15 Jun 2026
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AWE Team
AWE USA 2026 - the XR Festival of Festivals is ON
AWE USA 2026
This year's AWE kicked off with a major milestone: expanding into a four-day event for the very first time. Driven by rapid industry growth and an overwhelming demand for community learning, we listened to attendee feedback and added a full slate of workshops and activities for Monday—now officially Day 1.
The energy was palpable from the start. Workshops and the Reality Hack opened in the morning, and by 9:00 AM, the venue was buzzing.The Reality Hack sponsored by Snap officially kicked off online on May 28, leading up to an intense in-person session on Monday, June 15. Accepted participants gathered face-to-face to finalize their projects.
Tomorrow on the Builders Stage the judging round will take place, where teams will present their work to an expert panel including Addison Black and Qi Pan from Snap, alongside Alejandro Jimenez and Brian Hui from Reality Hack. If you’re curious to see who takes home the grand prize, be sure to catch the Auggies ceremony on Wednesday!
WORKSHOPS
Day 1 workshops had exceptional turnout, filling the rooms to capacity with several attendees standing at the back to follow the sessions.
Designed to Disappear: Why Developers are Choosing the Even Realities G2
The "Designed to Disappear" workshop by Even Realities offered participants an up-close look at the Even Realities G2 consumer smartglasses. Held on Monday morning, the session introduced participants to the company's "Quiet Tech" philosophy, which focuses on wearable technology that looks like everyday eyewear and remains completely invisible when inactive.
Raag Harshavat from DevRel kicked off the morning with live hardware demos, where attendees paired their phones to experience the monochrome waveguide display firsthand. Tom Ouyang, Co-founder and CTO, then led a technical deep dive into the device's chip architecture and optical stack.
A major highlight was the live look at Terminal Mode, demonstrating how developers can use the smartglasses to manage and control AI agents while on the go. The session concluded with a tour of the Even Hub SDK and an interactive discussion on how community-built applications are driving the platform forward.
Builder to Founder Workshop
This year marked the second annual Builders program at AWE USA designed to support early-stage teams, the program provided good visibility for emerging projects through interactive pitch sessions and dedicated networking opportunities with mentors and investors. A key addition to this edition was a Day 1 workshop, organized jointly with the team from Immersive Insiders. This session introduced a new year round program by AWE and Immersive Insiders to help the best builders and early stage startups build successful companies. served as an excellent preview for the ecosystem.
The Builder to Founder Workshop helped attendees identify how to successfully close the gap between creating cool hackathon prototypes and building commercial startups. The session kicked off with opening remarks from Ori Inbar and Dinesh Punni, followed by a series of practical strategy talks. Tech leaders like Avi Bar-Zeev and Terry Schussler discussed the human side of spatial computing and the impact of vibe coding, while Matt Miesnieks covered world models and AI for physical spaces. Following a networking lunch, the focus shifted toward business development, featuring panel insights from Vinny DaSilva of Google and David Oh of PICO on navigating platform ecosystems. To wrap up the afternoon, Tipatat Chennavasin provided an investor's perspective on commercialization, Rita Turkowski shared pitch strategies, and the organizers outlined key resources to help builders play the long game in the XR marketplace.
If you are a builder or early stage startup you are welcome to fill a survey about the future program and secure your spot.
Android XR: High-Performance Development Across Engines and Form Factors
The afternoon sessions on Monday, featured a technical workshop focused on Android XR development across diverse hardware. Led by Luke Hopkins, a Developer Relations Engineer at Google, the session began with a live demonstration of the Android XR Engine Hub, highlighting how automated workflows allow developers to push instant code changes and live previews directly to a headset.
The workshop then moved into an interactive live coding session, where attendees saw how to build an Android XR experience using Unity from the ground up. The demonstration proved that a single codebase could intelligently scale across different form factors, functioning efficiently on high-immersion headsets like Galaxy XR as well as lightweight wired glasses like Project Aura. The session wrapped up with firsthand development insights from ecosystem partners who discussed how targeting multiple devices under one unified Android XR codebase eliminates fragmentation overhead.
Unconference by XR Guild and Virtual World Society
The Unconference at AWE returned for its third year for open, roundtable conversations covering everything from deep technical XR topics to industry ethics and emerging innovations. The relaxed, pitch-free environment gave both first-time attendees and long-time community members a unique opportunity to discuss what they were experimenting with in their studios before heading into the official networking party and opening events. 
Welcome Party by Snapdragon!
The day officially concluded with the Welcome Party, sponsored by Snapdragon, where AWE co-founder and CEO Ori Inbar welcomed attendees and gave a massive shoutout to the communities and groups whose continued support drives the XR industry forward.
The reception also featured the Pride Meetup hosted by Nathan C. Bowser @ Awesome Future, marking Pride Month at AWE and celebrating the fantastic diversity of our community. The networking didn't stop there, though—the energy carried right into the night at the AWE Mixer & Social at The Auld Dubliner, by RP1 - where XR professionals and enthusiasts unwound, mingled, and even brought out headsets to demo their latest spatial computing projects.
What to look forward to on Day 2
- AWE USA 2026 Welcome Keynote - Ori Inbar - AWE & UnitedXR co-founder
- Snap Keynote: Making Computing More Human Evan Spiegel - Snap Co-Founder and CEO
- Qualcomm Keynote: The Era of Personal AI and Endless Realities - Ziad Asghar SVP & GM of XR, Qualcomm
- Google Keynote: Unifying the Android XR Ecosystem - Hugo Swart & Juston Payne, Google
- Expo Opening
- Startup Pitch Competition
- Reality Hack - Finalist Judging
- Research Posters Showcase Demo Hour
- Art Festival Official Selection
- Building Physical AI with Spatial Computing - David Chu - NVIDIA
- Gaming Hub Exhibitors Showcase
- The AIXR Podcast's 246th Episode *LIVE*
Check out the full agenda for Day 2 (June 16) here. Additionally, don’t forget to explore the various side events happening outside of the official schedule!
Last but not least, grab this year’s official T-shirt from the merch store and don't forget to try out the Fyware filter.
