Why the Metaverse is fun and is going to save the world

A lot has been written on the Metaverse, therefore unsurprisingly it's one of the big themes at this years WebSummit. Here's some of the key take aways we want to share with you.

Metaverse is here and not static

"We like to talk about the Metaverse Continuum, because it's not a static thing. It's also not VR. It's basically merging the digital world and the real world. And we're already doing it For example Alexa, Google Assistent are already Metaverse."
Marc Carrel Billiard (Senior Managing Director Accenture)

"The metaverse is only a virtual layer across the world and robots need to have their own metaverse to function."
Owen Nicholson (Co-founder & CEO SLAMcore)

The right to play, do the impossible, solve world hunger

“With the Metaverse build things and do things you never thought were possible. Like your daughter learning ballet from the best ballet dancer in the world, future doctors getting medical educations from the best professionals in the world."
Darren Shou (CTO NortonLifeLock)

Imagine having to build a new production line for building trains. Using the Metaverse for this enables you to make a production design working so well as a prototype, it will save you massive amount of time experimenting in the real world. The more you can design in the Metaverse, the better real prototypes are, the better the products are, saving money, saving energie and saving a loooooooot of C02. Thus it has tangible benefits for all.
Peter Koerte (Chief Technology & Strategy Officer at Siemens)

"We want to make sure children have the opportunity to take part in [the metaverse], and protect their right to play.”
The Lego Group's Julia Goldin

We will digitalize everything, from production lines at Siemens (example above) to Jordan sneakers and ourselves. Imagine you're in consultancy or customer service. In the future we will be able to create your Digital Twin in the Metaverse to answer all the questions your colleagues and clients have while you're taking a Pizza masterclass in Napoli, Italy.

But also imagine solving world problems such as climate change and world hunger through combining the brainpower of the world's smartest digital twins from both today and the past (Einstein meets Michelle Obama and Confucius 孔夫子?).

New frontier: open source and beyond Metaverse 1.0

We need crucial technology to be open by design, Jean-Marc Ollagnier (CEO Europe at Accenture) says. Everything we made, we made in partnership with others, such as NVIDIA, Siemens and many more partners. No company can do this alone and everyone should profit from it.

Furthermore we are currently in Metaverse 1.0 with digital puppets, pre-recorded animation and bots with a face. Where we need to go is what Greg Cross (CEO Soul Machines) calls 'autonomous animation':
1. create a platform to scale the quality of human and machines/robots cooperation by imbuing machines with life
2. enable an embodied agent (for example your digital twin) to behave in a believable, contextually appropriate manner with minimal human direction
3. a framework that measures technology's progress based on the principle of humanizing AI and reducing the burden on humans (both physically and mentally).

So, let's meet at the Metaverse, not only because it's fun and exciting, but also because it may be our only hope to accelerate solving the big mess we've found ourselves in. 🌍

Wilmar & Kirsten