April 10th, 2015

Did you know that on average, men look at themselves in a mirror more often than women do, but women tend to spend a longer time looking at themselves each time? Tapping into this human penchant for looking into mirrors, Kellogg-HKUST Executive MBA alumnus Victor Ruiz-Sanchez co-founded actiMirror to revolutionize shoppers’ experiences in the retail, hospitality, health care and exhibition sectors.

actiMirrors are activated by a shopper’s reflection, and in a fraction of a second will pinpoint the shopper’s age, gender, ethnicity and even mood to show customised promotional videos, product tutorial or advertisements targeting the shopper’s demographics. The mirrors can also combine this anonymous profiling with RFID tagging or barcodes to identify what shoppers are holding in front of the mirror and then cross promote other items related to that product. For example, a bride-to-be wearing a wedding dress in front of the mirror may receive a suggestion on necklaces or shoes that would match her wedding dress.

True to the company’s tagline “mirrors will never look the same,” actiMirrors deliver a ‘wow’ factor both on the emotional and rational sides. On the one hand shoppers are amazed by the ability of these intelligent mirrors to offer targeted and personalized suggestions, while on the other hand businesses benefit from real-time shopping patterns, trends and statistics that help them improve their marketing and sales strategies. Thanks to its pioneering vision and ground-breaking technology, actiMirror was recently named the Technology Company of the Year – Startup at the Computerworld Hong Kong Awards 2016.

Victor is a strong advocate of HKUST, in particular the Kellogg-HKUST Executive MBA program which he believes to offer a unique ‘east meets west’ international network experience. Currently half of actiMirror’s core team graduated from HKUST, and Victor hopes to have more talents from HKUST to join their team as the start-up keeps on expanding.