- Helping industry embrace new technologies but in a fun, experiential way
- Opportunities for those who are bold & not afraid to experiment, or perform
Lack of knowledge is indeed bliss. Easily had known just how much work it would take to program a fully virtual social networking session, I may not have embarked on the inaugural Digerati50 Omniverse Social networking that happened last week on Fri, 23 rd Sept!
Me and the team knew it had been going to be challenging and we were not put off. There was no anxiety about failure. The reason? We knew our guests, DNA’s Digerati50 and 10 corporate C-level leaders, all tech leaders and mainly entrepreneurs, would prefer the effort of carrying out a new experience making use of technology, in this case virtual reality, that most of them had not experienced before, plus would not skewer me personally if things proceeded to go wrong on the day.
Well, items did not go unbelievably wrong, nor do they go as easily as the team had envisioned, and my sorry to those who a new less than ideal encounter and two visitors who could not join the world at all. However for the most part, visitors were happy with their particular experience and had enjoyable.
Jamaludin Ibrahim, chairman of listed company QSR Bhd and a well known leader in Malaysia’s Digital Economy, which gave the opening remarks, had planned to remain for 30 minutes just before rushing off another engagement, but ended up staying an hour together to be reminded in order to leave!
And then there was Nicole Tan, Country Director, Malaysia designed for Meta, who was the majority of effusive in the girl feedback and adopted up with an email on a Saturday where she expressed her understanding to DNA to get “pushing the industry forward in helping us accept new technologies but also do it in a fun, experiential way. ”
Understanding a lot from the girl experience and adoring the passion of the team in assembling the event, Nicole added, “I was surprised by the level of care and detail which includes creating the world (Long live the monster and here’s in order to flying sharks), developing bespoke Avatars for everyone and ensuring i was all familiar with the particular VR Chat (thank goodness for the Quickly pull Sessions) before the actual event and ensuring we could connect plus taking care of us even in the session. ”
Also those who had problems with their avatars heading AWOL (put it down to system mistakes as the world we built hit its maximum 40 person capacity) had an general good experience.
“I was truly glad to get been a part of the Digerati50 C-level social networking event that was held in the Metaverse. I believe it was history-making! To have been able to interact socially and network using the other participants was fantastic. Despite the Avatar going AWOL, it was still a great experience. Being able to discover and listen to the various speakers despite the history chatter from the other people standing nearby had been just like attending a true physical networking event. Am looking forward to the next one. Congratulations to DNA’s Karamjit and his team, ” said Edward Stanislaus, Managing Director, ShareInvestor Malaysia.
As I pointed out in my opening remarks at the event, one key motivator for me was to give our own teach leaders their own first experience of virtuelle wirklichkeit in the hopes how the experience will inspire them to experiment plus adopt VR into their own businesses to create a competitive edge.
After all, BCG Group, in a recent analysis , highlighted various ways in which companies can move to take a guide in terms of consumer experiences and operational enhancements and in how they can start preparing themselves to be ready as well.
I do think there are opportunities if you are bold and not afraid to experiment, or even play, as Doctor Pradeep Nair, Taylor’s University Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Chief Academic Officer puts it . Malaysia’s digital economy will be the better for it.
Enriched with the amount of learnings from our experience in organising the particular inaugural event, DNA is going to start getting yourself ready for the 2 nd Digerati50 Omniverse Networking. While I am thankful towards the four Multimedia University VR majors who also helped DNA develop one of the two world’s we used, We are excited that APU university has come within as the Talent Companion to the Digerati50 Omniverse and their college students will help DNA develop the next virtual setting for our April 2023 networking.
I am looking forward to that. Eager to see how far better the experience will be along with improvements to the platform we will use as well as the software to create the particular avatars.
I am also pleased to announce that DNA is sharing our experience and lessons learnt from arranging the inaugural occasion. The post-mortem review is shared in charge of download and interested parties can get in touch with me as well for further sharing of lessons learnt.
I do hope a lot more organisations will be keen to organise fully immersive meets plus our businesses start to ‘play’ in this area. Let Malaysia become the Heartbeat of Digital Asean when it comes to virtuelle wirklichkeit.
I must also thank our own partners, Fusionex Global who came in early, excited about being component of something that had not been done in Malaysia before. They were our AI Companion. We also experienced TIME dotCom as Connectivity Partner, MDEC as Digital Economic climate Partner, Cradle Fund’s MyStartUP as Startup company Ecosystem Partner, Axiata Enterprise as Enterprise Tech Partner, APU as mentioned above and MRANTI as Development Partner.
Here’s to the next Digerati50 Omniverse Networking!