Korea’s largest metaverse festival held at COEX

[Smart City Today]

The "Korea Extended Virtual World Festival 2022" ("KMF 2022"), the best and largest metaverse exhibition in Korea, was held at COEX Hall in Seoul for three days from October 13 to 15.

Hosted by the Ministry of Science and ICT, "KMF 2022" marked its seventh anniversary this year. Under the theme of "Digital New World, Korea Leaps into an Expanded Virtual World (Metaverse!), various programs such as exhibitions, international academic conferences (Global Metaverse Congress, Korea Metaverse Summit), award ceremonies, and business consultations were prepared.

This year, in order to promote and spread the "Korean Digital Strategy" announced on September 29, an exhibition space was organized to feel the leading technologies and services in the world and share the latest technology trends and cases through academic conferences.

At the opening ceremony on the first day, a virtual alter ego (Avatar), implemented using digital technology, appeared and introduced itself as an "extended virtual world rookie, meta-citizen (people of the extended virtual world)." It introduces the expanded virtual world policy and shows that the expanded virtual world is already taking root in our lives, with another virtual self-contained singer performance.

At the "International Extended Virtual World Conference" held in the afternoon, Julian Goman of the Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA) gave a keynote speech following the Ministry of Science and ICT's announcement of the expanded virtual world policy, and experts from domestic and foreign companies such as Epic Games and Bernect presented a methodology for building an expanded virtual world ecosystem.

A total of 170 companies, including Korea's expanded virtual world leaders such as KT and SKT, participated in the exhibition "KMF 2022" to display various expanded virtual world elements, infrastructure technologies, platforms, and services in 340 exhibition compartments. This was the largest ever and aimed to promote systematic viewing and convenience for visitors through zoning by service and function.

KT and SK, major expansion virtual world leaders in Korea, introduced more diverse and advanced services with "Genieverse" and "ifland," while the Information and Communication Industry Promotion Agency presented examples of expansion virtual world use in medical, manufacturing, education, training, and firefighting. In addition, domestic small and medium-sized companies such as VERNECT, AllIP Information and Communication, Alias, Entre-Reality, and Space Party participated in the 2022 KMF to showcase original products and services.

The next day, the " Global System for Mobile Communications Association Academic Conference" and "Korea Extended Virtual World Conference (Summit) 2022" was held, and domestic and foreign expanded virtual world experts, including Professor Hyundai-won of Sogang University's Extended Virtual World Graduate School, predicted the spread of the global expanded virtual world on various topics and share prospects.

At the opening ceremony, Minister of Science and ICT Lee Jong-ho said, "Expanded virtual world technology needs to be developed in the early stages of the growth of new industries and support various fields by training professionals." "To foster related industries, it is necessary to establish a one-step ahead regulatory system, including self-regulation. To this end, we will actively support rapid legislative discussions on the expanded virtual world bill under discussion at the National Assembly."