them on a successful journey. With the foundation they have received from UIC, engineers have a unique skill set to problem solve almost any critical issue or need. Engineers drive the world.”