Social Dimensions of the Metaverse for Innovators
This course explores innovation, strategy, technological progress and impact in the real world of virtual worlds in the emerging “metaverse”. This includes virtual economies, multiple metaverse environments, virtual identities (avatars), virtual property & land, virtual goods (in-world items and NFTs), social standards and issues, AI avatars and blockchain/web3. There is a particular focus on entrepreneurship, content creators and other types of innovations related to the metaverse.
The focus is not so much on the technologies, but how to navigate between technological innovation and business model innovation, how innovation is funded, and how existing large players in various markets adopt to an emerging new market. Within this context, we will also be exploring how interactions between avatars change how we work and socialize, and how living, working, and socializing within the metaverse can both bring us closer together as well as have us drift further apart. This will also include the role of sociotechnical imaginaries, particularly around science fiction, and the influence they have on entrepreneurs. We will also explore questions of decentralized vs centralized metaverses and the efforts of various players (Facebook/Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia) intersect with the gaming technology companies (Epic/Fortnite, Roblox, Unity) and how these intersect with a new ecosystem of distributed metaverse startups. The students will have a final project which will be their “innovation project” either about or in the metaverse.