Ben Erwin is President and co-founder of the Academy of Immersive Arts and Sciences, a New York nonprofit and 501(c)(3) public charity working to build a public commons for the immersive medium. His work centers on immersive public media: how public broadcasters, museums, archives, and educators can carry their missions into 3D, virtual worlds, and mixed reality, on open standards and in the public interest. He serves on the board of the Metaverse Standards Forum and is the creator of The Polys Immersive Awards, WebXR Summit Series, and MetaTr@versal. He is also Executive Producer and co-founder of Ready Player Golf, the annual XR community fundraiser.

Ben has worked at the intersection of media and technology since the early web, bringing a background in entertainment and music to more than three decades of digital production, development, and storytelling. He spent thirteen years working with the United Nations humanitarian section and partner NGOs, building interactive platforms focused on women and children affected by conflict, and later developed digital experiences and data-driven storytelling for organizations including The New York Times, Mastercard, Google, NBC Universal, and others. Across that career, his focus has remained remarkably consistent: using emerging media to connect people with ideas, institutions, and one another. He has spoken at AWE USA for six consecutive years and delivered a keynote at Immerse KL 2025 in Kuala Lumpur.