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The Future of Presence

Technology has made communication easier and faster than ever, but human presence was lost along the way. Video conferencing hasn't evolved since the 2000s.

As AI handles more of what is routine and transactional, the work that remains human is strategy, trust, creativity, and the kind of iteration that only happens in a room. Organizations will not compete on access to information. They will compete on the quality of the collaboration that information enables.

Today

Noro connects physical spaces through life-size portals: purpose-built rooms where people collaborate naturally across offices, campuses, and locations, without the burden of constant travel.

Tomorrow

Those connected spaces become part of a broader network, bringing people, physical spaces, devices, and intelligent systems into a single operating layer for distributed organizations.

Our origins

Over a decade of connection

Noro was born from Shared Studios, an art project founded in 2014 with a single question.

What would happen if you could simulate an in-person experience with people thousands of miles away?
Shared Studios, 2014

A shared presence

What happened was a shared presence through Portals between Tehran and New York City. An actual connection that changed how people see and interact with each other.

Ten years of Portals

Shared Studios brought Portals to universities, refugee camps, global events, and even the World Cup, bridging distance and difference through transformative, live conversations.

Two colleagues in a Noro room talking with a life-size remote participant on the portal

The team

Tommaso Trionfi

Tommaso Trionfi

CEO & Co-Founder

Founding-team CEO of Wimba, the leading virtual classroom solution, grown to 800 customers and acquired by Blackboard. Founding-team CEO of Tocca, a virtual event solution. As a PE-firm CEO, divested three companies.

Didier Perrot

Didier Perrot

Head of Product & Co-Founder

Founder, CEO and Head of Product of inWebo, which he grew into a leading multi-factor authentication solution before selling to a PE firm.

Amar C. Bakshi

Amar C. Bakshi

Co-Founder, Inventor & Advisor

Founded Shared_Studios in 2014. Entrepreneur & Artist in Residence at the MIT Media Lab and co-founder of Andus Labs. Previously at The Washington Post and CNN. Harvard undergrad, MA Johns Hopkins, Yale JD.

Victoria Marino

Victoria Marino

Head of Operations

Teun Hilte

Teun Hilte

Head of Client Relations

Danara Sarioglu

Danara Sarioglu

Software Product Manager

Aaron Ray-Crichton

Aaron Ray-Crichton

Hardware Product Manager

Niko DeCesare

Niko DeCesare

Partnerships Lead

Advisors

Nick Bloom

Nick Bloom

Professor of Economics, Stanford

The world’s leading academic researcher on hybrid and remote work. His Stanford WFH Research project is the largest study of distributed work ever conducted, and he is a leading voice on the future of work. His research shapes how organizations understand the real cost of distributed teams and the compounding value of in-person presence.

Jeremy Bailenson

Jeremy Bailenson

Founding Director, Stanford VHIL

One of the most cited researchers on how humans experience presence in virtual environments. His work on nonverbal communication, eye-contact geometry, and what he termed “Zoom fatigue” established the scientific basis for why standard video conferencing fails to replicate human connection.

Get in touch.

For demos, partnerships, or press inquiries.