Fox Eyes - Live Market Intelligence


In 2009, a group of computer science, engineering and marketing students from Canada and California aimed to dramatically increase the efficiency of marketing processes. We believe that with advancements in technology and statistical analysis, it has become possible to track consumer needs and produce timely market reports, as opposed to analyzing historical snapshots of the market through surveys.
So we began talking to people. We realized that live market intelligence failed to exist - it was believed by statisticians and market research companies to be impossible. Organizations analyzed their own customers’ data almost instantly, but tracking a whole market was never attempted. That’s when we got excited.
Fast-forward to the present time, the Fox Eyes team is developing the world’s first live market intelligence platform. Backed by academia and industry experts, we aim to revolutionize the world of marketing and assist organizations understand their customers sooner and better.
- Xiao (Founder, CEO)
Founder
	Born in Shanghai and raised in Montreal, Xiao is a globetrotter. An engineering graduate from the University of Waterloo, he began his entrepreneurial career in the summer of 2009 while a student, establishing a marketing consulting company specialized in sports clubs: He oversaw the design, development and sales of a custom Operations Management and CRM Software. Combining his passion for travel, IT and marketing, Xiao developed the vision behind Fox Eyes and has been refining the concepts with industry executives and experts since 2009. As CEO of Fox Eyes Solutions, Xiao is responsible for business development, product design and daily operations.
Board Of Advisors
	Larry Smith is an instructor of economics at the University of Waterloo and president of Essential Economics Inc., an economics consulting firm. Mr. Smith has advised several of his former students as far as how to start-up a business, position the business and in general has given business advice to these start-ups. His advice is received by most as generally helpful in the business they are starting up, and has been used in the past to create powerful start-ups. The most famous of these start-ups is Research in Motion (RIM), maker of the BlackBerry. In addition, he has also been known to sit on advisory boards of start-ups during the financing stage (venture or angel funding), giving businesses advice on how to get the financing and also negotiating with businesses and investors so that a suitable agreement can be made on the side of financing a start-up.
	Dr. Geoff Wall is Professor of Geography and Environmental Management and for 11 years was Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research at the University of Waterloo (Ontario Canada N2L 3G1). He is cross-appointed with the School of Planning and the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies. He has acted as a consultant for such agencies as the Asia Development Bank, Canadian International Development Agency, the International Joint Commission, Office of Technology Assessment (US), Environment Canada, the Federal Department of Communications, the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Ontario Ministries of Culture and Recreation, Citizenship and Culture, Treasury and Economics, and Natural Resources, and other such organizations as the Ontario Science Centre, the Council for Business and the Arts of Canada, the Association of Canadian Orchestras, the Ontario Arts Council, the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, and the City of Waterloo. Recent research projects include studies of the impacts of tourism on host communities, assessment of the implications of the greenhouse effect for tourism and recreation, collaborative tourism strategies for Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, and the involvement of indigenous people in tourism (especially Hainan, Guizhou, Inner Mongolia and Taiwan).
	Dr. Stephen L.J. Smith is a Professor in the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on various aspects of tourism, and advises graduate students on various tourism research issues. In addition to my academic responsibilities, he has extensive involvement in the tourism industry. Dr. Smith was the original Chair of the Canadian Tourism Commission's Research Committee, a member of the Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership's Market performance and Assessment Committee, and has extensive consulting experience with destination marketing organizations, industry associations, and individual tourism enterprises. Dr. Smith is an Elected Fellow of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism and of the International Statistical Institute; He serves as Vice Chair of their Marco Polo Committee on Tourism Statistics. He is active with the International Travel and Tourism Research Association, the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, Cuisine Canada, and Slow Food International.
	Dr. Don MacLaurin is a Professor at the School of Hospitality & Tourism Management at the University of Guelph. Don grew up in a small town near Ottawa Ontario. He began studying/working in the hospitality and tourism industries at age 18, beginning a lifelong passion for the industry and eventually completing all three academic degrees at leading hospitality and tourism Schools in the USA. Prior work experience was acquired in a broad cross-section of tourism and hospitality positions with British Airways, Hyatt Hotels, restaurants, several transportation and tour companies, and the predecessor of the Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC).
	Dr. Mu Zhu is a Professor in the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Waterloo. Dr. Zhu has consulted for a number of companies and government agencies — such as Freddie Mac, the Australian Taxation Office, and the Canada Border Services Agency — and continues to consult for various firms in the financial and media industries. While a graduate student, he also served as a director for a number of start-up companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. Between college and graduate school, he worked for a litigation consulting firm in New York. From 2004 to 2006, he served on the Pierre Robillard Award committee. Since 2005, he has been a member of the InfoRehab project, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to enhance musculoskeletal rehabilitation through more effective use of health information. He was a member of the program committee for the 2010 Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) in Vancouver. Currently, he is serving as an Associate Editor for The American Statistician and for The Canadian Journal of Statistics. Starting in July 2011, he will be President-elect, Business and Industrial Statistics Section, Statistical Society of Canada. Dr. Zhu's research area is statistical machine learning. His doctoral committee was composed of Trevor Hastie (principal advisor), Robert Tibshirani and Jerome Friedman. His current interests include: kernel methods, ensemble methods, unbalanced classification (or rare target detection), variable selection, dimension reduction, multivariate analysis, health informatics, predictive analytics, and data mining.