MIT CS Ph.D. ⚛️

https://open.harmony.one/6c2afdfd8164469bbae7d5b6ac21d868

https://twitter.com/JackieLeeETH

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackylee0424/

Join our TGI-Metaverse weekly showcase Telegram group, see event detail here:

[NFT NYC, 6/15-24] WebXR FPS + treasure hunt 3D game template dev, Skullape NFT game dev support (Harmony Grantee), verifiable in-game activity prototype. 80/90/30%

[time off 7/1 - 7/12, Taiwan trip, 7/13-7/27] Skullape NFT game launch dev support (Harmony Grantee), Skullape NFT game DAppRadar submission, WebXR NFT 3D avatar dev. 100/100/70%

Skullape NFT game launch support (Harmony Grantee), WebXR FPS NFT game platform dev, 1k users. 0/0/0%

WebXR FPS game template platform growth, Skullape NFT game dev support (Harmony Grantee), tgi-metaverse event growth. 0/0/0%

Jackie Lee, Ph.D (MIT Media Lab ‘11 in Affective Computing) is a hands-on software and hardware builder navigating the boundary between what is possible and what can be possible. Jackie has been creating and inventing technologies to understand human emotions (since his MIT time) and visualize abstract ideas (since ‘17 when ScienceVR was founded). He has been exploring the next generation of learning with storytelling, simulation, and immersive experiences focusing on topics like science and history. “I see the future before my eyes.” - one of ScienceVR users commented. ScienceVR connects the source of knowledge directly to the end user with enhanced immersion. However, the most limiting factor of growing VR usages has been its hardware usability.

Jackie lives and breathes in the metaverse (VR/WebXR) since the pandemic. In 2020, the world became virtual and remote mostly powered by internet-connected personal workstations. This phenomenon shifted Jackie’s mindset about virtual workspaces and digital lifestyles. Why not taking advantage of the most prevailing infrastructure - the web browsers (available on both desktop and mobile) to deliver learning experiences? Jackie and the ScienceVR team have been prototyping such virtual experiences into 30+ virtual events for about 20-30 attendees participating in talks, escape room games, treasure hunts, theater performances, and meditation exercises in 2021. Each experience forms a mini informal social circle centering around a specific topic in history and science.

Jackie’s crypto journey started in summer ‘13 (plz do not ask him what happened from ‘13 to ‘20). Since 2021, it’s becoming more obvious that the virtual worlds need to be built on top of economics of ownership. This was when Jackie fully dived into web3 metaverse and became a believer of a digital lifestyle, i.e., a person can learn, create, and earn in a purely digital world regardless the person’s background, prior knowledge, age, and ethnicity. To understand how to draw web3 users into the metaverse, Jackie started collecting NFTs for getting into NFT communities and learning how web3 communities are bounded.

Jackie found the Harmony communities are bounded in a deeper way. So here he is.

Related links:

Here are 3 metaverse initiatives focusing on different aspects of shaping a web3 metaverse: emotional bounding (Blue Metaverse), tool enablement (creator toolkit), and community-based viral growth (MetaverseDAO).

What is Blue Metaverse? Or what is “metaverse”? I think anyone asking this question may need to put his/herself into a variety of metaverse. One’s metaverse definition likely represents one’s digital lifestyle.

Why Blue Metaverse? Why it needs a specialized focus on social and emotional bounding? Since metaverse is intrinsically social and spatial, most metaverse experiences are shaped by people and virtual environments. An interesting and memorable metaverse experience emerges when people become friends with shared interests while they share these precious moments. Blue Metaverse aims at emotional bounding formed during these moments. To catalyze emotional bounding within virtual environments, we need key human initiators who are able to trigger deep emotional resonance and metaverse interactivity to facilitate personalized experiences.

Blue Metaverse (in the next year) consists of digital festivals (rich immersive experiences) where people connect, find alignment, and form emotional bounding.

Open questions about metaverse games vs. experiences:

Metaverse is an enhanced social tool to provide rich expressions embodied within the virtual (2D/3D) environments. In other words, there will be more ways for more people to express themselves and more ways to be seen in the metaverse than in the real world. A toolkit is needed to empower custom expressions, especially for creators who have their own audiences but little knowledge of web3 and metaverse. Creators who provide storytelling and emotional experiences play key roles for engaging other metaverse users as well as supplying their creative works. There are existing web3 metaverse places for showcasing creative works such as Decentraland etc... However, most of them provides gallery-like passive experience and there are unfulfilled opportunities to provide more interactivity for engaging audiences with a custom emotional journey. This toolkit will evolve into a metaverse marketplace.

Metaverse Creator Toolkit (webxr) allows creators and developers to build and create custom interactive experiences with custom virtual places to catalyze emotional bounding between creators and their communities. Yuga Lab is planning to build a metaverse SDK (and using Unreal Engine rig as a snapshot).

MetaverseDAO provides a cross-metaverse governance at the toolkit (for new creator’s single/episodic metaverse experience) and at the protocol level (for existing metaverse). MetaverseDAO adoption should be viral because a successful experience within one community may enable community members to start their own community. In one year or so, Blue Metaverse and Metaverse Creator Toolkit will gradually converge into MetaverseDAO operation.