About Me

Nahiyan Ahmad

Hi, I’m Nahiyan!

Born and raised in NYC, I’m proud to call this city my home.

I currently work in the XR space with Jump into the Light, America’s longest-running XR cinema, arcade, and studio, located in downtown Manhattan. In my role, I build strategic partnerships with game developers, hardware manufacturers, and emerging artists, with the goal of making XR technology accessible to the masses.

Earlier in my career, I worked in finance, political strategy, and management consulting. The common thread in all these experiences has been leveraging data and due diligence toward helping organizations grow.

In my spare time, I enjoy reading, sports, cooking, and world exploration.

Portfolio

NYU's Graduation
–
Alley Event
(2020)

As the COVID pandemic unfolded, we at Jump into the Light were tasked with building a cross-platform immersive graduation experience that could host 20,000 graduating students in NYU’s graduating class. In a short six-week span, we accomplished an incredibly challenging task. Graduates were able to participate with their choice of a headset, laptop, tablet, or mobile device.
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Redux
–
Seeking Charlie Russell
(2020)

Introduced to the actor, Bill Pullman (Independence Day, Space Balls), through a mutual friend, my colleagues and I initially came to be friends with Bill before any thought of a collaboration came to mind. But sure enough, Bill got hooked on XR technology, and worked with us to conceive a live-action, augmented reality-based production about the “Cowboy Artist,” Charlie Russell. We produced a preview/MVP of the performance early in 2020, with the plan to have the final, extended run post-pandemic.
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The Rebirth II
–
VR Music Video
(2019)

The music artist, Eric Bellinger, who has also written for Selena Gomez, Justin Bieber, and Usher, had long been a fan of XR, and reached out to us to produce VR music videos for his 2019 album, The Rebirth II. Our engineers and artists spent several weeks on the project, developing it on Unity. Eric premiered the video in Los Angeles at the Cinerama Theater, and followed up with an East Coast launch at Jump into the Light. In addition, we produced an Instagram-based AR filter, which can be accessed on Eric’s Instagram account.
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3.O.W.
–
Alien’s Code
(2019)

Maria Brodskaya, otherwise known as AMBE, is a classically trained vocalist, violinist, and pianist, who for years has been producing indie-pop/electronic music. In 2019, she worked with Jump into the Light as a resident artist to create a unique fusion between her multi-instrumentalist sounds and VR artistry. The resulting piece, 3.O.W – Alien’s Code, is a visual exploration of the emotions expressed in her music.
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Path
–
to the Light
(2019)

Oscar Oiwa, the Brazilian-American visual artist, has explored a wide variety of artforms, including painting, sculpting, and immersive installations. He approached Jump into the Light in 2019 to elevate his painting, Path to the Light, with augmented reality. We partnered with him to produce animated elements, which could be viewed with a tablet or mobile, on top of an already intricate oil on canvas piece.
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Alien adventures
–
in mercury
(2019)

Patricia Field, the fashion designer for numerous TV series, and photographer, Anna Khachatryan, approached Jump into the Light to produce an abstract fashion production, featuring Field’s designs. What was initially planned to be an experimental piece to explore the crossroad of fashion and XR turned out to be an award-winning production at the 2019 La Jolla Fashion Film Festival!
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