– UAE government-level coding education and promotion of various projects using Metaverse
– In the private sector, metaverse technology is used in various fields such as real estate, restaurants, and weddings.
In the past, when you hear the word virtual reality, science fiction movies and games usually come to mind, but now the word metaverse seems to replace it. What is metaverse? In a nutshell, it can be seen as similar to virtual reality, but it goes one step further and uses avatars in virtual reality to perform social/cultural activities like real reality.
The reason why the metaverse is coming closer to us is because face-to-face meetings have become difficult due to the pandemic, and meetings through online platforms such as teleconferences have become commonplace. As the pandemic situation has been prolonged, there has been a need for people to similarly experience the lack of offline activities in the online space, and Metaverse has emerged as a tool that can satisfy these needs. Famous singers and celebrities held performances and fan meetings through the metaverse, imprinting the existence of the metaverse on many people, and now companies and governments are scrambling to build the metaverse platform, which is a promising field for the future.
Dubai Government Accelerates Building a Digital Twin City in Metaverse
At the 'World Government Summit' held in 2022, the Dubai government announced the “One Human Reality” project, which aims to transform the entire city into a digital twin*. Dawood Al Hajri, director of Dubai City Hall, who announced this project, said, “The One Human Reality project means the unity of the two worlds, the world we live in and the metaverse. We plan to use big data technology.” If the Dubai government builds a digital twin city, people from all over the world will be able to take a tour of Dubai's landmarks through Metaverse, and it is expected that friends from other regions will be able to take a walk in Dubai Park.
* Digital Twin: A technology that creates an object (twins) identical to the real thing in a virtual space and verifies it through various simulation tests (source: Naver Current Information Dictionary)
As such, the UAE government's investment in cutting-edge ICT, including Metaverse, is also leading to nurturing talents in related fields. The UAE government strengthens the digital industry by issuing a Golden Visa to digital companies, coding college students, and local hackathon participants in order to attract global coding talent by operating the National Program for Coders. showing a commitment to
[Source: Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy & Remote Work Applications Office (https://ai.gov.ae/np4c/)]
Due to the Dubai government's announcement of the establishment of a digital twin city and the UAE government's ICT talent nurturing policy, cases of introducing the metaverse are gradually appearing in the UAE. Through the example below, we would like to examine which fields are using Metaverse in the UAE.
Metaverse use case in UAE
1) wedding
From an NFT* ring, a bridal outfit made with blockchain, to a reception at the Amnesia Ibiza Club in Decentraland**, at first glance, something like a story in a game happened. This is a metaverse wedding between Florian Ughetto and Liz Nunez, co-founders of Easy Wedding, a Dubai wedding planner company. Florian and Liz were officially married in Georgia in 2019, and they prepared a metaverse wedding for family and friends who could not attend the wedding at the time.
* NFT (Non-Fungible Token): A means to clarify ownership by giving a unique recognition value to a digital asset, which acts as a kind of digital guarantee. It is mainly used for art transactions, and it is gradually expanding to music, fashion design, and real estate that require ownership.
** Decentraland: One of the metaverse platforms powered by blockchain
The two prepared for the metaverse wedding, trained attendees on how to log in and operate it, and invited the groom's family in France, the bride's family in Paraguay, and friends scattered around the world to the wedding in May 2022. did. The wedding ceremony was held simultaneously via Zoom, a video conferencing platform, for attendees who have difficulty using offline, Decentraland, and Metabus. The two people who are the main characters of the wedding and run a wedding planner company will also provide a metaverse wedding service based on their experiences.
<The first metaverse wedding in Dubai>
[Source: The National]
2) Real Estate
Metaverse real estate is literally a real estate transaction in the metaverse world. Owning a non-physically non-existent asset may seem a bit preposterous, but it doesn't sound so strange when you consider that before the advent of the smartphone, you couldn't even imagine being able to do everything in your life with a cell phone. Metaverse real estate received a lot of attention during the pandemic, and according to MetaMetric Solutions, a metaverse data provider, the value of real estate traded on the world's four major metaverse platforms, such as The Sandbox and Decentraland, will increase by 4 in 2021. It reached $5 million and is expected to more than double by 100. In response, Dubai's real estate industry is also rapidly announcing the Metaverse project and wanting to introduce it to the market.
Damac Group, the parent company of Damac Properties, one of the largest real estate developers in the UAE, announced that it will invest about $1 million in a new division called D-Labs to build the Damac Metaverse. In addition to developing real estate NFTs, D-Labs intends to expand into jewelry NFTs and fashion NFTs by acquiring Swiss jeweler De Grisogono and Italian fashion brand Roberto Cavali.
<Real estate and fashion NFT predictions in the multi-act metaverse>
[Source: DAMAC Properties Youtube]
Dubai real estate brokerage Union Square House (USH) is targeting sales in July 2022 with properties in Palm Jumeirah, Emirates Hills, District One and Dubai Hills. Hills), etc., and is developing a super-luxurious metaverse real estate NFT. While realizing a metaverse space that simulates a real mansion, it plans to develop and sell real estate that does not exist in the real world.
3) Restaurant
Dubai-based hamburger franchise Pickl has announced that it will open its first Metaverse restaurant in the UAE by the end of 2022. Pickle will implement a restaurant in the metaverse world and develop various contents for consumers to enjoy. You can wear a VR headset and play pickle-finding games, purchase avatar-embellished clothing and NFT related pickle burgers, and even order real burgers with NFT. This order will be linked to a delivery service so that it can be actually received.
<Aerial view of Pickle Metaverse restaurant>
[Source: Gulf Business]
4) Police Administrative Services
Attempts to introduce the metabus are increasing in other emirates other than Dubai. Citizens of the Emirate of Ajman, UAE can now do police work in the Metaverse. In June 2022, the Al Nuaimaiah Police Station in Ajman established a police station within the Metaverse platform and established a system that allows citizens and police officers to handle administrative tasks without face-to-face. Police officers can connect to the metaverse by wearing a VR headset and connecting it to digital devices such as smartphones/tablet PCs/laptops/desktops. This is analyzed as part of the digital transformation policy of government agencies in the UAE, and is expected to become common to all emirates in the UAE in the future.
<A demonstration of police administration service using Metaverse>
[Source: Gulf News]
implication
The UAE government is promoting strategic projects for the future, such as building a digital twin city, using metaverse technology, which has increased interest due to the pandemic. In addition, according to the CIA Factbook, the UAE is a country with a high proportion of young people in their 20s and 40s, and has a quick understanding of metaverse and other digital industries, so it is expected to be suitable as a base city for the overseas expansion of the ICT industry. In addition, the UAE government is working to develop the industry, such as issuing Golden Visas for digital professionals through the operation of a coding program. can
In an interview with KOTRA's Dubai Trade Center, Mr. B, a consultant in the metaverse field in Dubai, said, "I have received many misunderstandings and questions about the 'necessity and marketability of the metaverse' over the past few years as a consultant. Metaverse is a natural evolution of computing, and you can think of it as simply enjoying digital activities in 3D. However, since it has not yet been universalized, it has not been established in people's awareness, so it is often misunderstood that it is a scam. In my personal opinion, it is expected that it will take about 5 to 10 years for the metaverse to be used on a daily basis, and I think the applicable industries are endless. In order to become a competitive company in the future, it seems necessary to be reborn as a future-oriented company by actively researching and developing metaverse and marketing ideas.”
Source: Local media (Gulf News, The National, Khaleej Times, Gulf Business), DAMAC Properties, YouTube, UAE Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital economy & Remote Work Applications Office, CIA Factbook, Naver Commons Dictionary and KOTRA Dubai Trade Center material synthesis