In partnership with Accenture and Microsoft, the World Economic Forum unveiled a working prototype of its Global Collaboration Village at its Annual Meeting 2023. The Global Collaboration Village is a purpose-driven metaverse where organizations can learn about, develop solutions for, and take action on the world’s most pressing challenges. 

Participants worldwide joined the Forum in its first-ever interactive, multilateral session in the metaverse, with partners from 80 significant organizations collaborating to influence the village’s future.

With the help of the Global Collaboration Village, a more diversified and geographically scattered audience can experience co-presence and connection. This ground-breaking project, built on the mixed reality platform Microsoft Mesh and expanding upon the proof of concept presented in May 2022, offers a collection of initial immersive areas that may be visited by VR headset or laptop device. These include:

A town hall: Forum events and meetings, including plenaries, workshops, and bilaterals, will be held at the “Virtual Congress Center.”

Collaborative centers: To encourage collaboration, experiential learning, and real-world influence on global concerns, the Forum will use virtual collaborative spaces for immersive storytelling and thought leadership. Participants can explore the ocean’s depths in a virtual ocean hub, for instance, and learn why and how marine ecosystems need to be conserved to preserve aquatic and terrestrial life.

Stakeholder campuses: Forum Partners can customize their presence, bring together their stakeholders, and collaborate with others to invent and address global concerns.

Aiming to strengthen learning, cooperation, and partnership throughout the following year, the Forum will invite organizations to construct these immersive spaces. Four guiding principles serve as a framework for the initiative’s efforts to strengthen and reinvigorate global cooperation: global cooperation toward shared solutions; interactive immersion to foster better understanding; broad participation made possible by inclusive discussions; and individual and collective action as a catalyst for maximum impact.

“With the Global Collaboration Village, we are creating the first public purpose-oriented application of the metaverse technology, building a true global village in the virtual space. Supported by a unique range of partners from the public and private sectors, the Village will use the frontier capabilities of the metaverse to find solutions for addressing the big issues of our time in a more open, inclusive, and sustained way,” said Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum.

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