Keynote Speakers – Web3D 2026

Web3D 2026 is honored to feature an exceptional lineup of keynote speakers whose leadership continues to shape the future of open 3D standards and immersive technologies.

Anita Havele

Executive Director, Web3D Consortium

From Standards to Possibility: Building the Future of 3D

For nearly three decades, the Web3D community has been building a vision for an open, interoperable 3D world—from VRML to X3D and from the early Web to today’s era of XR and AI. This talk explores how standards can do more than define technology: they can preserve innovation, connect generations of platforms and ideas, and give 3D content a life far beyond the technology in which it was created. A 3D model created 25 years ago can still be brought to life today without being rebuilt from scratch. The technology around it has changed dramatically, but the work can endure. That is the often-unseen power of an open standard: it doesn’t simply define how technology works today—it gives innovation a future. As we look toward the next generation of 3D, the challenge is not simply to create what is possible today, but to build foundations that can evolve with technologies we cannot yet imagine. Standards are not the destination—they are what make the destination possible.

Anita Havele is the Executive Director of the Web3D Consortium and leads the Web3D Consortium’s work advancing open, interoperable 3D standards and cross‑domain collaboration. She brings a rare combination of technical expertise and strategic vision. She has led major international collaborations and ecosystem‑shaping initiatives, strengthening the bridge between innovation and the open 3D Web. Anita is a long‑standing contributor to SIGGRAPH, Eurographics, IEEE VR, and the Web3D Conference, She holds a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Marquette University, which informs her perspective on declarative 3D and long‑term sustainability of immersive technologies.

Patrick Cozzi

Chief Platform Officer at Bentley Systems and the founder and former CEO of Cesium.

3D Tiles: The Open Standards Journey and What’s Next

Twelve years after 3D Tiles was first introduced as just an idea at the Web3D 2014 Geospatial information on the Web workshop, 3D Tiles has become a widely used open standard for massive heterogeneous 3D geospatial scenes with a vibrant ecosystem of open source and commercial implementations of runtime 3D engines, data pipelines, and content. This talk tells the story of collaboration within and across standards organizations, including Web3D, Khronos, and The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) that facilitated the connecting ecosystem of X3D, glTF, and 3D Tiles. We look back at the inflection points and, importantly, look forward with an emphasize on how cross-industry collaboration will continue to be essential in the next chapter of semantic 3D scenes at scale for consumption by humans and AI.

Patrick is the Chief Platform Officer at Bentley Systems and the founder and former CEO of Cesium. He has authored, edited, or contributed to 10 books, including 3D Engine Design for Virtual Globes, OpenGL Insights, and WebGL Insights. Patrick has received multiple industry awards for his contributions to geospatial and 3D computer graphics open standards including 3D Tiles and glTF. He is the co-founder of CreateAccess, a nonprofit that increases technology opportunities for young people in under-resourced communities through exposure to 3D creation education. Patrick earned a Master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania, where he also taught GPU Programming & Architecture for almost a decade.

Prof. Yeliz Yesilada

Computer Engineering at Middle East Technical University Northern Cyprus Campus (METU NCC) and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Manchester.

Pearls and Web Users: Accessibility as an Engineering Principle

Just as every pearl forms with its own unique contours, every user experiences the web through a distinct combination of abilities, preferences, and technologies. In this keynote, we examine what web accessibility can teach us about engineering for human diversity. We will review key accessibility principles and standards, consider challenges, and explore how these lessons apply as the web becomes increasingly 3D, spatial, immersive, and multimodal. Accessibility should not be a requirement added after development; it should be a foundational engineering principle that shapes design from the beginning. We conclude with a roadmap for building emerging inclusive web technologies, rather than excluding certain abilities, preferences, and technologies.

Prof. Yeliz Yesilada is Professor of Computer Engineering at Middle East Technical University Northern Cyprus Campus (METU NCC) and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Manchester. Her research focuses on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), specifically user behavior modelling, web accessibility, eye-tracking, and AI-driven applications. A leading researcher in web accessibility, Prof. Yesilada received multiple best-paper awards and co-edited a leading research book on web accessibility. She co-founded the International Web for All Conference (W4A), contributed to the work of W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), and consults internationally with governments on web accessibility frameworks and training. Further information about Prof. Yesilada is available at yelizyesilada.info.

Dr. Renato Pajarola

Visualization and MultiMedia Lab
Department of Informatics
University of Zürich

Web-based 3D Geographic Visualization

Renato Pajarola is a full Professor in the Department of Informatics at the University of Zürich (UZH). He received a Dipl. Inf-Ing ETH as well as a Dr. sc. techn. degree in computer science from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich in 1994 and 1998 respectively. Subsequently he was a post-doctoral researcher and lecturer in the Graphics, Visualization & Usability Center at Georgia Tech. In 1999 he joined the University of California Irvine as an Assistant Professor. Since 2005 he has been leading the Visualization and MultiMedia Lab at UZH, and from 2018 to 2022 he was the Chair of the Department of Informatics at UZH. Prof. Pajarola is a Senior Member of ACM and IEEE as well as a Fellow of the Eurographics Association. His research interests include interactive large-scale multidimensional data visualization, geographic visualization, real-time 3D graphics, 3D scanning & reconstruction, geometry processing, as well as remote and parallel rendering. He organized and co-chaired the Eurographics Conference in 2015 as well as the Eurographics EuroVis Symposium in 2021.

Laboratory Manager, College of Science and Engineering, Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), Qatar

Holds a PhD in Computer Science and Engineering (HBKU, 2024), an MSc in Data Analytics (HBKU, 2021), a BS in Computer Science (AUCE, 2018), and a BS in Mathematics (LIU, 2020).
Research focuses on human–computer interaction, AI and machine learning, and computer vision for autism, including eye-tracking, pose estimation, and object detection in play-based and learning contexts.
Leads and contributes to projects on joint engagement, preference assessment, and inclusive assessment for autistic learners, often combining sensing technologies, VR, and learning analytics.
Has published in venues such as CoDesign, Frontiers in Education, International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction, JMIR, BCS HCI, and LNCS (HCII/INTERACT).
Recipient of the Mada Innovation Award (2022) for the MAAN accessibility-focused application.
Experienced educator and tutor in mathematics and computer science, and teaching assistant for courses on ICT accessibility and statistics for science and engineering.
Actively serves as a reviewer and collaborator on interdisciplinary projects spanning autism, inclusive technology, AI, and education.