Metaverse gains prominence at the World Economic Forum in Davos

For Meta's product director, Chris Cox, the metaverse continues to be the bet for the next moment of the internet. He commented, “I would think of it as the next version of the Internet that gets less flat, you know, the main metaphor for the Internet has been the web page since it was born.” 

What is the Davos World Economic Forum? How important is it?

The Forum is an international organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, responsible for organizing annual meetings that involve the participation and collaboration of various types of organizations and world leaders, both from the public and private sectors. The meetings are mostly held in the Swiss city of Davos and, as a result, are also known as the Davos Forum. Without a doubt, it is the most important event on the world economic agenda. Many important and famous people have been there, you know? From Nelson Mandela to Bono Vox.

Writer who popularized the term “metaverse” in the 90s believes the industry should attract talent from the gaming industry

Another present in conversation wheel He was the writer of the book Snow Crash, a work that introduced the term metaverse for the first time, back in the 90s. Neal Stephenson believes that the games industry will play a crucial role in the development of the metaverse. Furthermore, he commented that the metaverse industry will have to bring game developers into the ecosystem if they want to make virtual reality more attractive:   

“There will have to be experiences in the metaverse that are worthwhile, and the people who know how to create these types of experiences are those who work in the games industry. Some of them work for big game studios, some of them work for small independent companies. These are necessary talents to create a metaverse that people want to visit.” 

Paula Ingabire, Master in Engineering and Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Minister of Information and Communication Technology of Rwanda, says that the metaverse could be essential for the tourism industry, creative industry and education. However, for Ingabire, it is important to create privacy and data policies for immersive environments involving the public sector.

“These are some of the specific sectors or use cases that are being mapped out… policies need to be in place around the availability and collection of data privacy laws and that are very important if you are actually going to simulate some of these experiences”, he points out. 

.@MusoniPaula (@RwandaICT) explores the importance of data-driven policy and governance in the #metaverse: https://t.co/R69deZeTED # wef23 pic.twitter.com/cbfuGPXVeb

- World Economic Forum (@wef) January 18, 2023

During the discussion, circle members also expressed their concerns regarding privacy in the metaverse. Enrique Lores, CEO of HP, commented: “It will be very important that, no matter how many metaverses we have, there is a common layer of privacy and security that we can all leverage. This is a very important technology issue that needs to be developed.” 

At this year's World Economic Forum, technology has been a protagonist of the meetings. In addition to today's discussion, on Tuesday (18) the president of the FEM said that a virtual environment for global collaboration will be presented in the coming days to discuss issues of public interest. 

World Economic Forum intends to launch global cooperation metaverse; understand

Using the metaverse to provoke discussions of public interest. This is the objective of the Global Collaboration Village, a virtual environment that will be presented during the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. Designed to be accessible to citizens from all over the world, within the space it will be possible to meet in coworking spaces, hold conferences and visit museums. The innovation will be announced between January 16th and 20th, when the event takes place.

You can check out this Wednesday's panel on the metaverse by clicking here, the video is in English.

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