Quick take:
- Indonesian city Makassar has become the country’s first city to join the metaverse.
- The government is creating a Makaverse based on the South East Asian country’s technological city.
- Makassar has collaborated with WIR Group, a leading augmented reality-based technology company to create Makaverse City.
Makassar has become Indonesia’s first city to venture into the metaverse. The government of the technology-rich city has collaborated with WIR Group, a leading augmented reality-based technology company to create Makaverse City.
Commenting on the implications of Web3, executive chairman of WIR Group, Daniel Surya said it offers a great opportunity that cannot just be let pass, adding that the most important aspect of the virtual world is whether people are willing to embrace it.
“Because the potential for the application of Metaverse is not only in Makassar, so people inevitably have to be prepared if in the future this Metaverse is implemented in other cities or in other countries,” he said.
Surya thinks that although it is a little too early to try to estimate the level of investment required to create Makassar Makaverse City, it is clear that the benefits will extend far beyond the city.
He said that the government will however need to come up with a plan to educate the population about the applications of the metaverse in order to realise the full benefits of leaping into the immersive world.
“Education is the key not only in Makassar, not only in Indonesia but in all global markets for every city to enter the Metaverse,” he explained, adding that education will position the next generation in a better place to embrace the metaverse and capitalise on opportunities that it creates.
“If that is not done, it will be very difficult to build a Metaverse ecosystem because the Metaverse ecosystem is not only online but also offline,” he said, adding that for the city to build a reliable metaverse ecosystem, it needs to have the right infrastructure in place, including access to data, like Makassar, which is one of the most developed cities in the country.
Although Makassar will be Indonesia’s first metaverse city, it won’t be the first major government project focusing on the 3D virtual world. Earlier this year, Turkey’s Ankara followed San Fransico, Helsinki and Bali becoming part of a test program conducted by Open AR Cloud.
South Korea also revealed a grand plan that will make it one of the leading countries in the metaverse market.
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