EGİAD Moved to Metaverse

Business leaders, who have taken steps to adapt to new working models since the pandemic, are now preparing for the metaverse. 51 percent of employees think employers are adopting new technologies and are ready for new technological realities. Metaverse, short for “meta-universe”, draws attention as a digital world where the real and virtual merge in a science fiction vision and allow people to move between different devices and communicate in a virtual environment. In practical terms, augmented and virtual reality refers to products and services. Term; It denotes a cyberspace parallel to physical reality, where the human community can interact in the form of avatars. While metaverse meetings are taking place one after another in Turkey and in the world EGİAD also broke new ground by announcing its first meeting and virtual exhibition regarding this virtual world. Seminar on “There Is No Place Like The Metaverse” with the participation of Trend and Strategic Inspiration Specialist, Bigumigu Co-Founder Yalçın Pembecioğlu EGİAD It took place at the Social and Cultural Activities Center. After the meeting EGİAD It has made the transition to the virtual universe by opening the metaverse virtual exhibition, which includes information and portraits of past presidents, and also conveys projects.

New news about Metaverse continues to come every day. The business world started to wink at the metaverse, which brings together virtual and augmented reality. Research indicates that 44 percent of employees want to switch to the metaverse, which will increase productivity and gain new benefits. While the business world continues to evolve with digitalization, the work carried out since 2020 on the concept of metaverse has also accelerated the virtual transformation. Metaverse, meaning "virtual universe" EGİADIt is preparing to do business among the leading companies of the business world, including the Aegean Young Businessmen Association of Turkey. Trend and Strategic Inspiration Specialist, Bigumigu Co-Founder Yalçın Pembecioğlu made a speech at the opening of the seminar. EGİAD Alp Avni Yelkenbiçer, Chairman of the Board of Directors, stated that many sectors from real estate to textile, from technology to tourism have moved to the metaverse and pointed out that this change is a revolution. Yelkenbiçer said, “Especially with the change of Facebook's corporate name to Meta, the ongoing process completely dominated the agenda. Following Facebook, many technology companies actually shared with the public that such platforms already exist or are in preparation. Just as we all have an identity in social media and a corporate extension of our companies today, soon we will all have an avatar in this virtual world. Our products, services, and even government agencies will have to exist in this environment. Facebook aspires to establish and manage this new world as well, so it changes its name to “META”; but we already know that it will not be the only platform option to rule this new world. We have to follow and include new developments in the long-term plans of all our works. To be the first in new technologies, to be in the pioneer group, to be in the majority or to be behind and completely out of it? Which of these will we choose to be in?" said.

Stating that the virtual universe, which was 2020 billion dollars in 46, will reach 2024 billion dollars by 800, Yelkenbiçer said, “While some estimates indicate that the metaverse will reach 3 trillion dollars at the end of 1 years, with the increase in the dominance of the virtual universe in the business world, it will reach 5 billion dollars in the next 10 years. It is noted that thousands of jobs will be created. It is predicted that the metaverse, which is thought to be an immersive extension of the physical world, combining virtual and augmented reality, will open more applicable and interactive experience areas for businesses. 44 percent of the employees say that they are ready for the virtual universe already.

Emphasizing that Metaverse will be the heir of mobile internet, Yelkenbiçer said, “However, this transition will take place "first slowly, then suddenly". As different products, services and capabilities integrate and come together, the metaverse will gradually be built over time and the concept of the metaverse will become concrete. Increasing innovations focused on virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies; The proliferation of gaming platforms as social and cultural destinations and the races of companies to claim the metaverse from their own perspectives are some indications that the Metaverse has begun to emerge. There is a high interest in Metaverse from many different fields, from the world of investment to real estate and law. It is expected that Metaverse will work with its own currency, and this currency will be convertible to physical money. Just like in the NFT example, just like how art becomes digitalized or becomes compatible with the metaverse, customer experience, consumption habits, target audiences and their primary needs in this virtual world are the issues that should be on our agenda now. We will witness together how the traditional industries will evolve in the life of the Metaverse.”

Yalçın Pembecioğlu, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Bigumigu, a platform focused on inspiring creativity EGİADHe spoke at the event. Bringing new perspectives to the concept of Metaverse in his presentation, Pembecioğlu talked about the development of platforms that can be considered as Metaverse today. Talking about examples of why not only blockchain-focused universes such as Decentraland or The Sandbox, but also some of the game platforms can already be considered metaverses, Pembecioğlu concluded his speech by saying that the concept of metaverse has yet to enter our lives as described now.