KISTEP held the 140th KISTEP Wednesday Forum "Metaverse, the New Virtual World" on November 10 (Wed) to understand the concept and industrial trends of metaverse, along with the acceleration of the contact-less society and discuss strategies to develop metaverse technology. The Wednesday forum was broadcast live online without external participants to respond to COVID-19, and can be viewed again through the KISTEP YouTube channel.

(Link) https://youtu.be/taU2BT-I7YA

▲ Sang-seon Kim, president of KISTEP, reveals the significance of the forum

Sang-seon Kim, president of KISTEP, said in his opening speech, "The proportion of physical and digital life is gradually changing, and we predict that the boundary between the real world and the virtual world will become ambiguous in the next 10 years,” and he added, "I hope this forum will serve as a place to gather wisdom on what strategic measures the government and the private sector take, and it will be a great reference for establishing policies on metaversees and adjusting the national R&D budget."

▲ Seung Hwan Lee, team leader at the Software Policy & Research Institute

Seung-hwan Lee, team leader at the Software Policy & Research Institute, who was in charge of presenting the main topic, introduced the concept of metaverse, major core element technologies, and various metaverse platforms, explaining how metaverse is leading the overall social, cultural economy.

The announcement was concluded with a policy suggestion that it is necessary to establish an institutional and policy response system along with the pace of development of metaverse.

The following panel discussion was hosted by Ryu Young-soo, head of KISTEP national R&D coordination division, with VIRNECT CEO Tae-jin Ha, KAIST Professor Sung-joon Park, and Ministry of Science and ICT Media Contents department PM Joon-woo Lee.

▲ Tae-jin Ha, VIRNECT CEO

Tae-jin Ha, VIRNECT CEO, pointed out the reality of metaverse, felt from the standpoint of companies, and the problem of content ownership, which limits the development of companies. He also suggested that the contract method should be changed to a purchase and subion method to solve the ownership problem.

▲ Sung-joon Park, KAIST professor

Sung-joon Park, professor at KAIST, argued that it is necessary to think about how to develop and utilize the current metaverse technologies, and that metaverse should create a new place that considers not only the virtual space itself but also everything that can be felt in the real world.

▲ Joon-woo Lee, Ministry of Science and ICT Media Contents department PM

Joon-woo Lee PM at Ministry of Science and ICT explained the opportunity factors resulting from the advancement of the metaverse field and pointed out that it is important to detect various problems expected accordingly.