Metaverse: the natural evolution to Web 3.0

Metaverse: the natural evolution to Web 3.0

Professor Paul Hopkinson is the head of Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University Dubai and academic lead for Heriot-Watt Online

Despite the fear that comes with new inventions and developments destabilising our reality and our way of living, we fail to realise that these developments are only a response to changes that are already taking place. In other words, technological innovations and other developments are a response and an attempted solution to current global shifts. As the world changes around us, necessitating new ways of being and functioning, we look for innovations that suit our current needs. With movement being restricted during the pandemic and causing major disruption to the global economies and nearly all aspects of our life, the need for access to work, healthcare, and other forms of livelihood irrespective of one’s location became necessary. 

Currently, the uncertainty surrounding emerging technological concepts such as the metaverse and blockchain is understandable. This uncertainty is due to the pace of change that the world has undergone in only two years. However, it is important to view the metaverse as the next natural evolution of the internet. Previously, we passively accessed content online through its current form. We then moved to