Dubai to allow government departments explore the metaverse

During the MetaDecrypt Web 3.0 Summit held on Sunday, Sharad Agarwal, the Chief Metaverse officer of Dubai metaverse company “Cybergear,” discussed issues concerning the region’s metaverse ambitions.

Agarwal revealed that the government of Dubai plans to allow some of its departments to use the metaverse. This will reportedly allow citizens to perform some activities in a virtual environment in the future. He said:

We have started getting a lot of inquiries from government departments and ministries to make them Metaverse-enabled. It is just a matter of time before Dubai becomes the crypto and Metaverse hub of the world […] Dubai has a huge real estate market. In the future, people will be able to fly like superman to a community, look at the villas and view the villas and also configure the interior decoration to their liking. Once they’re satisfied, they can pay digitally.

He went further to insinuate that citizens of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will soon be able to pay their bills through the metaverse.

Some experts also weighed in on non-fungible tokens (NFTs), the metaverse, and blockchain at the two-day summit organized by Khaleej times, with some companies already planning the transition to the virtual space.

One entrant is DAMAC, a real estate company in the region that has already invested about $100 million to develop an offering to allow potential customers to check into their luxury properties virtually. The firm’s General Manager of operations Ali Sajwani said:

We sell around AED100 million monthly over Zoom calls without any immersive technology. With the metaverse, we can sell AED700-800 million a month to any customers in California, New York, or Miami.