Can Northeast India benefit from Metaverse through virtual traveling?

The idea of Metaverse is presently fascinating, especially between youngsters and tech savvies. Metaverse has recently gained popularity and it seems that some pioneers of technology are claiming it to be the future. Since the term is new and not everyone is educated about the same, it is important for us to know what Metaverse is, what are the possibilities and how far it can go to dominate the future of Artificial Reality (AR).

Sarfaraz Hassan, who is a tech entrepreneur, futurist and who is presently CTO (Chief Technical Official) at Encamp Adventure got in words with Business-Northeast to explain Metaverse and the opportunities it offers.

What is Metaverse?

Sarfaraz Hassan: Metaverse is a philosophical and technical concept. The word 'Metaverse' was first mentioned in a book named Snow Crash. People came to know the term Metaverse recently because Mark Zuckerberg has talked about it, renaming his company Metaverse; but the concept is 30 years old. The first idea of Metaverse was seen in a game called Second Life in 2003.

Metaverse is the future of the Internet. It is basically the convergence of real life with virtual life with the help of Virtual Reality (VR), Artificial Reality (AR), and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Initially, the internet was invented only for tech space but eventually, it evolved. For example, previously we could only write on some social media platforms but now we can share pictures, do live sessions, and more. Ten years down the line, I feel things will be different, I don't see people using mobile phones much. They will mostly invest in smart watches or smart glasses. Rayban, Apple, and NReal have already come up with smart glasses.

What are the usages of Metaverse in the present world?

Sarfaraz Hassan: I don't know how many Indian companies are doing it but companies from abroad are presently using it for education, training purposes, and also in the entertainment industry. What's stopping us from getting into this is there are some technical issues. The problem is that there is no specific app to make it user-friendly.

Recently ‘Boat’, which is a well-known Indian audio and wearable brand did a virtual concert with Kpop Star India Priyanka Mazumdar and Flipkart has also launched 'Flipverse' where you can do virtual shopping. Currently, Flipverse is working with Puma, Noise, Nivea, Lavie, and a couple of other brands. Amazon also has an Augmented Reality (AR) solution where you can see whether appliances or furnitures which you desire to buy could fit in your space and how the overall area will look; all in the virtual space of Metaverse.

How can Metaverse help improve NE India?

Sarfaraz Hassan: Metaverse and internet are not region specific, it is a very generic and broad term that works for the entire world. But if you ask me specifically about the Northeast, I would say tourism has the biggest opportunity to benefit from Metaverse. There are so many off-beat places that people want to visit but are not sure if it is worth the effort. Here metaverse can come to the rescue by introducing the place in virtual space, whereby tourists can get to check in VR before investing the time and money to experience the place in reality. So if you like your virtual traveling experience you can opt for the real travel deal to the Northeast.

I will also suggest that the youngsters of NE should be informed and educated more about Metaverse and the benefits which we can get from it.

How much does it cost to develop Metaverse?

Sarfaraz Hassan: There is no fixed figure to develop the metaverse. It depends on the application and how big or small it is. I have built my own 3D model and it cost me around USD10 which is around Rs.700. But obviously if I have to develop the same thing for big companies, say a travel company, the cost may go up to Rs.20 lakhs because I have to send people to shoot a 360 video, employ video editors who know 360 editings. Then I have to hire 3D modelers for a certain period of time since it takes time to develop the metaverse version.

But if you want to build simple models, those could be almost free and if you know the coding and you don't hire anyone for that specific work you can do it for really cheap. I have made one VR game that took me 50 hours to make. But to do that in 50 hours, I had to learn coding for 1 year. I made it for free. Doing small experiments and just getting into the metaverse is also free.

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