Aaron E. Walsh is Director of the Immersive Education Initiative, a non-profit international collaborative whose thousands of members together service millions of learners worldwide. The world's leading experts in immersive teaching, immersive training and immersive learning convene annually at global and regional Summits instituted by Walsh.
In the 1990s Walsh coined the term Immersive Education. He subsequently received the Teaching with New Media (TWIN) award, achieving highest honors in the competition for pioneering the use of Immersive Education at Boston College where he is faculty in the Woods College of Advancing Studies. The award was presented to Walsh at a ceremony to honor exemplary uses of technology in teaching.
Walsh has been 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."
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 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."
A pioneer in the field of educational technology, Walsh, through the Initiative, was the first to advocate the then-novel concept of 3D printing for education on a global scale. Positioning 3D printing as the inversion of immersion, a term he originated, Walsh was subsequently interviewed by world-renowned broadcast personality Larry King on the subject.
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. A biography describing how Walsh pioneered the field of Immersive Education appeared in Computer World and as a cover story by Campus Technology. He also received the Campus Technology Innovator's award for his contributions to the field of Immersive Education.
His United States technology patents have been cited by IBM, Sony, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, HTC, and other global technology companies.