By Nilanjan Dey
The Dubai Future Foundation announced the Dubai Metaverse Assembly, an event where discussions will be held and opinions will be shared on Metaverse and how it can be used for a prospective application.
The event will be held at the Museum of future and Emirates towers on September 28 – 29, 2022. More than 300 global experts, policymakers, thought leaders, and decision-makers from more than 40 organizations will participate in the assembly. Delegates will join sessions and workshops to understand the metaverse, its impact on humanity, the opportunities for humanizing its applications, and the best ways to maximize prospects across crucial sectors of countries, governments, and businesses.
The announcement of the assembly can be seen in line with the ‘Dubai Metaverse Strategy’ whose purpose is to make Dubai the forefront destination for metaverse and its co-related technology. The strategy aims at creating around 40,000 virtual jobs and being counted in the top 10 cities for the metaverse sector. It also highlights metaverse contributing around AED 4 million to the UAE economy. According to analysts, the metaverse will contribute up to US$5 trillion to the global economy by 2030.
His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed said: “The metaverse is a promising digital world. We aim to harness this technology to enhance the quality of life in the UAE and across the globe.”
He added that they want Dubai to become a global hub for innovation and futuristic transformations and a key driver for digital and knowledge-based economies around the world.
While the macro goal of the assembly is to have a healthy discussion on how metaverse can be used in crucial sectors and enhance the quality of human life, the program of the assembly is a 3-point approach to understanding the former with examples. It has 3 main approaches:
– Educate – In this approach, there will be around 10 in-depth sessions on the metaverse
– Inspire – This approach will present use case scenarios of metaverse from sectors like tourism, logistics, retail, education, and healthcare sectors
– Contribute – Reviews from use-case scenarios and workshops for metaverse foresight will be the gist of this approach
UAE has shown its desire to be at the forefront when it comes to the metaverse. This sector has about 1000 companies set in in the nation and producing an estimated $500 million in the UAE economy. Reports estimate expenditure on virtual products in the metaverse reached $54 billion in 2020, whereas, in 2021, just the NFT or non-fungible tokens market amounted to nearly $41 billion.
A survey by McKinsey & Company shows that corporations, private equity companies, and venture capitalists made an estimated $120 billion in metaverse-related investments during the first five months of 2022 and it is expected to only rise.
For the purpose of the assembly, the objective is clear: To nurture innovation and spread awareness of metaverse while creating a positive and sustainable environment for the development and future of metaverse.
