AWE 2021 Announces 250 Speakers and Exhibitors Confirmed For Annual November F2F Event, Including Keynote Speaker John Hanke, Founder, and CEO of Niantic
Augmented World Expo (AWE), the leading series of worldwide events focused exclusively on the business of Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Extended Reality (XR), today announced the first wave of sponsors, speakers, and exhibitors participating in AWE 2021. As the most trusted brand in XR since its inception in 2010, more than 5,000 companies and 50,000 professionals rely on AWE as their primary venue and community to connect, learn and grow their businesses throughout the XR hardware and software ecosystems.
AWE can now confirm that the Keynote Speaker at AWE 2021 is John Hanke, the acclaimed and visionary CEO of AR leader Niantic. Mr. Hanke is the founder and current CEO of Niantic, Inc., a software company spun out of Google and the creator of the fantastically popular game Pokémon Go. Hanke previously led Google’s Geo Product division, which includes Google Earth, Google Maps, StreetView, SketchUp, and Panoramio.
With a 2021 tagline of ‘Where XR Business Thrives’, the return of AWE as a face-to-face physical event has been enthusiastically welcomed, as evidenced by the more than 250 exhibitors and speakers already registered in advance for the November 9th-11th show in Santa Clara, CA. With more than three months to go before the opening keynote, 33 visionary leaders in XR as well as up-and-coming startups have made the decision to sponsor the event in a range of different tiers, including the top level of Titanium Sponsorship.
nreal, Qualcomm, and Unity Technologies have all opted for this apex level of support, with several other companies soon-to-be-announced who will also be contributing. Leading companies also sponsoring the event include Adobe, Epic Games, IEEE (the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), Lenovo, MetaMaterial, Philips, and more.
All AWE sponsors and exhibitors are expected to make some of the year’s most compelling and important XR-related announcements at the event, with a wide range of hands-on demos available to the expected 7,000+ attendees across 100,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space at the Santa Clara Convention Center.
“We are gratified to meet once again, face-to-face in Santa Clara, after a hiatus last year due to COVID-19 and engaging with the community exclusively online,” said AWE co-founder Ori Inbar. “One of the most memorable aspects of any AWE is our incredible lineup of industry veterans and rising stars from around the world sharing their knowledge, passion and tech with our attendees. This year is especially important as we have achieved a long-sought goal of nearly 50% women contributing to our speaking tracks. AWE is proud to be giving a voice to women who for too long have been sidetracked in the tech industry.”
AWE is a true XR ecosystem, event, and marketplace where end-users meet solution providers in a curated setting. As such, AWE offers:
- An endless stream of online webinars and local meetups in 20+ cities around the world;
- High-quality educational classes and workshops with the best instructors from the XR community – for the XR community;
- Free access to the largest collection of free videos of talks and webinars in Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality;
- The XR industry’s most prestigious and long-standing awards competition – The Auggie Awards.
AWE (Augmented World Expo) is the world’s leading AR+VR conference and expo with events in the USA, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. AWE events consistently bring together a mix of CEOs, CTOs, designers, developers, creative agencies, futurists, analysts, investors, and top press in a unique opportunity to learn, inspire, partner, and experience firsthand one of the most exciting industries of our times.
