Most robotics innovators and aeronautics engineers probably don’t put stories at the centre of their work. “I love storytelling,” said Michael Jobity ’20. “I think any way you can combine technology with storytelling, you create a deeper impact and bring people closer to the technology.”
That passion for immersive experience led Jobity to one of his most public roles: as Player 042 on Season 2 of Netflix’s Squid Game: The Challenge, selected from more than 200,000 applicants. “Probably the main reason why I wanted to join,” he said, “is I love immersive experiences. That’s why I started Jetson Infinity – bringing education and technology into the forefront in an experiential and immersive way. Squid Game is the ultimate accumulation of all those things. It was a fully immersive experience.”
Today, Jobity’s company Jetson Infinity works with more than 700 schools and helps over 200,000 students worldwide learn about robotics. Already one of Canada’s largest consumer robotics companies, and with a recent expansion into Silicon Valley, Jetson delivers immersive, experiential learning.
Since Jobity launched the company, the heart of its immersive program has been its programmable robotic arm. Soon, however, he and his team will introduce a programmable humanoid robot as well.
“With Jetson Infinity, our goal is to create … a hub for learning about coding, artificial intelligence and robotics. It’s the perfect vehicle for learning engineering principles because it’s hands on. You learn the theory … and then you apply that in an experiential way with your robot, so you’re instantly seeing the connection between the theory and what it’s like in industry.”
Jobity also keeps the company connected to his McMaster University roots. “We’ve hired a lot of students from McMaster,” he reported. “A lot of co-op students have contributed to the development and scale of Jetson Infinity.” As the company scales, Jobity keeps it focused on creating “products on that line of entertainment and technology.”
Jobity’s passion for storytelling and entertainment has also spawned additional roles in front of audiences, cameras and microphones. An accomplished musician, he has been a performer for most of his life, but while he was working in the United Kingdom, he had the opportunity to take to a different stage. “I was primarily an engineer,” said Jobity of his work with Airbus, “but then they asked me to host the London Air Show where all the big aerospace companies bring out their best planes…I was connecting with all these different people and I think they saw my excitement for presenting and communication, as well as my engineering background and I got connected to a certain network of people in the film industry and that’s how these roles presented themselves.”
In addition to hosting the Farnborough International Air Show multiple times, Jobity is a three-time host of the Miraban UK Film Awards. The Miraban Awards bring together filmmakers, actors, writers, and producers from around the globe. At the 2024 Awards show, he met Alan Turing’s nephew, who attended for the premiere of a film about Turing’s life. Jobity has also delivered a TEDx talk, appeared on the pilot episode of the Emmy-nominated series The Traitors, Dragons’ Den, and most recently his experience on Squid Game.
The path that the Hamilton-raised Jobity took from engineer to tech CEO and media personality went through McMaster’s Engineering Physics & Management program, but the first step occurred when he fell in love with inventing and storytelling as a kid. “I really loved Jimmy Neutron. I always loved invention,” Jobity recalled, referencing the animated Nickelodeon series about a child inventor. As a teenager, Jobity was so keen to learn about science, he got upset if he thought he was missing out on important knowledge.
“When I learned about Einstein’s theory of relativity in grade 12,” he said, “I went home and was mad at my parents. … We were at the dinner table, and they asked, ‘So Michael, what’d you do at school today?’ I said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me about space-time curvature?’”
Despite his Mac-grad parents, Ken and Charlene, keeping the joys of Einstein’s genius from their son, Jobity described them as his “inspiration,” while also giving credit to some of Jimmy Neutron’s fellow science-oriented television stars. “Bill Nye the Science Guy is definitely someone I look up to, as well as Brian Cox and Neil deGrasse Tyson,” he said, naming three scientists known for their ability to make science interesting and understandable to non-experts. “I’ve always tried to emulate and learn from them, and I was really humbled to meet Bill Nye the Science Guy and have a small chat with him about his career path.”
Jobity gravitated to entrepreneurship as an impactful and engaging way to weave together his interests in engineering, invention and storytelling. That mission started at McMaster with FlameOn and 2unify, a company that began as a student project, got an assist from the McMaster-based incubator The Forge, and then developed and patented the world’s first hands-free robotic guitar-tuning stand. Jobity even pitched 2unify to CBC’s Dragons’ Den in 2020.
“I did a co-op where I was a project manager for a startup and I remember thinking, ‘OK, I got the startup bug.’ I started looking at the world with a different lens, realizing that every brand or company I see, there’s a story of a founder behind it.”
To Jobity, his belief in the power of the union between technology and story is about more than selling products or building a company. He believes that the combination of stories and technology — particularly as it inspires and helps people acquire new skills and connections — can help society address some of its most intractable challenges, from generating clean and affordable energy to providing clean water. “One of the best ways to solve those problems is to create an ecosystem where you’re connecting people and giving them tools that they can add to their Rolodex of resources, so they can actually support progress,” he said. “I think having a community and a group is the best way to solve these problems.”
Are you a good fit for an Enginuity story or do you know someone who is? Get in touch with our Alumni Office at engalum@mcmaster.ca.
