His Excellency Khalfan Belhoul, CEO of Dubai Future Foundation (DFF), today kicked off the Dubai Metaverse Assembly, organized by the DFF under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Chairman of the Executive Council and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the DFF, hosting 300 global experts and more than 40 organizations specialized in the metaverse technology and virtual worlds applications.

In his opening speech on the first day of the inaugural Dubai Metaverse Assembly, His Excellency Khalfan Belhoul noted that the the Assembly serves as a global platform for collaboration and a tool to collectively harness the metaverse technology and explore its potential.  

“To an extent, the metaverse is still uncharted territory and we are yet to fully understand it. Through the metaverse, we can transcend a multitude of boundaries. We are gaining a space for social interactions with people and the world around us, and technically we can reach people from different corners of the world through a sub-reality,” commented Belhoul.

From an economic perspective, Belhoul pointed out that metaverse has a great potential as it will contribute up to USD 5 trillion to the global economy by 2030. Moreover, the metaverse will likely infiltrate every sector in some way in the coming years, with the market opportunity estimated at over USD 1 trillion in yearly revenues.

HE Khalfan Belhoul called for the need to focus on building global strategic partnerships aimed at achieving the maximum benefit from metaverse applications and prospects to build fruitful collaborations and strategic partnerships, stressing the importance of partnerships between governments and companies to achieve the desired benefits from metaverse.

Belhoul pointed out that the uses of metaverses will expand into completely new and different fields and disciplines, which confirms the importance of the need to unify visions and elements to design immersive and useful experiences.

“Today’s event is a real-life example of what embracing technology looks like. We seek to bridge the gap and bring governments and enterprises together to benefit from the metaverse. The event’s sessions revolve around the future of medicine, the future of training, the world of virtual real estate and even looking at how art can be minted into NFTs. The metaverse will be interpreted in various ways, we are looking at bringing these elements together in a unified, immersive experience,” concluded the CEO of DFF.

Over the course of two days, the Dubai Metaverse Assembly hosts over 25 high-level sessions and workshops at the Museum of the Future and AREA 2071, Emirates Towers, Dubai.

The Assembly is the first event after His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum approved the Dubai Metaverse Strategy in July. The strategy aims to add USD 4 billion to Dubai’s GDP, support 40,000 virtual jobs by 2030 and attract 1,000 companies specializing in blockchain and metaverse technologies to turn Dubai’s into one of the world’s top 10 metaverse economies.