Mobile World Congress 2022: Metaverse Mindfulness – Trust and Sustainability

As the metaverse concept becomes a reality, panelists at Mobile World Congress said developers need to be considerate ahead of deployments.

In a panel on what’s next in tech, ZTE principal scientist Jiashun Tu said that the metaverse is “on the way” and that it’s not solely for gaming or social interactions but for “all human beings.”

Rika Nakazawa, VP, NTT New Ventures & Innovation at NTT, told the audience to keep sustainability in mind when talking about the metaverse.

Nakazawa talked about how she walked on the show floor and found sustainability appearing more than in previous instances.

She suggested sustainability is competing with digital transformation and told the audience to keep asking why when it comes to considering developing and adopting new technologies.

Carolina Aguilar, CEO and founder of Inbrain Neuroelectronics, also urged the need to design for good.

Aguilar admitted to being an early adopter of Second Life, an online platform where users interact that is considered the first iteration of modern metaverse ideas. She said it worked “quite well but maybe [it] wasn’t the right time. Now, there is more traffic.”

But while her suggestion that the pandemic accelerated the desire for metaverse ideas, humans first have to “trust ourselves” before realizing them fully, she said.

PIABO CEO Tilo Bonow agreed, urging the audience to “put people first.”

Bonow stressed that brands looking to move into the metaverse to realize it’s not taking the offline online and that with new tech and platforms, trust becomes more important.

This article first appeared in IoT World Today’s sister publication AI Business.