The Innovate UK Immersive Tech Network team is proud to announce a new award category – the XR Educator Award – that is designed to recognise visionary educators in the UK who champion a more connected, inclusive, and technologically empowered world.
Through this initiative, we wish to offer the XR community a new way to recognise, give thanks to, and celebrate their educators and mentors in immersive technology projects throughout the United Kingdom. This award provides a fantastic opportunity to praise those who:
- actively mentor emerging talents and future leaders in immersive technologies (XR)
- drive forward innovative practices in the education of XR
- push the boundaries of XR’s potential for social impact.
This accolade will be presented to commemorate Daniel Dyboski-Bryant, Co-Founder of Educators in VR and Former Executive Director of Virtual World Society, who is fondly remembered as a visionary humanitarian XR educator from North Wales, whose work and passion for experimenting and learning with immersive technologies continues to inspire.
Click here to submit your nominations via our form
“We launched the Innovate UK Immersive Tech Awards back in 2023 to foster deeper connections between industry and the academic community and to create an innovative way to address the industry’s skills gap. Every year educators have consistently supported this program by encouraging students and emerging talents to participate in our awards and connect with our members. It has been a great reminder of the vital role that educators play, not only in teaching their students, but in helping them find meaningful career opportunities and grow their networks.
From the beginning, Daniel Dyboski-Bryant was an active member and advocate of the Innovate UK Immersive Tech Network, as well as a big supporter of the awards. We had the honour of collaborating with Daniel several times over the years, and we have created this award in his memory to honour his remarkable journey into XR education and the enduring impact he had on the sector.”
Asha Easton and Amy Chao, Innovate UK Immersive Tech Network Team
Nominations for this award are welcomed from anyone in the XR community, including fellow academics, industry professionals or students, between Thursday 8 May and Friday 23 May 2025. The UK based educator who receives the most nominations will be presented with the award at the Innovate UK Immersive Tech Awards reception in London on Monday 2 June.
If you have not done so yet, then book your ticket to attend the awards ceremony, network with your peers and celebrate our finalists in person.
Should you not be able to join us at the awards reception, please consider joining our community and signing up to the Innovate UK Immersive Tech Network newsletter for awards updates, funding opportunities, and relevant news.
In memoriam of Daniel Dyboski-Bryant
To learn more about how Daniel discovered and adopted immersive technologies for his students in his classroom and remains an inspiration in the XR community to this day, we welcome you to watch this video and explore the below links:
In addition to winning the Inspire! Tutor Award in 2020, Daniel collaborated with the Innovate UK Immersive Tech Network and the wider XR community through the following initiatives
- Educators in VR Meetup on Diversity and Inclusion : This webinar by Educators in VR took place on 2 May 2019 in AltspaceVR with Asha Easton joining Daniel on the panel of speakers on the topic of diversity and inclusion in virtual reality (VR).
- The 2020 Educators in VR International Summit : Daniel and the Educators in VR team broke world records as the largest and longest all-VR conference in February 2020. The global six-day 24-hr conference featured 175 speakers in 150+ events across six VR platforms with more than 6,000 event attendees, all managed and supported by 75 volunteers and Educators in VR members.
- Immerse UK Social VR Platforms Webinar Series : This webinar series took place during the pandemic, and Daniel joined as a partner panellist from Educators in VR for two sessions:
- the “Exploring Rumii & Altspace” session on 11 May 2020
- the “Exploring Engage and Mozilla Hubs” session on 7 April 2020.
- Immerse UK Virtual Showcase with Educators in VR : This event launched in the Immerse UK MetaWorld on the ENGAGE VR platform on 11 May 2022, in collaboration with Educators in VR, virtual events and training experts with the second event in the series on 20 July 2022.
- Lunchtime Live: Sustainability and XR : This webinar took place on 22 July 2022 and featured Daniel in the discussion on how XR technologies will change our approach to living and working sustainably.
- A virtual tribute from Daniel’s colleagues at Educators in VR