If you can buy land and have meetings in the Metaverse, you can also build offices and, why not, a ministry. It was a short step from thinking about it to “building it”; for the UAE, it is already a reality.
Metaverse fever has now infected every area of human knowledge, there is no real thing that cannot be translocated to this new world, and the more it spreads, the more innovative, imaginative, and, as in this case, functional ideas are forming here and there.
The UAE goes deeper and deeper into the Metaverse, this time with a ministry
At the threshold of the saturation of the social market, the intent to create something more tangible than a blog on which to meet and exchange views or share interests has become almost a requirement, and so the minds of the most capable programmers from around the world have set out to create a multifaceted and possible parallel reality that is usable in a variety of ways. Through viewers, for example, Google’s Oculus (already in its second generation), but also there is a variety of them where it is possible to experience augmented reality or enter a completely virtual world.
Granted that the two realities can coexist (augmented reality and virtual world), there are substantial differences once the visor is put on.
In the case of augmented reality, the user can experience a fusion of reality and augmented reality; for example, while walking through the center of a city where in reality, we should find a store rather than a vacant office, we could find a virtual store built in the Metaverse that however allows you to buy physical items that courier will deliver to the desired address.
On the other hand, as far as the classical Metaverse is concerned, an entire parallel world is within our reach, a world where one can do anything, attend a concert, participate in an auction, go shopping or have meetings.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has thought of going big. While the rest of the world is studying and trying to figure out how to make the most of this new world, they have built the virtual headquarters of their ministry of economy in the Metaverse.
After purchasing several building plots in the Metaverse, the UAE began the construction of its own Ministry of Economy.
The idea was to empathize with the people and provide better service to the community; for example, now it will be enough to virtually go to the above location to sign any document without traveling miles and thus reducing bureaucratic timelines.
Minister of Economy Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri, during the Dubai Metaverse Assembly, explained that the ministry currently has two offices in the UAE, one in Abu Dhabi and the other in Dubai, to which, now, this one has been added in the Metaverse.
The Metaverse potential
The 20,000 daily attendees at the Dubai Metaverse Assembly participated in a live tour of the virtual headquarters of the Ministry of Economy and noted how anyone in the world had the opportunity.
Greeting visitors at the concierge is Khalifa Al Jaziri, an avatar working for the ministry endowed with intelligence of his own thanks to A.I.; Jaziri, explains:
“So, anyone in the world who has a transaction with the ministry no longer has to come to the UAE to sign an agreement.”
The headquarters will consist of a building of many, each dedicated to different purposes.
Visitors can take a ticket, which must be obtained from a “customer happiness center employee” who will allow them to join the Metaverse and interact with the visitor.
The ministry will also consist of an auditorium that encourages virtual conferences and other events, as well as other meeting rooms that will allow users to share a screen.
As per its July 18 statement of intent, the Dubai government aims to create 40,000 virtual jobs by 2030 and support the state’s vision of quintupling the number of blockchain companies from the current number.
This blind launch into the Metaverse sets the UAE as the new standard to achieve in terms of modernity, employment, and citizen service with the hope that it will set an example and inspire other states to emulate it.
The idea apparently is not new, and speaking of emulation, although, to be fair, the UAE is the first state to build the headquarters of a real ministry in the virtual world, such an idea also sprang from a simultaneously noble and popular will in Bulgaria.
The country’s sustainable development ministry, guilty of sitting on its hands too much on the climate crisis, has been bypassed in intent by Wunderman Thompson Sofia and the MOVE.BG Foundation unveiled the first ministry built with the Spatial.IO program.
The “Climate Transition Ministry,” this is the name given to the virtual ministry, aims to lobby the government so that it will work on climate discourse while also involving all other ministries on climate and sustainable development.
The Middle East and Eastern Europe are in pole position on the issue of positioning in the Metaverse. Still, while other countries study the topic and try to figure out how to take advantage of the opportunity, these countries are taking concrete steps toward the future.
Ivan Totev and Dimitar S. Stefanov, creative directors of Wunderman Thompson Sofia, explained in the Lbbonline blog that:
“When planning the campaign, we realized that all ministries in Bulgaria have something in common: a physical place, a building with an address. So, to demonstrate the need for this new ministry, we created the first unaddressed ministry and, in doing so, we created the first ministry in the Metaverse, to ignite the conversation and hopefully make this ministry a reality in Bulgaria.”
