The Islamic World Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ICESCO) held a conference on exploring the status of the human being in the era of virtual and augmented reality “Metaverse,” to anticipate the future of this amazing scientific development inside and outside the Islamic world and understand its impact on our daily lives, and the importance of dealing with its changes and transformations, as well as to exchange experience and knowledge about the most effective ways to take advantage of the opportunities “Metaverse” offers.

The conference kicked off on Wednesday, June 15, 2022, at ICESCO Headquarters in Rabat, in the presence of a group of researchers and experts in the field of metaverse and artificial intelligence. Dr. Kais Hammami, Director of ICESCO Center for Strategic Foresight, started the two-day Conference, by highlighting the importance of discussing the concept of metaverse that evolves rapidly and has multiple definitions and meanings including “beyond the universe.”

Metaverse is aimed to enable people to interact more largely with digital content, as it mixes virtual and augmented realities, through the use of virtual reality headsets and glasses.
Afterward, Dr. Marc-Antoine Dilhac, professor of ethics and political philosophy at the University of Montreal and Director of the Algora Lab in Montreal, gave a lecture on the future of metaverse, stating that the content in the metaverse, in which information is shared through videos, is primarily visual and animated.

He pointed out that metaverse allows us to feel the things we touch, by seeing them virtually through the sense of sight. Hence, metaverse allows us to create a new environment that reshapes the elements of reality virtually through digital technologies.

He added that metaverse enables us to create a virtual identity different from the one that exists in reality, by reshaping it and ultimately creating a new identity that can meet new people in this new world.

Dr. Dilhac said that metaverse prompts us to wonder what kind of societies we desire to build through the use of modern technologies, noting that metaverse is currently just for entertainment, but it allows us to understand different aspects of our social life. After that, the participants explored in open discussion the mechanisms of dealing with metaverse in our daily lives.

During the second day of the Conference, a series of artificial intelligence workshops will be held at ICESCO Headquarters, in cooperation with the Algora Lab and the University of Montreal in Canada.