Next Revolution in Photography

Before starting Lytro in 2006, Ren had been extensively studying light field science and computational science. His seminal Ph.D. research on light field technology earned the field’s top honor, the ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award for best thesis in computer science and engineering, as well as Stanford University’s Arthur Samuel Award for Best Ph.D. Dissertation. The entrepreneurial spark came when Ren purchased his first DSLR camera and saw the potential to apply light field technology to capture pictures in addition to image generation. He decided to apply and extend his theoretical work by making light field cameras available to consumers.