Saudi Arabia and the UAE are taking steps to adopt Metaverse in the GCC region to bring their economies in step with the advances in digital technology.
Dubai Metaverse Strategy aims to increase the contribution of the advanced digital technology in the emirate’s economy to $4 billion by 2030. And Saudi Arabia’s NEOM city, a $500 billion futuristic mega city, will bring together the physical and digital worlds and become “the first metaverse that actually is a metaverse,” in the words of Joseph Bradley, chief executive of the NEOM Tech & Digital Company.
A recent report published by the “City Bank” mentioned that the “Metaverse Economy” in the world may reach between US$ 8 trillion and US$ 13 trillion by 2030.
Metaverse will create new job opportunities starting with AR and VR Software Engineers, 3D Game Designers, Hardware Engineers, Metaverse Marketing specialists, Ad-Blocking Experts, and many more.
MILLION CEO Julien Hawari stressed the need for assessing the role and impact of Metaverse and Blockchain in the GCC region.
“Decentralization is at the core of the blockchain, whereas centralization is at the core of government,” Hawari said.
New regulations needed
During the last year many major companies have relocated to Dubai due to the UAE’s fast recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and the government’s Blockchain supporting regulations.
Hawari, who is also a co-founder of the MILLION NFT Platform, said that despite being based in the Middle East, management of many companies is found elsewhere, with some even living and working in the UAE.
In Hawari’s opinion, GCC countries still need to develop more laws since the use of Metaverse and Blockchain will expand in only some regions, something that “undermines the idea of a single, cohesive region in this sector.”
Metaverse in Social Media
“The full impact on society and employment from the metaverse is too early to assess,” says Hawari. “Businesses and brands are still experimenting and trying to develop sustainable business models”.
Talking about the MILLION platform, Hawari said “the key is digitizing our talent pool and giving it an autonomous life on the Metaverse.”
MILLION, he highlighted, is working to bring the social media mobile experience to the Metaverse. “We believe that individuals like brands will have a following that would want to immerse themselves in the values of this community.”
Franck Mandon, MILLION COO, echoed Hawari. He said the platform wants “to offer the benefits of blockchain technologies without a befuddling user experience.”
The founders, Mandon says, “have made the onboarding as easy as possible for everyone, regardless of their Web 3.0 experience, while creating a very intuitive user interface legacy social media, powered with Web3’s top distributed ledger technology.”