Steven Schkolne
Founder of MightyMeld
Steven Schkolne is a computer scientist, designer, and entrepreneur who’s particularly passionate about the way humans work creatively with machines. His current focus is a web project called MightyMeld, a visualization and creation platform for sophisticated React codebases.
A self-taught designer who’s classically trained in computer science, he studied first at Carnegie Mellon and then at Caltech for his PhD. While at Caltech, he built the world’s first creative tools for VR, 15 years before the hardware was commercially available. His technical expertise has been utilized by companies such as BMW, Microsoft, and Disney. His research findings in the field of Human-Computer Interface include contributions to SIGGRAPH and ACM CHI.
He went on to teach software, media, and tech culture at CalArts while exhibiting digital art internationally and at major American museums (LACMA, MOCA). His commercial prints were powered by software he hand-built to make gradients photographic.
In 2010 he changed his career focus from individual contribution to leadership, team building, and the collective creative process. He bootstrapped and grew Vain Media, a Los Angeles agency that created experiences on emerging social and mobile platforms for brands such as Coca-Cola, Target, and Mattel. The firm additionally performed research for Amazon, Applied Minds, and eBay.
In 2015 he brought together some collaborators to explore the creative potential of VR. The result was 3dSunshine, a universal game modding tool that went on to become the top-rated creative application on SteamVR.
Recently his focus has returned to the web. He led the product design of both Align’s doctor-facing software and the Metaculus forecasting platform. As an engineer, he architected web-based returns and warehouse software for Happy Returns leading to their exit to PayPal.
His unusual experience working professionally as both a web designer and an engineer led him to question some of the basics. Why must styling and layout be hand-programmed for complex sites? He spent several months demonstrating the possibility of such a technology. Then he used his prototype to raise VC funding for MightyMeld, which empowers developers to fly through UI updates as they code.
