Walt Disney Imagineering was selected as one of Fast Company’s 2021 Best Workplaces for Innovators. This honor recognizes companies that successfully foster cultures of innovation and encourage employees to discover, explore and invent.
Around every corner of Imagineering, innovation can be seen through a collaboration of talent all over the world. It’s an environment where making the impossible possible continues to happen year after year.
“When people come to visit Disney, they want to enter a world where anything is possible,” says Josh Gorin, who leads Imagineering’s Blue Sky and Creative Strategy. “As Imagineers, it is our challenge to apply both creative and technical skills to make that magical world come to life. We have to keep upping our game—that means innovation in storytelling and technology.” Today, Imagineers across Walt Disney Imagineering and Walt Disney Imagineering Research & Development hold more than 500 U.S. patents.
One of the secrets to Imagineering’s success is the pairing of diverse backgrounds and expertise to create experiences that make guests wonder, “how did they do that?” Just a few of these pairings within Imagineering’s more than 100 disciplines include engineers who work with writers, programmers who work alongside designers, and choreographers in meetings with roboticists.
Together, they create innovations like these guest favorites:
- The Stuntronics advanced-robotics acrobat seen in Avengers Campus at Disney California Adventure park
- To enable the most accurate and flexible guest interaction, WEB SLINGERS: A Spider-Man Adventure uses computer-vision AI/ML technologies in its gesture tracking
- The advanced expressive robotic figure, Na’vi Shaman of Songs, found in Na’vi River Journey
- A-1000 Audio-Animatronics figures like those seen in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge
- “Scenic Sandbox” projection technology seen in Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway
- State-of-the-art ride systems all over the world including highly advanced propulsion ride systems used in Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for the Sunken Treasure and TRON Lightcycle Power Run
- Innovative techniques for construction and project management including the Digital Immersive Showroom and using Building Information Modeling
Imagineers continue to build on a history of firsts as they inspire the next generation of inventors and creators.
View on the Disney Parks Blog.