Get a front row seat to the conversations about AI, AR smartglasses, and the future of enterprise technology from Augmented World Expo 2026. Neil Trevett has spent his career connecting software to silicon. As president of the Khronos Group — the organization behind OpenGL, Vulkan, OpenXR, and glTF — and president of the Metaverse Standards Forum, he works on the open interoperability standards that let developers build once and deploy across many devices. His day job is at NVIDIA, developing GPU developer ecosystems. His life's work is making sure the industry doesn't have to rebuild the same foundation six times. At AWE 2026, Neil announced the Open Metaverse Browser Initiative: a spatial engine sitting alongside the existing browser stack so that services from multiple companies can be composited into a single scene without exposing anyone's proprietary data. Not a replacement for the 2D web — one new dimension added on top of the one that already exists. Key Moments: [00:02:27] glTF's evolution: from 3D asset format to Gaussian splat support and semantic scene information that captures meaning, not just appearance.[00:08:21] The OpenXR timing lesson: standards set too early die by committee, too late and fragmentation wins — and how Khronos hit the window.[00:13:25] The metaverse redefined: multiple people doing spatial computing on smart glasses, connected, in the real world.[00:19:23] Why enterprise spatial computing is stalled: proprietary data can't flow through a third-party intermediary, and nothing in the current web stack fixes that.[00:20:53] Open Metaverse Browser Initiative: composition in the browser — open, private, multi-service.The M-word has had a rough few years, but the vision — people connected to the world around them through spatial compute on wearable devices — is more achievable now than it has ever been. Watch the full episode → https://youtu.be/MwJD8ZoEUMs Like and subscribe if you want more conversations like this. #SpatialWeb #KhronosGroup #TechGlowUp #AWE2026 #XR About Neil Trevett Neil Trevett is Vice President of Developer Ecosystems at NVIDIA, where he is responsible for enabling and encouraging advanced applications to use GPU acceleration. Neil is also serving as the elected President of the Khronos Group where he created and chaired the OpenGL ES working group that defined the industry standard for 3D graphics on mobile devices. At Khronos he also chairs the OpenCL working group for portable, parallel heterogeneous computing, helped initiate the WebGL standard that is bringing interactive 3D graphics to the Web and is now working to help formulate standards for vision and neural network inferencing. Previously, as Vice President of 3Dlabs, Neil was at the forefront of the silicon revolution bringing interactive 3D to the PC, and he established the embedded graphics division of 3Dlabs to bring advanced visual processing to a wide-range of non-PC platforms. Neil was elected President for eight consecutive years of the Web3D Consortium dedicated to creating open standards for communicating real-time 3D on the Internet. Neil graduated from Birmingham University in the UK with a First Class Joint Honors B.Sc. in electronic engineering and computer science and holds several patents in the area of graphics technology. About the Metaverse Standards Forum The Metaverse Standards Forum is a non-profit consortium dedicated to fostering metaverse interoperability. Open to all organizations of any size, including standards organizations, companies, and universities, the Forum is committed to promoting open standards, collaboration, and best practices to pave the way for an open, inclusive, and accessible metaverse. Metaverse Standards Forum members engage in building consensus on interoperability requirements, prototyping, plugfests, and open-source tool development. Learn more at metaverse-standards.org, and follow the Metaverse Standards Forum on Twitter @metaverse_forum. About the Open Metaverse Browser Initiative The Open Metaverse Browser Initiative (OMBI), created by the Metaverse Standards Forum in collaboration with RP1, brings standards organizations, technology companies, developers, and researchers together to build the spatial equivalent of the web browser: open, interoperable, and owned by no single company. RP1 is the lead architect and maintainer. Sneeze, the first open metaverse browser engine, is developed through OMBI and available on the Forum's GitHub repository under the Apache 2.0 license. Learn more at omb.wiki. A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself. At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders. In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success. If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.
