About Dr Eduardo Calvillo

Eduardo Calvillo Gamez is the founder and chief facilitator of MezcalDigital, a consultancy based in Berlin, Germany, that helps startups, F500 and governments develop and improve their Product and UX Strategy.

You can check Eduardo's full CV on LinkedIn. Eduardo's likes to talk in the third person or "we" when referring to his work on MezcalDigital. But since this post is about the person, he will write about it in the first person. I wanted to add a bit of flavour here about who I am.

I studied Electronics Engineer because I wanted to be involved in the music industry. I don't play any instrument, but I figured out that I could work in the recording or live concert business. However, after I started, I realised I did not like the physics of acoustics that much. Also, the professor in charge of the acoustics engineering program was completely irresponsible and he would not go to class or actually teach or help you learn.

With what I know now, I would say I was not motivated enough. If acoustics or recording were really my true calling, I would have pushed through all that.

But more than anything, I wanted to pursue a graduate degree outside of Mexico. One day I sat down and reviewed the curricula, and I realised I could finish my degree in 3 years instead of the 4-4.5 that were needed by most people. That meant I would need to focus on digital systems, which I had no problem because I enjoyed them. 

One of the main complaints during my undergraduate years was that I was not able to have the big picture of electronics. I could do all the class exercises and if you give me a circuit to analyze or design, I could do it. But I was always missing that aspect.

I managed to finish my undergraduate degree in 3 years and I got accepted to pursue a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Tufts University. During the last year of my bachelor, I had started reading on microcircuit design and I enjoyed the subject. So I applied to Tufts because they had a strong and upcoming VLSI CAD program.

In the middle of my master's, which included simulations of different circuits to analyze capacitance effects on deep-submicron circuits. Working on my master's project I was focusing on the small interaction between two transmission lines, I was missing the overall view of the circuit. I pursued then an internship at Avici System (no longer existing).  I was working on the I/O port of one chip, and it was there that I discover the role of the Product Manager: the engineer who had the overall view of how all the pieces fit together. About Avici, I joined just before their IPO and I should be a millionaire now, but I am also quite stupid on business, so I am not one.

After finishing my internship I realised two things: I wanted to do a PhD, I wanted to focus on the overall project, not on small interactions.

On the last year of my masters, I started discovering articles on the visualization of VLSI. And it was there that I decided I want to focus on the human side. 

I got accepted to the PhD Program at Tufts to work on CAD for VLSI, but I changed to what is called Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). It was then that I became really motivated about my work. Before that, I would get things done because I am professional, but after HCI I did them because I was truly motivated.

I worked at first on Tangible User Interface and I got two papers published really fast on that subject. One of them actually became one of the most cited papers in the subject.

It was then I decided to focus on UX and HCI. I pursued my PhD at UCL working at UCLIC, a research centre right in the middle of psychology and computer science. I did my PhD on User Experience and Videogames.

I moved back to Mexico because then I got a scholarship from the Mexican government, where I was a Professor on User Experience and Innovation. I got some grants to get started on my research, but eventually, I left academia to become the Director of Technological Innovation (CIO) at the City Administration of San Luis Potosi.

Afterwards, I moved the Germany, where I have been working on the intersection of UX Research and Product Management.

I have been founding startups in Mexico and Germany and since April 2019 I have been consulting.