Interconnected Realities

4The Service and Social Good Metaverse

• Purpose: Direct access to services that help the user, as well as access to information that enables the user to better help others
• Problems Solved: Reduces remoteness and impersonality of online service providers; increases understanding and empathy between users and those they may be able to help
• Key Access Method: Consumer VR headsets
• Contribution to the Wider Metaverse: Metaverse for public good, Metaverse as effective avenue for governments to interact with citizens

Let's continue with the theme of “Metaverse for good” by looking at two more areas that are growing quickly: service and social good. In the service sector, forward‐leaning governments are experimenting with providing necessary services to their citizens within immersive, two‐way environments. In the social good sector, charities and aid agencies are leveraging the ability that VR has to create empathy for others by immersing potential donors in the lived reality of those they may be able to help. These tend to be more one‐way, asynchronous experiences, but then become two‐way by sparking later action in the physical world. I'm highlighting these functions within the service and social good Metaverse to emphasize that our new digital worlds can have significant utility that reaches far beyond simple entertainment.

Public Service in the Metaverse: Bringing Government to the People

Increasing numbers of government entities are beginning to offer their services ...