Hong Kong University of Science and Technology builds Metaverse Campus

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology has announced the start of work on the creation of a Hong Kong and Guangzhou student campus in the metaverse to promote immersive learning.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) is ranked second in the top 50 universities in the QS Asian University rankings. The HKUST Senate, the university’s highest body responsible for developing and overseeing academic policy, announced that the launch of the first mixed reality classroom program and the grand opening of HKUST’s virtual campus in the metaverse is scheduled for September.

“Many guests may be abroad and not able to attend the opening, so we will hold the event in virtual reality. This is the first experience of MetaHKUST, a field of study in the metaverse that will connect the university’s Hong Kong campus with the Guangzhou campus, allowing students to take classes without geographical restrictions,” explained Pan Hui, head of the Department of Computational Media and Arts at the Guangzhou campus.

Wang Yang, Vice President for Institutional Development of HKUST, noted that despite the skepticism of the university leadership towards the new concept of education, a modern university cannot afford to miss such an opportunity.

“Last year, the buzzword was NFT. In 2022, this is the metaverse. We understand that it will become part of reality in the future, and we can imagine life in the metaverse soon. As a university, we should be leaders of ideas and should not wait for others to do something, and we will be forced to follow their example,” said Wang Yang.

In the initial phases, the work to create a campus in the metaverse will focus on shaping infrastructure in the real world, such as virtual reality classrooms, dynamic sensors, cameras, and visualization tools. Subsequently, the digital space created for the two campuses will allow students to attend the same lecture at the same time in two parallel spaces.

In addition to lectures and seminars, it is planned to gather an audience in the virtual world for social events, such as open days, student parties or graduations, and distribute diplomas or transcripts of lectures in the form of NFT.

At the end of July, Todai University of Japan announced the start of a series of programs on the development of metaverses in the new academic year. The educational project should solve the problem of the lack of qualified personnel to work on digital technologies.