Aaron E. Walsh
SUMMARY
:: Immersive Education Initiative Founding Director : Knowledge Foundation Founding Director : Established the field of Immersive Education : Coined term "Immersive Education" : Coined term "Immersive Illness" : Coined term "Inversion of Immersive" (3D Printing) : Knowledge Token® inventor : International best-selling technology author : Award-winning presenter and industry speaker : Named one of the 40 most innovative people in the Information Technology (IT) industry : Award-winning Boston College faculty : Inventor of patented and patent-pending Internet and World Wide Web technology : Co-founder of Mantis Development Corporation : Founding Chair of the Web3D Consortium Universal Media Working Group : Founding Chair of the Web3D Consortium Web3D and Moving Picture Experts Group (Web3D-MPEG) Working Group : Co-Chair of the Web3D Consortium Intellectual Property Rights Task Group : Web3D Consortium Liaison to Moving Picture Experts Group : Web3D Consortium Liaison to World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) ::
DETAIL
Award-winning Boston College faculty (1999-2023) Aaron E. Walsh established the field of Immersive Education in the 1990s and is today the founding Director of the Knowledge Foundation and the Immersive Education Initiative.
The Knowledge Foundation is a Swiss educational organization responsible for the design, development, deployment and ongoing maintenance of the global Knowledge Token® system and related open international standards for blockchain technology in the field of education.
Immersive Education Initiative is a non-profit international consortium of universities, colleges, research institutes, consortia and companies that work together to define and develop open standards, best practices, platforms, and communities of support for virtual reality and game-based learning and training systems (i.e., virtual worlds, learning games and serious games, augmented reality, mixed reality and full immersion). Thousands of faculty, researchers, staff and administrators are members of the Immersive Education Initiative, who together service millions of students worldwide. The world's leading experts in immersive teaching, training and learning convene annually at global and regional Summits instituted by Walsh.
In 2007 he was named one of the 40 most innovative people in the Information Technology (IT) industry by Computerworld, the premier source of news and analysis for the IT industry. He received the prestigious national award in recognition for his pioneering work on the Media Grid and Immersive Education, which are recognized as "...innovative, promising technologies which hold the potential to significantly affect society in the near future."
The same year that Walsh was named one of the 40 most innovative people in the Information Technology industry he, and the immersive learning approach to education that he pioneered, was featured in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Walsh has been featured in a number of leading technology and mainstream publications, including Newsweek and Newsweek International, for his work in international technology standards and Immersive Education. He was recently featured by both Entrepreneur magazine and CBS Interactive's business technology news service. A biography describing how Walsh pioneered the field of Immersive Education and an article describing how Walsh predicted the forthcoming agony of "Immersive Illness" both appeared in Computer World and as a cover story by Campus Technology.
In the 1990s Walsh coined the term Immersive Education and established the field of Immersive Education. In 2006 he received the Teaching with New Media (TWIN) award [nominee video] receiving highest honors in the competition for pioneering the use of Immersive Education at Boston College. The award was presented to Walsh at a ceremony to honor exemplary uses of technology in teaching.
He later coined the term "Immersive Illness" to describe issues such as addiction, alienation, and mental schisms in the age of Immersive Education.
Walsh has subsequently appeared on BBC World News to discuss the impact of 3D printed gun blueprints being released into the public domain and the impact of rapidly advancing technological innovation on education, industry and society, noting that "the genie is out of the bottle, and can never be put back in."
In 2009 Walsh received the Campus Technology Innovator's award for his pioneering role in establishing the field of Immersive Education (see award profile and "Best of Both Worlds" cover story).
An international best-selling technology author, Walsh helped to shape International Standards as founding Chair of the Web3D Consortium (Web3DC) Universal Media Working Group, founding Chair of the Web3D-MPEG Working Group responsible for the convergence of Web3D and Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) technology, Co-Chair of the Web3D Consortium's Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Task Group, and Web3D Liaison to MPEG and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
An award-winning Boston College faculty member, Walsh conducts related workshops and lectures at other universities, industry conferences, holds United States patents for modern graphical user interfaces for local and Internet information reference and retrieval, and has patents pending for network caching techniques and distributed computer processing. His patents have been cited by IBM, Sony, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, HTC, and other global technology companies.
Walsh teaches courses on programming, Web development, computer graphics, virtual reality, and Immersive Education at Boston College, where is the former manager of the Advanced Technology Center (ATC). As manager of ATC, he was lead software architect and senior software engineer for a number of advanced technology projects developed at Boston College, including robust graphical client/server information systems that pre-date the World Wide Web.
During that time Walsh also wrote core software for the award-winning Eagle Eyes system, a Boston College project led by Prof. James Gips that helps people with severe physical disabilities to develop and be educated to their fullest by enabling them to access the computer. In 1994 Eagle Eyes was selected as a finalist in Discover Magazine's Awards for Technical Innovation. In 2006 Eagle Eyes received the Technology Award Laureate by the Tech Museum of San Jose, and in 2007 Eagle Eyes and Gips received the da Vinci Award for "exceptional design and engineering achievements in accessibility and universal design, that empowers people of all abilities."
Walsh's work on Eagle Eyes was the outgrowth of Virtual Reality (VR) research that he conducted in the early 1990s. In 1997 he donated portions of his VR research to the open standards community by founding the Universal Media group through which he contributed his media cache concepts and technology to the Web3D Consortium and the international 3D community at large.
A frequent advisor to high technology companies, Walsh has designed standalone and networked hardware and software products using a combination of technologies including
C/C++, Java, J2EE, XML, HTML, JavaScript, style sheets, streaming media, Web3D, and relational/object
databases. He routinely participates in the development of business, marketing and technology plans for his
clients and has conducted related workshops and lectures at industry conferences and expositions such as
the Internet Commerce Expo (ICE), ACM/SIGGRAPH, and the
Web3D/Virtual Reality Modeling Language
(VRML) Symposia.
His award-winning Web3D Roundup performance astounded Web3D Symposia 2000
as detailed by SIGGRAPH
Computer Graphics and About.com.
An international best-selling technology author, Walsh has written over a dozen books and numerous articles for journals and magazines such as Dr. Dobb's Programming Journal, ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics, New Architect (formerly Web Techniques), Mobilized Software, and MacTech Magazine (formerly MacTutor).
Walsh is the author of numerous books by Prentice Hall (Pearson), and Wiley (formerly IDG Books Worldwide), including Java For Dummies, Destination Multimedia, Foundations of Java Programming for the World Wide Web, Java Bible, Java 2 Bible, Visual InterDev for Dummies and Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) Essentials.
Walsh was the first Java columnist for IDG Books Online and was the founding author and series editor for the Prentice Hall (Pearson) series of Web3D books that includes Core Web3D, Java 3D API Jump-Start, and MPEG-4 Jump-Start. He was also the lead author and editor for a series of Internet and Web standards books published by Prentice Hall, including XHTML Example by Example, ebXML: The Technical Specifications, ebXML: The Technical Reports, UDDI, SOAP, and WSDL: The Web Services Specification Reference Book, and related titles.
:: jump to listing of books, articles, papers, specifications and standards ::
AWARDS and APPEARANCES
2024: Walsh opens the 2024 Blockchain in Education Summit and 2024 Digital Civilisation joint conferences in Oxford, England. The joint event was held at Oriel College, University of Oxford, in collaboration with University of Oxford's University College Oxford Blockchain Research Centre, Immersive Education Initiative, and Knowledge Foundation.
2024: Walsh opens the inaugural South Africa Blockchain in Education Symposium and Hackathon hosted by Stellenbosch University in collaboration with South Africa's National Institute for Theoretical and Computational Sciences (NITheCS) and the Switzerland-based Knowledge Foundation international standards organization.
2024: Walsh presents gold medals to the winners of the 2023 United Nations Coding4Integrity Arab Youth Anti-Corruption Hackathon during the UN's 10th Conference of the States Parties (CoSP) to the United Nations Convention against Corruption in Atlanta, Georgia.
2023: On behalf of the Knowledge Foundation, Walsh receives an award of recognition from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and Government of Qatar (Administrative Control and Transparency Authority of the State of Qatar) for the Foundation's contribution to the 2023 Coding4Integrity Arab Youth Anti-Corruption Hackathon in Doha, Qatar, held in collaboration with the Administrative Control and Transparency Authority of the State of Qatar, Microsoft, and Knowledge Foundation. Watch the award ceremony.
2023: Walsh represents the Knowledge Foundation as a judge in the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) 2023 Coding4Integrity Arab Youth Anti-Corruption Hackathon in Doha, Qatar, in collaboration with the Administrative Control and Transparency Authority (ACTA) of the State of Qatar, Microsoft, and Knowledge Foundation.
2023: Walsh presents Knowledge Foundation and Knowledge Token® at University of Oxford on opening day of the 2023 Blockchain in Education Summit and Digital Civilisation joint conferences in Oxford, England.
2022: Walsh opens IMMERSIVE SWITZERLAND 2022 and the 2022 Blockchain in Education Summit in Lucerne, Switzerland.
2022: Walsh presents Knowledge Token®: Digital Currency for Education as an opening day keynote speaker at the 2022 Crypto Valley Conference in Rotkreuz, Switzerland.
2020: Walsh presents Immersive Education and Virtual Reality in Japan at the University of Aizu in Aizuwakamatsu, Fukushima Prefecture.
2018: Walsh opens the inaugural Blockchain in Education Summit in Boston, Massachusetts.
2018: Walsh appears on BBC World News to discuss the impact of 3D printed gun blueprints being released into the public domain and the impact of rapidly advancing technological innovation on education, industry and society, noting that "the genie is out of the bottle, and can never be put back in."
2017: Walsh introduces Knowledge Token® in conjunction with the Italian Ministry of Education at Immersive Italy and the 7th European Immersive Education Summit in Lucca, Italy.
2015: Walsh appears as an expert panelist at IBM's Cognitive Computing Colloquium in New York to discuss the impact of cognitive computing and Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) on the field of Immersive Education. When IBM's cognitive computer Watson won Jeopardy! in 2011 it became clear that a new kind of computing system was emerging: one that could learn, reason, and understand natural language. Today, a new generation of Immersive Education. is being developed that utilizes advanced cognitive computing and Artificial Intelligence to create learning environments and scenarios that exhibit human-like intelligence.
2015: Walsh keynotes the United States National Safety Council (NSC) Congress and Expo in Atlanta, Georgia. His keynote address, Immersive Education for Health and Safety, focused on using Immersive Education. technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and simulations for health and safety. The USA NSC Congress & Expo is the world's largest annual event for safety, health and environmental professionals that is attended by over 15,000 people annually. For more than 100 years, professionals have turned to this event for industry-leading technology, education, networking opportunities and the tried and true products and services needed to stay at the forefront and remain competitive within the industry.
2015: Walsh keynotes IMMERSION 2015 at Paris-Sorbonne University ("the Sorbonne") in Paris, France. His keynote address, The Age of Immersion, addressed the personal and cultural impact of immersion and immersive technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), simulations, video games, neurogaming, immersive caves and domes, 3D printing and robotics. His provocative keynote shined a light on "Immersive Illness," a term he coined nearly two decades ago that describes mental health issues (such as addiction, alienation, and mental schisms) that may be exhibited by a certain percentage of the population upon prolonged exposure to immersive experiences.
2014: Walsh is interviewed by legendary television personality Larry King on the subject of 3D Printing, a technology that Walsh describes as "the inversion of immersion". The interview was conducted on the eve of IMMERSION 2014 in Los Angeles, California. Watch the full interview now.
2014: Walsh keynotes IMMERSION 2014 at the J. Paul Getty Museum ("The Getty") in Los Angeles, California. His keynote address, Teaching and Learning in the Age of Immersion, was the subject of the IMMERSION 2014 education day.
2013: Walsh keynotes Australia's Interactive Technology in Education Conference (ITEC 2013). Hosted by the Sydney Opera House and supported by Australia's Academic and Research Network, Walsh's Inside Immersive Education keynote provided attendees with an insider's view of Immersive Education and the Immersive Education Initiative.
2012: Walsh keynotes Singapore's 1st Serious Gaming conference in the Republic of Singapore (Singapore, Southeast Asia). Following his keynote Walsh conducted a Master Class on the fundamentals of Immersive Education.
2012: Walsh moderates The Future of Immersive Education expert panel at the 2nd European Immersive Education Summit (EiED 2012) in Paris, France.
2011: Walsh delivers the opening address at the 1st European Immersive Education Summit (EiED 2011) in Madrid, Spain.
2010: Walsh guest lectures on the subject of digital media and Immersive Education at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government (Harvard Kennedy School of Government) in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
2009: Walsh receives Campus Technology Innovator's Award award for establishing the field of Immersive Education, a term he coined to describe the combination of interactive 3D graphics, commercial game and simulation technology, virtual reality, voice chat, Web cameras, and rich digital media with collaborative online course environments and classrooms.
2009: Walsh keynotes the annual Campus Technology conference in Boston, Massachusetts.
2008: Walsh keynotes the 1st Immersive Education Asia event in Japan.
2007: Walsh keynotes Immersive Education Day at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
2007: The editors of Computerworld name Walsh to "40 Innovative IT People to Watch" for developing "innovative, promising technologies which hold the potential to significantly affect society in the near future." Walsh received the award for his pioneering work on the Media Grid and Immersive Education. News release, article, and profile are available online here.
2006: Walsh receives Teaching with New Media (TWIN) award, receiving highest honors in the competition for pioneering the use of Immersive Education at Boston College (the competition consisted of nearly 300 other nominees). The award was presented to Walsh at a ceremony to honor exemplary uses of technology in teaching. Links to the news release and award ceremony video follow. The video provides a brief and very limited visual overview of the now obsolete second generation Immersive Education platform and is only a small excerpt of the video shown at the award ceremony: PDF (document overview) and Video (nominee video).
2005: Walsh announces the formation of the Immersive Education Initiative during his keynote at the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) Conference hosted by Boston College. His keynote address, Enabling the Age of Immersive Education, formally ushers in the age of immersion for teaching, learning and training.
1999-2004 Walsh represents the United States Web3D Consortium, an international ISO/IEC standards organization, at officially sanctioned meetings held in Germany, Singapore, Italy and France through his roles as Working Group chair and Liaison to the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG).
2000: Walsh receives the Web3D RoundUp “Golden Lasso Award” for his Universal Media presentation. The award was presented to Walsh during the Web3D Consortium (ISO/IEC standards organization) conference in Monterey, CA
1996: The United States Marine Corps Reserve presents Walsh with an award for outstanding support of the Toys for Tots Foundation. Walsh designed and developed the original Toys for Tots Web site (http://ToysForTots.org) and continues to support the children’s charity by donating Web development services to the Foundation.
COURSES (Boston College)
ADIT 137501 Future Technology and Emerging Media
ADIT 134101 Social Media: To The Web and Beyond
ADIT 134901 Collaborative Computing
ADIT 138101 Independent Study in Immersive Education and Virtual Reality
ADIT 130001 Coding Boot Camp
ADIT 135001 Introduction to Programming
MT350 Principles of Programming
MC101 Computer Science I
MT36501 Java and Object Oriented Programming
MT36801 Advanced Java Programming
MT36901 Web Application Development
MT35101 Discovering Computer Graphics
MT358 Discovering 3D and Virtual Reality
MT35801 Discovering Video Games and Virtual Reality
MT38101 Advanced 3D and Virtual Reality
POSTS AND APPOINTMENTS
Director, Knowledge Foundation, 2023-present
Director, Immersive Education Initiative, 2005-present
Director, Media Grid international standards organization, 2003-2010
Lecturer, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, 2023-present
Lecturer, Boston College, 1999-2023
Liaison to Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) for Web3D Consortium, 2001-2004
Chair, Web3D-MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) Working Group, 2000-2005
Editor and lead author, Prentice Hall Web3D book series, 1999-2002
Liaison to World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for Web3D Consortium, 1999-2002
Co-Chair, Web3D Consortium's Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Group, 1998-2000
Chair, Web3D Consortium Universal Media Working Group, 1997-2004
President, Mantis Development Corp., 1992-1997
Manager, Advanced Technology Center (ATC), Boston College, 1990-1992
Faculty Liaison, IT Department, Boston College, 1988-1990
PUBLICATIONS
Books (selected works)
Walsh, A. E., J2EE 1.4 Essentials. John Wiley & Sons, February, 2003. 480 p.
Walsh, A. E., ed., UDDI, SOAP, and WSDL: Web Services Specification Reference Book. Prentice Hall, April 2002. 336 p.
Walsh, A. E., ed., ebXML: The Technical Reports. Prentice Hall, February, 2002. 576 p.
Walsh, A. E., ed., ebXML: The Technical Specifications. Prentice Hall, January, 2002. 640 p.
Walsh, A. E. and Bourges-Sevenier, M., MPEG-4 Jump-Start. Prentice Hall, December, 2001. 460 p.
Walsh, A. E. and Gehringer, D., Java 3D API Jump-Start. Prentice Hall, August, 2001. 245 p.
Walsh, A. E. and Raggett, D., XHTML Example By Example. Prentice Hall, July, 2001. 745 p.
Walsh, A. E. and Bourges-Sevenier, M., Core Web 3D. Prentice Hall, September, 2000. 1088 p.
Walsh, A. E., Couch, J, and Steinberg, D., Java 2 Bible. IDG Books Worldwide, December, 1999. 905 p.
Walsh, A. E., Java for Dummies (3rd edition). IDG Books Worldwide, October 1998. 381 p.
Walsh, A. E. and Fronckowiak, J., Java Bible. IDG Books Worldwide, March 1998. 1093 p.
Walsh, A. E., Java for Dummies (2nd edition). IDG Books Worldwide, May 1997. 371 p.
Walsh, A. E., Foundations of Java Programming for the World Wide Web. IDG Books Worldwide, June 1996. 906 p.
Walsh, A. E., Java for Dummies (1st edition). IDG Books Worldwide, April 1996. 365 p.
Walsh, A. E., Destination Multimedia. IDG Books Worldwide, November 1995. 251 p.
Articles, papers, specifications and standards (selected works)
Walsh, A. E., (2007, October). The Media Grid: A Public Utility for Digital Media. Keynote Paper and Address: 8th International Symposium on Spatial Media (ISSM) jointly held with IEEE International Conference on Computer and Information Technology (IEEE CIT). University of Aizu, Fukushima Japan, October 16-19, 2007. Retrieved November 19, 2007, from here (long URL)
Walsh, A. E., (2007, June). The Immersive Education Faculty-Student Ecosystem. Published online through the Immersive Education Initiative (ImmersiveEducation.org).
Walsh, A. E., (2005, November). The Media Grid: A public utility for digital media. Dr. Dobb's Journal. Retrieved November 19, 2007, from http://www.ddj.com/184406310
Walsh, A. E. and Nagel, H.N. (2005, May). Transforming Technologies for Mobile 3D Computing. MobilizedSoftware.com. Retrieved November 19, 2007, from http://www.ddj.com/163105163
Walsh, A. E. and Nagel, H.N. (2004, November). Mobile Three-Dimensional Computing. MobilizedSoftware.com. Retrieved November 19, 2007, from http://www.ddj.com/52600411
Walsh, A.E., et al. (2004, August). Extensible 3D (X3D) International Standard ISO/IEC 19775:2004. Part 1: Architecture and base components, Annex D: MPEG-4 interactive profile. International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Geneva, Switzerland. Retrieved November 19, 2007, from here (long URL)
Walsh, A. E. (2003, September). Creating Java Grid Services: Building computational grids using the Globus Toolkit. Dr. Dobb's Journal. Vol.28 Issue.9 pp. 18-23. Retrieved November 19, 2007, from http://www.ddj.com/dept/java/184405426
Walsh, A. E., (2003, August). Emerging Web3D Web Standards and Technologies. Keynote Paper and Address: 6th International Conference on Humans and Computers. University of Aizu, Fukushima Japan, August 28-30, 2003. Retrieved November 19, 2007, from here (long URL)
Walsh, A. E. (2003, July). JavaServer Pages 2.0: JSP technology takes a big step forward in 2.0. Dr. Dobb's Journal. Vol.28 Issue.7 pp. 48-57. Retrieved November 19, 2007, from http://www.ddj.com/java/184405384
Walsh, A. E. (2003, May). IETF RFC 3541, A Uniform Resource Name (URN) Namespace for the Web3D Consortium (Web3D). Published in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) RFC repository and normatively referenced by the Extensible 3D (X3D) International Standard ISO/IEC 19775:2004. Retrieved November 19, 2007, from here (long URL)
Walsh, A. E. (2003, April). Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) 1.4 Web Services. Dr. Dobb's Journal. Vol.28 Issue.4 pp. 34-39. Retrieved November 19, 2007, from http://www.ddj.com/java/184405314
Walsh, A. E. (2002, September). Standard Practice: Weighing the Risks and Rewards of Standards. New Architect Magazine. Vol.7 Issue.9 pp. 26-30. Retrieved November 19, 2007, from http://www.ddj.com/architect/184411687
Walsh, A. E. (2002, July). Understanding Scene Graphs: Using graph-based data structures to organize and manage scene contents. Dr. Dobb's Journal. Vol.27 Issue.7 pp. 17-26. Retrieved November 19, 2007, from http://www.ddj.com/184405094
Walsh, A. E. (2002, April). The MPEG-4 Java API & MPEGlets: Creating interactive MPEG-4 content with MPEG-J. Dr. Dobb's Journal. Vol.27 Issue.4 pp. 40-45. Retrieved November 19, 2007, from http://www.ddj.com/java/184405021
Walsh, A. E. (2000, May). Universal Media: Media-Rich Content for Bandwidth-starved Devices. ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics. Vol.34 No.2 May 2000. pp. 37-40. Retrieved November 19, 2007, from http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=351440.351450
Walsh, A. E. (1992, December). Sound As a Data Type. Dr. Dobb's Journal. Retrieved November 19, 2007, from http://www.ddj.com/architect/184408892
Walsh, A. E. (1992, July). Programming Quicktime: Multimedia to the Macs. Dr. Dobb's Journal. Vol.17 Issue.7 pp. 76-80. Retrieved November 19, 2007, from http://www.ddj.com/architect/184408803
Walsh, A. E. (1991, March). Asynchronous Sounds. MacTutor: The Macintosh Programming Journal. Vol.17 Issue.7 pp. 56-60. Retrieved November 19, 2007, from here (long URL)
Clients have included Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Boston College, Computer.com (acquired by Computers4Sure, an Office Depot Company), Fidelity Investments, Marine Toys for Tots Foundation, Boston's historic Faneuil Hall Marketplace, National Scientific Council on the Developing Child at Harvard University, University of Aizu (Japan), and Boston College's Agora project. Agora allows students to connect at ultra-high speeds to the Internet and Web directly from their dorm rooms using the same cable that delivers television signals, and was featured in the Wall Street Journal as a system heralding the convergence of cable and Internet access. Clients of a recent startup venture have included ABC/Disney, Boston Herald, Cartoon Network, CNN International, Level 3 Communications, and Turner Broadcasting.
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