Hugo Barra to join Facebook as VP of virtual reality for Oculus

Barra will lead the Oculus team at Facebook and will work to improve and innovate the virtual reality efforts.

Tech2 News Staff|Jan 26, 2017, 10:42:38 IST

Hugo Barra, former Vice President of Xiaomi announced on Twitter that he will be joining Facebook as the VP for Virtual Reality. Barra will lead the Oculus team at Facebook and will work to improve and innovate the virtual reality efforts. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO expressed his excitement with a Facebook post and a photo of virtual avatars of 'Hugo' and 'Mark' together at the Facebook HQ.

Interestingly, Zuckerberg pointed out that Hugo is currently in China and they both were together using the virtual reality technology that Oculus has been working on. He further adds, "Hugo shares my belief that virtual and augmented reality will be the next major computing platform. They'll enable us to experience completely new things and be more creative than ever before. Hugo is going to help build that future, and I'm looking forward to having him on our team."

This comes days after Barra announced that he will be leaving Xiaomi to return to Silicon Valley to work on something exciting. During the announcement Barra cited health reasons for the exit but pointed, "“This journey has been nothing short of spectacular in every way, and I can proudly say that Xiaomi Global is the first baby I helped bring into the world”. The sudden move was unexpected and nobody anticipated as he is the most recognised face to represent Xiaomi on the global platform.