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Should charities care about the Metaverse?
14 Apr 2022by Helen Olszowska
We explore the Metaverse and what charities can do now to prepare for its arrival.
In case you missed it, Facebook rebranded to Meta in 2021. At the time, many speculated that it was just a PR stunt to deflect attention from negative coverage about the platforms in its group.
But was the real reason for the re-brand to adapt for the Metaverse? Facebookverse doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.
The Metaverse isn’t just a Facebook thing, it’s a concept being explored by a number of major tech companies, including Microsoft and China’s Tencent.
What is the metaverse?
Helpfully, we don’t actually know yet. It’s a bit like the days of Arpanet – when the military knew they could create a network of interconnected computers that could access and share the same information. It had huge potential, but no one could truly imagine the reality of the Internet.
What we do know is that in basic terms, the Metaverse is the Internet, but experienced with a greater richness and depth thanks to technological advances. A bit like going for your usual run but with new kit, new trainers, a new smartwatch, and a new app to guide the experience.
None of the technologies that companies are developing as part of their Metaverse divisions are entirely new, but they are advancing quickly and becoming interconnected. Imagine having one avatar that could move through different virtual spaces on the internet, for example.
What will the Metaverse look like?
Apparently, it’ll be a bit like living inside Roblox! The platform, a collection of games created by the players, is cited as an example of a metaversal approach to virtual world creation.
Meta and Microsoft have both put out demos to begin to explain their vision of the Metaverse. Meta imagines virtual homes and offices where we can interact with friends, family, and colleagues as well as jump into apps to play games or create virtual events.
Microsoft demo their new ‘Mesh’ integration for Teams. Mesh creates a virtual office space where team members appear as avatars and are able to access Teams functions as an avatar and converse with colleagues in real-time (and without legs, interestingly).
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What tech is involved?
Several tech innovations come together to power the Metaverse including, blockchain and crypto-currencies, augmented and virtual reality, AI, 3D reconstruction and the Internet of Things.
Together, these technologies form a virtual world that we can dip in and out of. The Metaverse is accessed using virtual reality headsets and 3D reconstruction helps to create hyper-realistic virtual spaces, or even reconstruct real spaces in the virtual world.
Once inside the Metaverse, blockchain and cryptocurrencies allow avatars to trade in the virtual world and buy digital items or NFTs. AI supports super-fast processing and can manage characters in the Metaverse that aren’t controlled by a human in a VR headset.
While there’s lots of cash being pumped into the development of the Metaverse, there’s still a way to go before it becomes part of our daily lives. For a start, lots of people find VR headsets uncomfortable to wear for long periods and can experience VR-sickness (a bit like motion sickness).
What can charities do now?
There won’t be a big switch on. The Metaverse is already here and it’s likely that our work and personal lives will seep into it gradually as it develops and becomes accessible.
If we pause to think about Generation Alpha, many of whom have done far more learning and socialising online than any generation before them, the Metaverse seems a more immediate possibility.
There are a few areas that charities could begin to think about and test in readiness for the metaverse:
Virtual productivity
If charities are serious about remote working to attract and retain the best talent and pandemic-proof productivity, more thought is needed around how teams can work together when they are physically apart.
Virtual service delivery
What would an ideal virtual space for research, service delivery, or advocacy look like? Charities have already worked hard to digitise their support in the last couple of years, the next step is to think about what that support would look like in a virtual world.
Fundraising
Researching and developing a vision for fundraising in the Metaverse that includes virtual events, NFTs or other forms of digital commerce will help to identify pilot projects for existing virtual worlds like Fortnite or Roblox.
Metaverse EDI
The development of the Metaverse is happening now. Charities have a role to play in holding the tech companies creating it to account. Without expert advice and diverse development teams, discriminatory elements could easily become baked into the Metaverse and exclude some of the people that the charity sector exists to serve.
Helen Olszowska
Helen Olszowska
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