On January 31, the government of Barbados and the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU) presented a webinar titled, Traversing the Metaverse: A Caribbean Perspective.
The Barbados government previously announced in November, last year, that it would be establishing a virtual embassy, signing an agreement with virtual world builder Decentraland.
Barbados is also exploring strategic partnerships to create sovereign virtual real estate with other virtual world builders, including Somnium Space and Superworld.
Rodney Taylor, secretary general of the CTU introduced the first panel which discussed the current state of virtual play, noting the importance of leadership and adoption by Caribbean governments in rapidly emerging technologies.
"Government policy is critical," Taylor said, "but it is not the only ingredient.
"There must also be a corresponding demand by citizens and significant private sector capacity to innovate and provide technological solutions in the local economy.
"The one thing we must not do in the region is to relinquish all technological innovation to the so-called developed countries and be consumers of products residing in a distant cloud."
The panel's host was Gabriel Abed, Barbados' Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, a board member of Ansa Bank and chairman of its digital subcommittee.
According to Abed, the metaverse that's coming won't be a pay to play space. Anyone with time, skills and a device to connect should be able to participate.
[caption id="attachment_938955" align="alignnone" width="800"] Gabriel Abed, Barbados' Ambassador to the UAE, a board member of Ansa Bank and chairman of its digital subcommittee. -[/caption]
"There isn't a need for investment," Abed said, urging restraint in spending on the metaverse, "but I would advise that you not do that until you have figured your way around. I would start the learning campaign first."
The discussion he led with Hrish Lotlikan, founder and CEO of Superworld and Borget Sebastien, COO, Sandbox Metaverse, sought to do exactly that.
The approaches taken by Superworld and Sandbox to virtual reality differ in interesting ways.
Sandbox is building a virtual world with avatars, the same principle that is used in modern massive multiplayer role player games (MMORPG), but with its own blockchain-secured, token-based currency.
Superworld is leaning in on augmented reality (AR) and VR to create a world that's layered on top of the metaworld that we live in.
"The metaverse is a combination of your life online (and) offline," Lotlikan said.
"It encompasses virtual worlds and platforms. Essentially it is a persistent interface that enables you to do anything that you love and enhances life, your work, your play, literally every aspect of your life.
"Superworld is a virtual world mapped on top of the real world. Everything in Superworld is around us."
Superworld sells 100m square plots of virtual real estate for 0.1 of an Ethereum token (roughly US$300) and it isn't some remote concept.
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