Embark on a voyage of digital discovery with me, Steve Woodard, as we navigate the bustling crossroads of the Metaverse and Web3, guided by the pioneering insights of Dr. Jane Thomason. Imagine a world where virtual tourism and healthcare are intertwined with our daily lives, and immersive technologies are no longer confined to the realms of gaming. In this episode, we bring these visions into focus, discussing the gadgets that transport us there, from the high-end Oculus to the AR capabilities of your smartphone. Dr. Thomason illuminates how innovations like affordable AR glasses could open doors to inclusive tech landscapes, ensuring everyone has a ticket to the future.
Turn your attention Eastward, where Asia's tech scene thrives unshackled by legacy systems, leading an innovation charge in gaming and beyond. We explore how this dynamic region is harnessing blockchain technology, transcending its roots in cryptocurrency to revolutionize banking and supply chains. The voyage doesn't end there; we tackle the thorny bramble of consumer trust and regulatory frameworks, sharing insights on the Commonwealth's quest for a unified legal approach to digital assets. This episode is a mosaic of stories that intertwine to illustrate the complexities and triumphs of blockchain adoption around the globe.
Finally, we cast a spotlight on the World Metaverse Council and their pivotal role in forging the future of education through standards, ethics, and policy within the open metaverse. Our discussion travels through a landscape where data-driven training meets the demands of an ever-evolving economy and how we, along with Dr. Thomason and other visionaries, are planting the seeds for a global network that supports women in deep tech. As the journey concludes, I invite you to engage and amplify the conversation, ensuring that the ripples of today's discussions inspire the waves of tomorrow's innovations. Stay tuned for more episodes where we'll continue to chart the unexplored territories of technology.
About Dr Jane Thomson
Dr. Jane Thomason is a globally recognized author, thought leader-influencer and investor in the areas of Web3, Metaverse, HealthTech, and Tech for Sustainability. She is at the forefront of understanding and navigating the evolving landscape of emerging technologies.
She holds distinguished roles on the editorial boards of "The Journal of Metaverse" and "Frontiers in Blockchain," showcasing her commitment to advancing knowledge in these domains. As an Industry Associate at University College London's Centre for Blockchain, she actively contributes to the academic and research community.
She has authored “Blockchain for Global Social Change," "Applied Ethics in a Digital World," and "Advancements in the New World of Web 3: A Look Toward the Decentralized Future." Her insightful writings provide valuable insights into the transformative potential of blockchain, Web3, and related technologies.
She frequently consults with industry and government stakeholders, sharing her deep understanding of how emerging technologies will shape the future. Her ability to explain complex concepts in a clear and accessible manner makes her a sought-after advisor in various sectors.
Embark on a voyage of digital discovery with me, Steve Woodard, as we navigate the bustling crossroads of the Metaverse and Web3, guided by the pioneering insights of Dr. Jane Thomason. Imagine a world where virtual tourism and healthcare are intertwined with our daily lives, and immersive technologies are no longer confined to the realms of gaming. In this episode, we bring these visions into focus, discussing the gadgets that transport us there, from the high-end Oculus to the AR capabilities of your smartphone. Dr. Thomason illuminates how innovations like affordable AR glasses could open doors to inclusive tech landscapes, ensuring everyone has a ticket to the future.
Turn your attention Eastward, where Asia's tech scene thrives unshackled by legacy systems, leading an innovation charge in gaming and beyond. We explore how this dynamic region is harnessing blockchain technology, transcending its roots in cryptocurrency to revolutionize banking and supply chains. The voyage doesn't end there; we tackle the thorny bramble of consumer trust and regulatory frameworks, sharing insights on the Commonwealth's quest for a unified legal approach to digital assets. This episode is a mosaic of stories that intertwine to illustrate the complexities and triumphs of blockchain adoption around the globe.
Finally, we cast a spotlight on the World Metaverse Council and their pivotal role in forging the future of education through standards, ethics, and policy within the open metaverse. Our discussion travels through a landscape where data-driven training meets the demands of an ever-evolving economy and how we, along with Dr. Thomason and other visionaries, are planting the seeds for a global network that supports women in deep tech. As the journey concludes, I invite you to engage and amplify the conversation, ensuring that the ripples of today's discussions inspire the waves of tomorrow's innovations. Stay tuned for more episodes where we'll continue to chart the unexplored territories of technology.
About Dr Jane Thomson
Dr. Jane Thomason is a globally recognized author, thought leader-influencer and investor in the areas of Web3, Metaverse, HealthTech, and Tech for Sustainability. She is at the forefront of understanding and navigating the evolving landscape of emerging technologies.
She holds distinguished roles on the editorial boards of "The Journal of Metaverse" and "Frontiers in Blockchain," showcasing her commitment to advancing knowledge in these domains. As an Industry Associate at University College London's Centre for Blockchain, she actively contributes to the academic and research community.
She has authored “Blockchain for Global Social Change," "Applied Ethics in a Digital World," and "Advancements in the New World of Web 3: A Look Toward the Decentralized Future." Her insightful writings provide valuable insights into the transformative potential of blockchain, Web3, and related technologies.
She frequently consults with industry and government stakeholders, sharing her deep understanding of how emerging technologies will shape the future. Her ability to explain complex concepts in a clear and accessible manner makes her a sought-after advisor in various sectors.
Welcome to Tech Travels hosted by the seasoned tech enthusiast and industry expert, steve Woodard. With over 25 years of experience and a track record of collaborating with the brightest minds in technology, steve is your seasoned guide through the ever-evolving world of innovation. Join us as we embark on an insightful journey, exploring the past, present and future of tech under Steve's expert guidance.
Speaker 2:
Hey there, tech enthusiast, and welcome back to another episode of Tech Travels. Get ready to embark on an electrifying journey as we dive deep into the world of emerging technologies with none other than the remarkable Dr Jane Thomason. Dr Thomason isn't just a pioneer. She's a force to be reckoned with, leading with unparalleled expertise and vision, she's at the forefront of revolutionizing industries globally through the power of blockchain and emerging technologies. As chair of the board for Kasai Holdings, founder of the Web3 Institute and an active member of the World Metaverse Council, dr Thomason's influence knows no bounds. Her accolades speak volumes, from being recognized as one of the top 10 most influential thought leaders in blockchain to earning the prestigious title of Web3 leader of the year.
Speaker 2:
But Dr Thomason's impact extends far beyond mere recognition. With a PhD in philosophy from the University of Queensland and a track record of authoring groundbreaking books on blockchain, web3 and Metaverse, she's not just shaping the future, she's redefining it. So fasten your seatbelts and brace yourself for an exhilarating conversation that will challenge your perceptions and ignite your passion for the limitless possibilities of tomorrow. So let's welcome Dr Jane Thomason to the forefront of innovation on tech travels. Dr Thomason, welcome to Tech Travels. Could you introduce yourself to our audience. If you don't mind, just give them a little bit of background on yourself.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, hi everyone. It's great to be here with you. My name is Jane Thomason and I've been involved in the tech industry relatively recently, only since 2016. I was in healthcare before that, but in that time I've really become incredibly interested in how new technologies are going to impact our world in the future. So I spend my time researching, speaking, writing about the different technologies that are coming up and how we're going to use them and what are some of the risks about them.
Speaker 2:
So, dr Thomason, I would love for us to understand a little bit more about Web3 and the Metaverse and artificial intelligence, so can you help us kind of start this journey? Where should we begin?
Speaker 3:
Okay, so let me start on Metaverse, because I think that's easier for people to get their heads around. So Metaverse is an immersive, always on environment that you can go into maybe using headsets, but not necessarily using headsets and happy to talk about that if you want to, and you can do a whole lot of things in this immersive environment so you can meet friends, socialize, you can go to concerts. But some of the things that people don't realize is that you could also have other experiences, like tourism and travel experiences I'll speak about that in a moment but also get healthcare services, pharmacy services, receive education. So Metaverse is much bigger than simply the games that your kids play. So let me just start on the travel and tourism, because already people are starting to realize that creating virtual replicas of hard to reach tourist environments or monuments that really don't need to have 100,000 people a week marching across them is a way that people are going to be able to immerse themselves in that experience, have that experience. So that's great for people who can't go.
Speaker 3:
It's also great for perhaps, the elderly or people with disabilities who can't travel. They can have the travel experience. But for people like possibly you and me, steve, we might be thinking oh look, I'd really love to go to the Galapagos Islands, but I'm not sure. This way you can actually have a look, go inside, interact with avatars or virtual humans in that environment, talk about what the place is like, what the hotels are like, what the food is like, and then decide that you do or don't want to have that experience. So that's going to be a huge one and in terms of the tourism brands, they're going to be able to give people that experience, to be able to see it, to pick their rooms and to get a whole lot of information before they come. That's not possible at this time. But let me just stop there, because once I head on Web 3, it adds on a whole lot of other benefits.
Speaker 2:
I'm really eager to dive deeper into the concept of the Metaverse and its very unique experience. Currently, we're seeing an array of consumer products hitting the market things like Oculus and Apple Vision Pro and they are offering an immersive experience through wearable devices. But I think that this is the only gateway to the Metaverse. Or are there alternative ways for people to engage with it in their daily lives, perhaps without the need for specialized hardware?
Speaker 3:
Well, I think my own opinion and not everyone agrees with me is that those devices like the Oculus and the Apple Glasses and so forth and Magic Leap they're going to be for the wealthy.
Speaker 3:
I always like to think about technology as how it becomes accessible to everyone. So I actually believe that and people are creating these augmented reality immersive experiences using tablets or internet, and that's going to be an mobile phone and so that's going to be much more realistic for many people, because 60% of the world's population have mobile phones and the majority of people get their internet information from mobile phones anyway. So people are creating those kinds of experiences. But also I was excited a couple of weeks ago when I was in Finland met a young innovator who's developing augmented reality glasses that are much more like the glasses that we wear that can be assembled yourself for around $20. That means any student or anyone who doesn't want to spend a lot of money but wants to access the metaverse can get these glasses at some point in the future, assemble them and have them available for that experience. So I think we'll see lots of exciting developments to make it easier and more accessible for people.
Speaker 2:
That's truly remarkable. I mean, making technology accessible at an affordable price could really greatly expand its reach and adoption, and having it readily available for people to experiment with and explore its possibilities really could lead to some astounding advancements. And this seamlessly transitions me to our next topic, the relationship between Web3 and the metaverse. Are they intertwined? Can one exist without the other? Or is being part of Web3 a prerequisite for accessing the metaverse, or are there alternative pathways?
Speaker 3:
Either you can be in both and not the other.
Speaker 3:
So you can be in metaverse without being in Web3, and indeed, the big techs that are developing metaverse products, like Apple, google Meta and so forth they're not developing Web3 metaverses, but they're developing great immersive experiences that people might be keen on having.
Speaker 3:
And similarly, in Web3, you can use Web3 not in an immersive way, simply as a technology that helps you create communities and incentivize and exchange and so forth, but it doesn't have to be immersive.
Speaker 3:
So what I like to believe is that the future of the internet, or some people are calling it the spatial web, is the Web3 metaverse, where you're bringing together the affordances of Web3, which is really underpinned by blockchain, and the key feature of that that people need to get their heads around is that it's a decentralized database that allows people to exchange peer to peer, and a lot of people I speak to say well, I can already send money to my auntie. Why do I want to use Web3? And the answer to that is you will be sending money through an intermediary who will be taking some of your money and it won't get directly to your auntie in most cases, whereas with Web3, you can immediately transfer it to your auntie without an intermediary and at virtually no cost. And so it's that peer to peer transfer, not only of money but of all forms of value that make Web3 so interesting.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it is really truly remarkable, and I'm really eager to dive deeper into the profound impact around blockchain and on Web3. It has been a personal passion of mine for a long time, but before we delve in too deeply, I want to circle back briefly to the metaverse. One area that I think goes often unnoticed is its intersection with the automotive industry. I recall that you gave a keynote speech last year at the GITEC annual conference and on this topic, I think it would be very fascinating to explore the potential and the future landscape of automotive integration within the metaverse.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, well, that's a very exciting topic, to be honest with you. I was asked to put together a presentation on Web3 and the automotive industry and I found it one of the most fun things that I'd ever put together, because there's so much going on. So, if you start, many companies are already having virtual showrooms, for example, so you're able to go into a virtual showroom and have a look at the cars and so forth. But they're also using it so that you can actually, in a gamified way, test drive a car in the metaverse. So you can go into this game-like experience if you like and it's often hyper realistic and take a car for a drive in a very realistic way. So it's a way of getting consumers involved and giving them the experience of driving the car.
Speaker 3:
But some companies are also using it. For example, in Asia in particular, some of the car companies are using avatar salespeople because avatars are probably more usual and acceptable in Asia and particularly for the young. So instead of using a human salesperson, they're using kind of attractive, in a cool sense, avatars to be able to draw young Asians into having a look in the virtual showroom at the cars that are on sale. They're also using it as a way to get consumers involved in the design of new vehicles, so they're able to come into a virtual collaboration space, give comments on the shape of the car, the texture, the colours and all sorts of things like that. So instead of doing endless focus groups, which is what they would have done in the past, they're able to get people in to actually have direct input.
Speaker 3:
You know, looking at a digital twin of the new model of the car and digital twins are really important in many industries. So a digital twin is a virtual representation of a real object. So in this case, they can create a digital twin of a future prototype of a car and they can test it, they can tweak it, they can change the roof, the doors, make the engine hotter or colder or whatever it is you do with engines before it actually goes into production. So it's not only in the automotive industry. It will be so in many industries, including the aviation industry and including in the healthcare industry, doctors are using digital twins to prepare for highly complex organisations.
Speaker 3:
I was watching a video a week ago where incredibly complex surgery to separate Siamese twins had been practiced and practiced, and practiced using a digital twin based on the images of the way these two children were connected. So sorry, I veered away from the automotive industry, but it's super exciting. But also, if you think about things that people are experimenting with now, if you re in a self-driving car, what are you going to do? Well, you don't need to drive the car anymore, so therefore, the car can become an immersive space where you can do almost anything while you re on the way to wherever it is that you re going. So, in summary, there s lots of opportunities and lots of experimentation going on in the automotive industry.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, indeed it s fascinating. In your discussions with automotive leaders, what challenges do you typically hear that they have regarding the adoption of such technology? I m really curious to hear about the experiences and the hurdles they face in integrating these type of innovative solutions.
Speaker 3:
Look, I think it s very variable, because the ones that are actually trying to do it they tend to have whole innovation teams that are working on this they ve already made the decision that this is the way that they need to go. There are others that aren't ready to get there yet, so they re much harder to talk to, but I think the ones who ve realised that something in this immersive future is going to be important for their industry are really open to ideas and moving along. I mean, if you ask me what are some of the challenges and there are still challenges in terms of we talked about the access with the goggles latency and interoperability can be challenges and, in addition, user acceptability can be challenges. So I think that s going to vary industry by industry and age group by age group, because, if you think about the Gen Z and the Gen Alpha s coming up, they re totally comfortable with being digital, so they ll be totally happy to have these immersive experiences in many sectors that they re interested in participating in.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and it appears that automakers are gradually starting to embrace more of an agile approach, aiming for user experience tailored to the specific desires of their customers. However, I think that the challenge really lies in scaling this type of personalised approach. How do you really ensure that really widespread implementation meets the diverse needs of the consumer base?
Speaker 3:
Well, I was impressed, I have to say, when I was doing the research for this speech, about how many of the automotive are already embracing this and moving in terms of not only experimentation but actually using it, so I think it s actually one of the industries that s more advanced.
Speaker 2:
Do we observe this trend more predominantly amongst automakers in regions like Asia, where there's more of a focus on rapidly innovating and delivering vehicles according to customer demand, or is it more prevalent among US based car companies? Where do we witness the forefront of innovation in this regard?
Speaker 3:
Well, look, I'm not an expert on the automotive industry, so I don't want to sound like I am, but what I saw.
Speaker 3:
But I want to comment on Asia, because I think Asia is a very big and important topic in terms of who's going to embrace these kinds of technologies.
Speaker 3:
First, in automotive, what I saw was the luxury brands in particular, right across the spectrum, are all working at one level with it. So in terms of whether it's the West or the East, I'm not prepared to comment on that, but certainly a lot of activity there. But in terms of embracing technology, I mean we saw anyway during the pandemic in Asia, across a whole variety of industries, absolutely embracement of virtual technologies and real comfort with it. We see in gaming, which is one of the biggest industries in the world, is also one of the sort of leading industries that's taking men averse forward that Asia has the largest numbers of gamers and the fastest growth in gaming and the fastest growth in mobile based gaming. And so I think we're going to see continuing and incredible innovation in Asian countries, and we've already seen it in the more advanced ones, like China, japan, korea and so forth. But we've got to look at India and Indonesia and Vietnam, because they're all advancing a pace and they don't seem to be as stifled by legacy systems that some of our countries do.
Speaker 2:
It seems like there's a gradual curve of adoption, with some being trailblazers and others who are very slow to adopt. So, just transitioning on the topic of blockchain, which you mentioned earlier, I want to get to get to your experiences with it and how it's evolved significantly in the last few years, particularly the growing acceptance into mainstream environments. Now, initially it was associated with gaming. Blockchain has really witnessed the widespread adoption across many enterprises over the last few years and, from your perspective, how has this transformation influenced the way that we develop applications to really conduct business? How has it emerged as a significant disruptor in various industries that we see today?
Speaker 3:
I want to separate and this is important for the audience because when you speak about blockchain, most people think you're talking about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies or digital assets, and I want to set them to one side, because that's a different conversation, because what you're talking about is blockchain for industry and for social utility, and so people need to understand that there are multiple different kinds of tokens or digital assets and they're not all speculative cryptocurrencies. So, in terms of industries, well, obviously, you know, gaming is one with the Web3 gaming that I personally believe is going to move fast. But in terms of other industries, where we're seeing it in banking and finance, they're realizing, particularly in the back office functions, with things like settlements and remittances and all sorts of functions like that, that banks and financial services are realizing that the technology has got some value In terms of supply chains. This is a significant industrial use case because it takes friction out of supply chains, it creates transparency in supply chains and it's being used across a whole range of industries, you know, in terms of supply chains, and it's also being used in healthcare for secure data exchange, for example.
Speaker 3:
But coming back to your point about widespread adoption, I think there's two things to be said about that. The first one is from a consumer point of view. Widespread adoption will take place when it does something useful for the consumer. So if there's something that I want to achieve and I can do it better, faster, cheaper, easier with something that's built on a blockchain, I'm probably going to use that, and until that time comes, the consumer adoption is going to be slow. But the other thing that I believe is that in the future, blockchain will be the underpinning infrastructure for a lot of the technology that we use. We won't even know it's there, we won't talk about it, we won't be saying has it got a blockchain, we'll just be using it because it enables certain functions that are incredibly helpful to many industries.
Speaker 2:
How do we get to a point where we start to have more transparency and trust with blockchain?
Speaker 3:
Okay, that's a difficult question, because whether that's a question about, does blockchain provide transparency and trust? And the answer to that is yes, but is it? Do people believe that? And the answer to that is probably not everyone, and they're suspicious of it. And they're suspicious of it because of the amount of frauds and scams and similar things that have been perpetrated in the whole crypto digital assets arena. And so immediately I have this experience a lot I say something about blockchain and people go, oh, bitcoin, the dark web. I mean they don't know. But what they do know is it's bad and it's not to be trusted and it's used for nefarious activities, which is partially true. But so is the US dollar. It's not entirely true as a technology. It's been documented and there's as much evidence as you would like to see about its ability to bring trust and transparency into processes and exchanges of information and exchanges of value.
Speaker 2:
Right, exactly, but there is a certain significant amount of scrutiny, particularly in the US, regarding blockchain technology. There's definitely some skepticism from the governmental bodies around its implications. It's becoming increasingly evident how really blockchain it is revolutionizing things like financial services, no doubt about it. But the essence lies in its ability to facilitate the transactions among parties that may not inherently trust each other, and they leverage that by using this distributed ledger technology. But despite the misconceptions about blockchains being perceived negatively, it does have practical applications and we are seeing widespread adoption across various enterprises.
Speaker 3:
Look, there's more than 400 banks are either using or experimenting with it.
Speaker 3:
There is absolutely no doubt about it.
Speaker 3:
Work's just being done by a colleague of mine and it's going to be considered by the Commonwealth the British Commonwealth of 54 countries, to develop a common legal framework for digital assets for Commonwealth countries. I mean, this is real and it's serious, and I think the challenge and certainly in the US the regulators are a little bit schizophrenic about how they want to deal with it. But the other issue is it's not one thing, there's not one regulator. Whether it's a commodity or whether it's a security, it's going to be regulated in a different way, and this, of course, will apply in other highly regulated sectors like healthcare. They're going to have to have a look at it in the context of the regulations that exist in that industry. And so part of the schizophrenia, if you like, is some of the bad things that have happened on the financial side of blockchain, and I think part of it is that the regulators are just trying to catch up with what it is, what they should be regulating, how to regulate it and how not to stifle it, because it is an exciting innovation.
Speaker 2:
I mean, it appears that addressing regulations from a regulatory body for emerging technologies follows a three wave pattern. So initially there's a lag as legislative bodies like Congress grapple with understanding and adapting to the new paradigms, and this was really evident during the internet's inception, where regulators really were rooted in an outdated telecom type of mentality. And then you see, the second wave of that was around social media and that ushered in a new set of challenges. And so now we're now in the midst of the third wave, which is really characterized by the emergence of technologies like Metaverse, blockchain and AI. There needs to be a pressing need for transparency and trust around this regulatory framework. So the question really is my question is should govern governance be left to the government, or should the private industry take the reins? What are your thoughts on establishing a governing body to ensure ethical use of these technologies in people's everyday lives?
Speaker 3:
Look, I think that's a that's a massive question, and you know some of the elements that we have to think about because you know, presumably you're sitting in the US and thinking about the US government, but many of these technologies travel beyond the sovereign state, and so thinking about how to regulate cross-border ecosystems that operate across different borders is going to be an issue how to get people in different parts of the world to be able to agree.
Speaker 3:
I think there is no doubt that the system that's been in place for global governance since World War II is not fit to be able to regulate the internet, and we don't have any kind of alternative.
Speaker 3:
And yet we have a world where we have these big tech companies who have economies larger than most countries, and yet they're not in the formal governance of anything or been elected by anyone or anything else. I think we're in a bit of a conundrum at the moment between the old world and the new, and I'm not quite sure how some kind of body-entity collaboration is going to emerge that's going to enable the development of widely accepted policies and standards and deal with some of the ethical issues that we have with technology. There are smaller groups all around the world that are working on it and some individual governments and some grouping of governments like the EU is very active, for example are working on these matters, but there's not going to be one answer. I suspect that there's going to be kind of geographical groupings that all agree to kind of collaborate and have similar rules. But that still doesn't answer the questions about how we call the big techs to account.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you raise a crucial point about the complexities of global collaboration and regulation, and I think it's clear that navigating the intersection of technology, ethics and governance really will require an innovative approach and perhaps some sort of regional agreement to address the unique challenges that each area faces. Now, as for holding big tech companies accountable, look, I mean, it's a multifaceted issue and that really demands careful consideration and collective action. But if we look at how we navigate the global landscape, it really presents a set of unique challenges, especially when we consider the unprecedented level of connectivity that we experience. Every day we have individuals connecting across the globe, and that, basically, is basically predicting which governments will embrace or resist certain type of technologies as it becomes uncertain. So, as an active member of the World Metaverse Council, I'm really curious to learn more about the initiatives and the advocacy efforts undertaken by the council that promote the adoption and acceptance of the metaverse. So could you provide some insights into the council's role and how it contributes to positive change in this very dynamic space?
Speaker 3:
Well look, the World Metaverse Council basically started, as did a few other groups, in a giant vacuum where we realised that all of these technologies were developing incredibly fast and there wasn't anywhere to go to be able to talk about standards and policies and ethics and keeping an open metaverse and making sure that people don't come to harm, and so forth. So effectively, we formed around the idea of providing I like to call it a distributed think tank as much as anything, because in this world there's no one place. You can't go to Stanford and get all the information you need about the metaverse. It's not like that anymore. There's hundreds of scientists and companies all around the world at different levels, building all sorts of innovations around metaverse and AI and so forth. So you need to find a place where you can gather this kind of intellectual horsepower from all around the world to help understand what's going on and to share about what are the impacts of that.
Speaker 3:
So we have working groups on regulation, for example, healthcare standards, open metaverse, different groups like that that are really interested, people from all around the world who wanted to find a forum to be able to come and speak, to be able to develop ideas, to actually further develop what they were working on by finding collaborators from elsewhere in the world, and also to produce some thought pieces. For example, ethics is a big interest of mine around just what are the ethical concerns related to the metaverse, and we make contributions, for example, to the International Telecommunications Unit, who are trying to create global standards for the metaverse. So it's really a place where people can come. It's not led by government. It's an informal body of interested people from about 150 countries around the world who are all working on different aspects of this. So it's actually a wonderful community, but that's what it is. It's a distributed network of people who are working on this.
Speaker 2:
That's incredibly. That's very powerful. I mean, the insights into the collaborative efforts within the Metaverse Council really help shed light on this diverse perspective that's really driving innovation and technology. And again, I agree that the emphasis on open dialogue and ethical consideration really underscores that importance of global collaboration and shaping the future of the metaverse and I think that that approach really sets a promising type of precedent for addressing complex challenges and it really fosters responsible development in this digital landscape. It's very, very fascinating.
Speaker 3:
Well, the focus that I have for this year is around education using immersive technologies, because and I'm working with collaborators in Turkey and Bulgaria and the US on this because, effectively, I believe that we're moving into this rapidly changing skills-based economy, where people are going to have to be re-skilled quite regularly in order to be able to get jobs and keep up to date with what's going on. I don't believe that the traditional education system is going to be able to respond quickly enough and that we are going to be able to benefit from the immersive technologies and the ability to be able to use data to actually analyse whether people are developing these skills appropriately and so forth, to produce highly, highly focused, data-driven, curated, skills-based training courses using immersive reality. So that's the project that I'm really focusing on during this year.
Speaker 2:
Exactly, education and learning and the development are really critical components of our rapidly evolving technical landscape. The pace of innovation really far exceeds what traditional textbooks and educational institutions can keep up with, and many schools lack resources to really teach these type of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and like blockchain, and often individuals are going to find themselves on a journey of self-discovery and they're going to have to learn, they're going to have to experiment and they're going to have to immerse themselves in these technologies independently to stay relevant in today's digital age. It's really going to be fascinating to see.
Speaker 3:
Well, that's what I believe. The other one I didn't want to fail to mention was, again working with other collaborators around the world. We're developing a women in deep tech network, which in time, will become an accelerator and a fund, and we're really excited about finding the women all around the world who are working on scientific discovery around deep tech and bringing them together and helping get their discoveries out and funded and scaled. So that's the other thing that I'm working on.
Speaker 2:
Incredible. Dr Jane, I want to express my sincere gratitude for joining us today and sharing your invaluable insights on blockchain technology and the metaverse, and your experience has truly enriched our conversation. I hope we can continue the dialogue in the future and have you back on the podcast to talk more about the learning aspect and more about the women in technology, and thank you again for your time and expertise. And again I want to express my deepest gratitude for joining us today on Tech Travels.
Speaker 3:
Thank you, it's been such a pleasure, and thank you everyone for listening.
Speaker 2:
Thank you everyone for joining us on today's show. If you liked this episode, please take a moment to rate the show and be sure to subscribe to the channel. If you would like to be notified when new shows are posted and if you want to share this show with your friends, please share on your preferred social media platform. I would love your help to bring awareness to this channel Until next time as we venture into the future and into the realms of technology. Until then, stay curious, stay informed and happy travels.
Speaker 1:
Thanks so much for listening to the Tech Travels podcast with Steve Woodard. Please tune in next time and be sure to follow us and subscribe on the Apple podcast and Spotify platforms. We'll see you next time.
