Mary Spio

Mary Spio is an American engineer, author and entrepreneur who founded CEEK VR (also called CEEK Virtual Reality), a company that distributes virtual concerts, music videos and other virtual reality content across VR headsets and phones. Before working in VR she served in the U.S. Air Force as a satellite communications technician and worked on satellite communication systems and digital cinema distribution at Boeing.

In 2014 Spio sold intellectual property to Wiless Controls Inc., a company whose shares traded over the counter, and became its president; the company was renamed Next Galaxy Corp. The company announced a social VR platform called CEEK, built with EON Reality for the Oculus Rift. At the end of 2015 Next Galaxy licensed its technology to CEEK VR Inc., a separate company in which Spio held 45 percent of the voting power, and she left Next Galaxy to run CEEK VR. She is also the author of the self-help book It's Not Rocket Science (2015).

Reviewed 13 October 2026. Career, education, Next Galaxy and CEEK VR facts checked against SEC filings, the USPTO patent and the cited university, press and publisher pages. About review dates.

Early life and education

Spio was born in Syracuse, New York, to Ghanaian parents and grew up in Ghana. Her publisher's biography says she did not see her first computer until she was seventeen. A 2017 Syracuse University profile describes her watching a documentary about the Moon landing as a child in Ghana, on a small black-and-white television, while a military coup took place outside.

According to Ebony, she joined the Air Force after graduating from a public high school in Syracuse; she had hoped to become a fighter pilot, but an injury ended that training. After her military service she earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Syracuse University's College of Engineering and Computer Science (class of 1998). A National GEM Consortium fellowship then paid her tuition at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she earned a master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science.

Career

Air Force and satellite engineering

Spio served six years in the U.S. Air Force as a wideband and satellite communications technician. Black Enterprise lists her Air Force work as covering digital microwave radios, digital multiplexers, fiber-optic communications sets and encrypted devices. According to a 2022 Microsoft profile, she then worked at a satellite communications firm, where she helped design and launch deep-space satellites for NASA, and later became head of satellite communication systems at Boeing. Ebony gives her first job after Georgia Tech as the Aerospace Corporation, followed by a period at PanAmSat before she joined Boeing.

At Boeing she worked in the company's Digital Cinema division. Ebony credits her with helping pioneer the digital cinema technology Lucasfilm used for Star Wars: Episode II, and the 2017 Syracuse profile says that film was the first major motion picture distributed with that technology. She received Boeing's Outstanding Achievement in Electrical Engineering Award.

Online media companies

From 2004 to 2010 Spio was president and chief executive of Gen2Media Corp., an online video company that later became Vidaroo Corp. From September 2010 she ran Next Galaxy Media, which made content and marketing campaigns for clients that, according to her SEC filing biography, included Microsoft Xbox and Coca-Cola. Her publisher's biography also names One2One.com, a media company with resources for singles, among the companies she founded.

Next Galaxy Corp.

In June 2014 Spio signed an IP asset purchase agreement with Wiless Controls Inc., a Nevada corporation then focused on machine-to-machine communication services (the company's filings give both 19 June and 23 June 2014 for the agreement). She transferred assets used in "a method and apparatus for facilitating social contact in a network of users", described in the company's accounts as patents she owned and invented, in exchange for 55,000,000 restricted shares. She became the company's president, principal executive officer and a director. The company changed its focus to virtual reality and, on 19 August 2014, took the name Next Galaxy Corp.; its shares then traded on the OTCQB as NXGA.

Next Galaxy's annual report dates its agreement with EON Reality to 28 July 2014. A press release dated the next day said EON would supply software, turnkey VR development and its SDK for CEEK, described as a social VR platform recreating the shared experience of attending movies, concerts, sports games, museums, conferences and travel destinations. The press release said CEEK was being developed for the Oculus Rift and would also support headsets such as the ZEISS Cinemizer and Sony's Project Morpheus. In September 2014 Next Galaxy announced that it would produce the Business Innovation and Growth (B.I.G.) Summit with the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce and use its CEEK platform at the event.

In an October 2015 interview recorded at Oculus Connect 2 for the Voices of VR podcast, Spio described Next Galaxy's work on VR music videos that placed live-action footage inside computer-generated environments, a CPR training module for Miami Children's Hospital, and Ceekars 4D headphones, which add haptic feedback on the ear cups and band, using separate drivers for the rumble so that bass response is kept. On 17 November 2015 Next Galaxy signed an agreement with Universal Music Enterprises to produce and distribute a VR concert.

On 28 December 2015 Next Galaxy granted CEEK VR Inc., a Delaware corporation, a worldwide, exclusive, perpetual and irrevocable license to all of its technology. The filing reporting the deal described it as a related-party transaction because Spio owned 45 percent of CEEK VR's voting power. Spio resigned as an officer and director of Next Galaxy on 31 December 2015; the filing said she intended to take similar positions at CEEK VR. The SEC's filing index for Next Galaxy records a revocation of its registration on 7 May 2019.

CEEK VR

CEEK and Microsoft give 2015 as the year Spio founded CEEK. In a 2022 interview she said the idea came from trying to buy concert tickets in 2015, when about 10 million people were competing for 100,000 tickets. The 2017 Syracuse profile describes her as founder, CEO and president of CEEK VR Inc. and says the company had created content and technology for Universal Music Group, Miami Children's Hospital and Berkshire Hathaway's Richline. It also reports a promotional deal with Apple in which buyers of CEEK's VR headset and content bundle received an iTunes gift code for exclusive music and concert footage.

Spio is the named inventor on U.S. design patent D765,658 for a "virtual reality and augmented reality foldable headset", filed on 6 March 2016 and granted on 6 September 2016. A 2024 Syracuse University profile says she began studying headset optics with an ophthalmologist and a lens scientist after she and other women felt sick in VR headsets. In the profile she attributed the problem to interpupillary distance: the lower limit of the headsets then available was at the upper limit for women. According to the profile, this led her to build a headset with IPD adjustment and a lens range suited to users of all ages, and she also created a patent-awarded controller for people who had not grown up playing video games. Ebony reported in 2018 that she had formulated more than 10 patents on real-time VR streaming and immersive technology, five of which had been granted at that time.

In 2018 CEEK VR partnered with two NBA 2K League teams, the Sacramento Kings' Kings Guard Gaming and the Orlando Magic's Magic Gaming. The deals included in-game signage, a jersey sponsorship with Magic Gaming, and VR headsets for Kings Guard Gaming's training facility; Spio said the company aimed to offer VR viewing of live NBA 2K League matches. During the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020, CEEK produced CEEK VR Presents: The Laugh Experience, a live stand-up special with D.L. Hughley scheduled for 15 May 2020 on CEEK.com and in the CEEK app. According to Entrepreneur, existing CEEK partners such as Bon Jovi and Demi Lovato asked Spio to speed up their VR releases after venues closed in March 2020. Ziggy Marley's July 2020 livestream tribute to Bob Marley was produced in partnership with CEEK, with a question-and-answer session on the CEEK platform afterward. In 2021 CEEK released a 360-degree VR experience filmed on the set of Lady Gaga's "911" short film.

By 2022 Spio described CEEK as a streaming platform for virtual events, mainly concerts but expanding into sports, whose content could be published once and reach 10 VR headsets as well as iOS and Android. She said CEEK used blockchain technology so that creators could sell NFTs and other digital goods to fans, and that the company was a member of Microsoft for Startups. The 2024 Syracuse profile still lists her as founder and CEO of CEEK VR and mentions VR basketball learning experiences made with Dwyane Wade.

Writing

Spio's book It's Not Rocket Science: 7 Game-Changing Traits for Uncommon Success is listed by Penguin Random House with ebook and audiobook editions published on 3 February 2015 and a Tarcher paperback on 16 February 2016. Black Enterprise also lists a novel, A Song for Carmine.

Recognition

Spio received Boeing's Outstanding Achievement in Electrical Engineering Award and, according to Black Enterprise, the Yueh-Ying Hu Memorial National Award for Innovation. NBC News named her to its "100 History Makers in the Making" list. In 2017 she received Syracuse University's Arents Award, the highest award the university gives its alumni. The 2017 Syracuse University profile also describes her as a U.S. Department of State ambassador of innovation and entrepreneurship.

See also

• Virtual concert
• Social VR
• 360 video