AWE 2021 done but not forgotten

Well, if you are any way into AR or VR you should be well aware that the 2021 AWE conference was recently held in Santa Clara, California on Nov 9th - 11th. As part of this event they also conduct the annual industry Auggies Awards. If you are not sure who the AWE are, then go here.

In short, it is a massive event for the XR industry, and the first ‘in person’ for a couple of years. I did manage some early starts and attend the online event. Even though the content was good, and your schedule full, at the time it was a bit disappointing how only the main stage streamed. This meant you missed 5 other stages, which was a lot of content, choice, and overall dampened my vibe. The saving grace was that all other stage streams were made available to online ticket holders a week later.

They have now released these all to public, so it is definitely worth your time if you want to learn the current state of play. Go to the AWE USA 2021 playlists at the AWE YouTube Channel. The ‘John Hanke (CEO Niantic) Keynote’ is definetly worthy of your time.

In addition, the Auggie Awards and nominations were a great indicator of ‘where the industry is currently at’. By this, I mean all entries were accessible to, and voted on by the public prior to the event. I spent many October hours trawlling through and learning from the 100’s of entries. I will attempt to add some of my stand outs here. If you are reading this sentence, then I haven’t gotten around to it yet :)