Singapore-headquartered Aventis Graduate School has unveiled its metaverse roadmap to become Asia’s first graduate school to enter the open metaverse.
It’s a game-changing move hailed by industry experts as the metaverse is still fairly new with many still grasping the concept or adopting a wait-and-see attitude.
To take its plan forward, the graduate school has signed a memorandum of understanding with Multiverse Labs, a leading pioneer in the metaverse space, and Smobler Studios as the digital campus architect.
The Aventis Metaverse campus will make graduate and executive education affordable and accessible to Southeast Asia’s population of more than 700 million.
Professionals and executives in the region can enjoy education in a hybrid of the physical and metaverse realms through networking, conferences and global executive or advanced management programmes.
They will be able to participate in the school’s programmes without geographical constraints. The education experience will not be compromised as they can learn, engage and interact with lecturers and course mates like never before virtually.
Embedding video technology such as Zoom on the metaverse will offer learners a more immersive and interactive education journey.
Learners will also earn exclusive non-fungible token (NFT) digital badges thatcan be traded, sold and exchanged as NFTs. Leveraging a groundbreaking EduFi Learn to Earn model, Aventis aims to make graduate education more affordable and accessible for all.
“By focusing on phygital, senior executives and professionals in Southeast Asia can enjoy both metaverse and physical through hybrid networking and global executive conferences. We aim to have the first Asean Conference in September to align with the return of the F1 Night Race in Singapore,” said Samuel Teo, General Manager of Aventis Graduate School, which has more than 60,000 learners from around the world.
Creating a photorealistic campus
Under the MOU, Smobler Studios will provide design expertise while Multiverse Labs will help build a photorealistic campus in the open metaverse.
Smobler Studios is a leading virtual architecture and creative agency known for their exceptional capabilities in 3D modelling and metaverse development for The Sandbox. Through its Cobbleland built on The Sandbox, it offers a multi-experience social hub, theme park and exposition that showcases companies, brands, products, services, and intellectual property. The studio will lead in the creation of the exterior and interior designs of Aventis Digital Campus’ classrooms.
“Having been an educator for over two decades, it pains me to see how unaffordable higher education has become. This impacts upward social mobility of the middle class and improvement of lifestyles across the region. I am heartened to know that we are now able to democractise education through the use of technology to make it accessible to all who want to learn,” said Dr Loretta Chen, Co-founder of Smobler Studios.
Multiverse Labs is a leading open metaverse platform that aims to allow promising individuals and groups to become leaders in the metaverse so that they can impact their local or global community. Under the MOU, its role is to plan for and allocate the amount of land needed to co-create and build a photorealistic university campus.
“Education is one of the pillars of our platform because we believe it is key to opening opportunities. It should not be exclusive and limited to a few but should be shared and accessible to anyone anywhere. Through this partnership, we hope to democratise graduate and executive education across Southeast Asia using our learn-play-earn model.” said John Cheng, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Multiverse Labs.
Beta testing in Q3
Aventis Metaverse is expected to begin beta testing with the onboarding of existing students and alumni in the third quarter of this year.
In December 2022, Aventis will launch and airdrop 10 million of its own tokens worth S$10million to 500,000 users for free. The tokens can be used as credits for online courses.
“This is an exciting new chapter for us and we are extremely grateful to the support from our partners and alumni network. Let’s redefine the future of graduate education together. We are actively seeking partners, educators, collaborators, and learners to join us in this exciting journey,” said Teo.
Entelechy Asia 