South Korea’s second-largest city, Busan, is set to host the Global Metaverse Conference and ASEAN-ROK Forum from 18-19 August, it was announced on Wednesday.
City Mayor Heong-Joon Park will host the event with Busan IT Industry Promotion Agency (BIPA) Chief Executive and President, Mun-Seob Jeong, for global and domestic tech firms.
The event will take place in partnership with the Korean Ministry of Science and ICT and organised by the nation’s IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA) to explore enterprise opportunities for the region.
Experts, businesses, and analysts will attend the event to discuss the Metaverse, emerging technologies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and collaborative efforts with ASEAN member-states. Companies such as NVIDIA, AMD, Pinscreen, Deutsche Telecom, and Oculus are set to attend the talks on 18 August.
The event will focus on topics from its ‘Metaverse, the Beginning of a New World’ theme and is expected to research trends, services, analyses, and outlines for the Metaverse, namely among ASEAN nations.
Mun-Seob Jeong said in a statement,
“Metaverse has expanded into VR, AR, and XR businesses, and is expected to grow by 40% year-on-year over the next decade. We expect this event to serve as a venue to explore industry trends and to discuss various possible collaborations with ASEAN”
The news comes as South Korea’s ICT and Science Ministry (MSIT) pushes to become the fifth-largest global market for the Metaverse and outlines its roadmap to reaching the goal, namely after pledging in January to create around 220 metaverse firms and aiming to facilitate 40,000 tech jobs by 2026.
The nation’s Ministry of ICT, Science and Future Planning also pledged $186.7 million USD to build its enterprise-grade Metaverse ecosystem complete with immersive technologies and research and development (R&D) support. The Ministry aims to build a sustainable Metaverse via public and private partnerships (PPPs) to allow its nation’s firms to compete with global enterprises.
