Metaverse and Korean Government – Strategy and Budget and Education
Metaverse summary: Budget, education and startups supported by the Korean Government Web3 plan
The Korean Government announced their Digital New Deal 2.0 for Metaverse including startups, Education (Nurturing/Mentoring) and Commerce.
Transcript of Metaverse and Korean Government lecture
[00:00:01.090]
Hello, my name is Laurel Papworth and today I’d like to bring you some information about how the country Korea is rolling out a pan-government strategy, which means every department for the Metaverse. In January 20, 2022, Korea brought about a “Digital New Deal, 2.0” initiative for a whole range of government departments to be involved in the Metaverse. There’s a special fund for startups to work within the Metaverse that has around $33 million USD brought in from the private sector and the government is putting in around $60 million USD dollars from their own kitty. The focus for the fund is on small to medium sized businesses that have key technologies that will enable and empower and grow the Metaverse.
[00:01:02.580]
The Korean government has other initiatives from the Ministry of Science and ICT that they’ve put together to establish Metaverse platforms for daily life, which I think is an interesting initiative. They’re looking at industrial convergence and I will put up on the screen how much money in US dollars they’ve allocated to that. The Korean government is also opening up a Metaverse academy and initially they were looking at around 180 students and also to build some labs for additional students. They’re calling it nurturing. Basically it’s mentoring and advocacy in the Metaverse.
[00:01:47.090]
They’ve now come up with a Metaverse 1 million nurturing strategy, which is to bring 1 million Koreans into the Metaverse. And it’s a mix of training tech people, but also what they’re calling everyday people, to get them access and to get them onto the platforms that they’re developing for the Metaverse. I will go into that one in a moment. I’d like to also give you the list of the types of companies that they’re supporting. So we have specialised Metaverse facilities, which includes labs, I believe Metaverse regional hubs, something like Metaverse Melbourne, the hub we have here in Australia, in Melbourne or that’s coming core VR AR technologies so to support the companies that are developing in augmented reality and virtual reality, support for the development and commercialisation of core immersive content technologies, to realise hyper immersive Metaverse. I think what that means is to support startups and companies who are going to help with connected worlds that include reality. So we have the real world and then we have augmented layers on top of that and then we step through into virtual worlds and we have to make that seamless so that would make it hyper immersive and the technology is not quite there to support that yet. There’s also another part which I hadn’t thought of before, which is for hologram technology. So they’re investing in hologram technology as well.
[00:03:35.040]
The fourth area. The fourth area foster a trustworthy Metaverse environment so to improve laws and regulations around the Metaverse. And we saw in my video last week that the Japanese government is now changing tax laws around crypto in the Metaverse. So I’m imagining it’s going to be that kind of regulatory to develop Metaverse ethics principles there are ethics questions we haven’t even considered yet, such as providing a simulation to people that they think is real, but it’s actually fake news. Or they don’t know that they’re inside an augmented layer or connected worlds they think it’s reality dressed up as usual. I guess that would be awesome for practical jokes and also to establish a self regulation system. So I think Korea is ahead here. There’s been a lot of discussion in the Metaverse community about government regulations and self regulations and things like that. So how exactly that’s going to play out, we don’t know, but to bring those two together is going to be a bit of a seesaw, I think.
[00:04:44.460]
Coming back to the education part. So the Korean government has brought in something called the “Comprehensive Plan to Nurture Digital Talent” in the Metaverse. The plan is to foster 1 million digital talent people by the year 2026. It’s not just for the Metaverse, it’s for all digital areas. But there is a strong focus on the Metaverse as an understanding that in five years, with 1 million new talent coming into the industry, this is where they need to be; big focus on educating and mentoring digital talent for the Metaverse.
[00:05:26.170]
The other areas obviously also affect the Metaverse, such as AI. We absolutely know artificial intelligence is going to run the Metaverse. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. Also, they’re including big data and cybersecurity both of those are massive impact with the Metaverse and on the real world and on people, in the same way that cybersecurity and social media have had an impact. And big data collection through pixel retargeting and insight tags and things like that on websites has been such a big issue as well.
[00:06:02.000]
The high schools are part of this plan, so it’s not just 1 million adults, but the Meister high schools will be expanded to include vocational training in these areas as well. So they’re really prepping the generation that’s coming through. I guess if it’s a five year plan, and they need to take the five years of high school, if that’s the same in Korea as it is here, and put them through digital vocational training and mentoring they call it nurturing to ensure that the digital talent requirement is there in five years when it’s needed.
[00:06:35.470]
There is a certification called the Digital Leaders Club, which includes the Metaverse tools and techniques and fundamentals and they’re looking at the Korean government is doing, as I said before, a pan-government approach to the Metaverse. So it’s not just education, not just start ups, not just the Ministry of Science and ICT, but all the ministries across the board.
[00:06:59.200]
As well as the digital transformation of the education system, the Korean government is focusing on just normal people on the street, the mums and dads, the shop owners and things like that as well for the Metaverse and for the digital nurturing programme. And of course, this sort of nurturing and education programme can’t happen without the teachers so there’s a whole section of the Digital New Deal plan that includes educating teachers in the metaverse.
[00:07:32.150]
I am looking forward to seeing what Korea does. It looks like there’s a lot of political will behind making and affecting all these changes. I have a soft spot for Korea and I like Korean myths and legends, particularly those of world creations. So if we were to look at the Dangun northern region creation myth, I’m wondering what kind of creation myth we could tell ourselves as we create Metaverse virtual worlds within the space.
[00:08:10.970]
Of course, most of my knowledge comes from Korean TV programmes, but there you go. I’d love to know some more. If you have an interest in Korean creation myths or Metaverse creation myths, or how government and the metaverse policies are coming together, let me know. I would love to explore some of those things as well. I’m looking for other government strategies, so I’m starting to work on those and research them and put them together and we will see those in the next video or one of them, anyway. I’m not sure which one yet. Depends how much information comes together.
[00:08:51.440]
As always, if you would like to sponsor these, that would be awesome. That would help me out a lot otherwise, I’ll see you in the next video or in one of my courses, which will be coming up I think the next one is the end of the year, so see you then. Thank you. Bye.
[00:09:16.110]
In January 20. Blooper
Resources/links for Metaverse and Korean Government lecture
Main Korean Gov Ministry of Science and ICT (English) website: https://www.msit.go.kr/eng/index.do
Korean Gov Website/Press Releases: Mobile conf in Barcelona & Metaverse https://www.msit.go.kr/eng/bbs/view.do?sCode=eng&mId=4&mPid=2&pageIndex=&bbsSeqNo=42&nttSeqNo=650
Support Projects – Gov Korea Metaverse News Release https://www.msit.go.kr/eng/bbs/view.do?sCode=eng&mId=4&mPid=2&pageIndex=&bbsSeqNo=42&nttSeqNo=657
Funding innovation in the Metaverse: Korean Government https://www.msit.go.kr/eng/bbs/view.do;jsessionid=kTiB2nmHFmqC57grZUVOEiK53swsugvDiuhR1F4J.AP_msit_1?sCode=eng&mPid=2&mId=4&bbsSeqNo=42&nttSeqNo=642
Nurture 1 million Digital (Metaverse) talent Plan – Government of Korea website
https://www.msit.go.kr/eng/bbs/view.do?sCode=eng&mId=4&mPid=2&pageIndex=&bbsSeqNo=42&nttSeqNo=725&searchOpt=ALL&searchTxt=
CNBC coverage https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/30/south-koreas-investment-in-the-metaverse-could-provide-a-blueprint.html
South Korea to create a national metaverse ecosystem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVNKUK5H5QY
Coin Telegraph https://cointelegraph.com/news/south-korea-to-invest-187m-in-national-metaverse
Japanese Government and the Metaverse NFTs etc https://laurelpapworth.com/metaverse-local-government-japan/