Event Recap | Metaverse: Are We Ready?

On June 17, Taihe Institute and SCOLAR Network jointly organized a webinar on the discussion around the metaverse. The event hosted three prominent speakers who shared their insights from entrepreneurship, human connection, consumerism, and brand perspectives, as well as the metaverse's overall state and potential future development.

 

 

Igor Tasic, the founder of Meta Ventures, talked about the concept of "3Cs": Creators, Curators, and Connectors in the metaverse. Here are some of the insights:

 

Creators are all of us. We are entrepreneurs as humans, so we don't need to become one. Even being in a small city doesn't prevent a person from being an entrepreneur and making a change. The main question is, how can we create meaningful experiences and content.

 

Curators. People can create virtual traveling experiences, whether in museums or historical destinations. Humans can drive that content.

 

Connectors. Igor shared that the event was the representation of connection. The fact that participants were all there at that moment in the webinar was the connection everyone shared. The ability to connect is the essence of the Internet and the metaverse.

 

Igor summarized that thecore of the technology is the human capacity to connect, listen, and understand what is in front of us. Igor has advised us to explore the world with the children's curiosity. We are still on day one in building the metaverse, and it will allow us to create it the way we want. What can we do to make technology work for us and not the other way around?

 

 

Laura Grünberg, a consultant at Kekst CNC, talked about the metaverse development in China from a consumer and brand perspective.

 

Laura has shared the background of the current situation of the metaverse growth in China, where it might grow to become an 8 trillion USD market. In China, it has taken different shapes. We see virtual worlds emerging from companies like Baidu and Byte Dance. There are also multiple virtual events, avatars, immersive social media, games, and the shopping industry, where giant tech companies, including Tencent and Alibaba, are exploring the possibilities of the metaverse for their businesses.

 

Why is the metaverse appealing to the Chinese? It's a new social experience for the younger generation for a closer connection with people with similar interests. The Chinese metaverse has some specific characteristics, such as different clusters. People are looking for entertainment and valuable information there.

 

From the branding perspective, the brands must understand the subcultures to succeed in the Chinese metaverse market. How have consumer brands dealt with it? Metaverse is a marketing opportunity for brands through NFT collaborations, art toys, games, and idols rather than a direct source of profit. She has also mentioned the immerging KOL (Key opinion leaders) market, where we see the rise of virtual influencers and idols. The KOL industry might reach 333.47 billion RMB (52.4 billion USD) by 2023.

 

 

The third speaker, Thorsten Jelinek, Senior fellow of Taihe Institute and Managing Director at Digital Platform Governance (DPG), gave his perspective on why we surrender to the metaverse.

 

He said that now we have the metaverse moments where we can see different pieces, but it will take time to see where they will grow. The first technical aspect we will need to solve is 5G and 6G to be immersed in the metaverse truly. He shared that we could expect 6G to have its implementation by 2030.

 

Thorsten reminded participants of the phenomena of Pokémon GO, where the players see nature through the virtual frame. The game is popular because the Pokémon acted as the "object of desire." And it created a desire to engage with reality. How do we prevent that we are not fully obsessed with the virtual world? He has raised the question of how we can use the metaverse to create better relationships and impact society and the environment.

 

The event ended with an interactive Q&A session, where participants raised more questions on the current and future states of the metaverse and its impact on our daily life.