Dancing with the Change; Evolution of Metaverse for Future of Work by Pinar Oncu
Atlas Space and The Future of Work: Journeying into the Metaverse
As the world is steadily recovering from the global pandemic, the CEO of Atlas Space, Kar Kar Ou has us looking at the future of work through a whole new lens. From a world where physical workspace used to be our only option to a future dominated by metaverse dominated spaces, the way we work is fundamentally changing.
The Pandemic and the Evolution of Work
The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in a new way of working. For most office workers, the traditional model of commuting to a physical workspace was replaced by remote working. This shift brought about a newfound flexibility and eliminating physical world limitations such as needing to travel for meetings.
In many ways, pandemic times were a foray into the metaverse as people began gathering virtually for work through video conferencing tools. However, this method quickly showed its limitations; the lack of genuine human interaction and desired freedom.
Transitioning to the Metaverse
The need for a more interactive and engaging model of working gave birth to the metaverse—a universe of virtual augmented reality, first pronounced by Neil Stephenson in his book Snow Crash.
Despite having its roots in dystopian culture, over time, the metaverse has evolved to become a tool with numerous benefits, not just for entertainment, but for businesses, particularly in office spaces.
Workspaces of the Future
- Flexible and Fast Communication - Metaverse offices offer high accessibility where employees can interact in a variety of environments, including exhibition areas, conference halls and more.
- Digital Engagement and Networking - Through various virtual environments, it's possible to create unique networking areas for team interactions and business growth.
- Storytelling and Training - Businesses can leverage the metaverse for storytelling, crafting office spaces that reflect their brand identity and tell their unique story.
Empowering Businesses and Professionals
The metaverse offers privacy, representation, work-life balance, and most importantly, a space to thrive professionally. For instance, it is even possible to attend an art gallery in London during the lunch break for a New York-based office.
The Metaverse: Bringing all Aspects of Life Together
Beyond work, the metaverse integrates all areas of life. From attending virtual stand-up shows, exhibitions, and tourism, to health consultations, education, and even maintaining well-being through virtual yoga parks, it forms a cohesive ecosystem that encapsulates all aspects of life.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, metaverse is swiftly becoming a critical layer for companies, merging everyone and everything in a virtual yet tangible universe. As we step into this new world, Atlas Space is there to connect and guide you through this transition.
Thank you for joining us on this journey into the metaverse. If you have any thoughts or questions, feel free to get in touch with us. We're always ready to help you design the future of work.
Originally published at Global Conference of Women Tech Network.
Video Transcription
Hello, everyone, welcome. Um I'm Kar Kar Ou. Uh I'm the CEO of um Atlas Space, the co founder of Atlas Space. We are creating um uh manager spaces for companies and businesses.So here is the story, the whole journey of future of work that we have been working on for the last six years, actually. So evolution of work um how did we start? So people have been working in their office spaces for the very long time up until there's this global thing happened called pandemic COVID. So during the COVID times, people realize they can actually work remotely. They don't have to go to any physical building to conduct their businesses if uh they're not in an industrial site. So for those uh people uh working at the offices, that was a huge flexibility. But after some time, people just wanted to run back, go back and run back to their office spaces because there was something wrong they realized. But now it's time for future of work. Uh we call it metaverse uh as a service for businesses. So let me tell you the whole fun story. People have been working in the office spaces the physical actual office spaces. We had our desks. You probably remember those days. Uh We had our friendships, we had our um community feeling there.
That was our habitat, that was not just a building or just a desk that we were sitting. We had our relationships there. Uh So, but in the meantime, we needed to travel to commute. We were losing a lot of times in traffic and we had this physical world limitations. If you wanted to do a meeting, we needed to sometimes travel abroad, we needed, you know, like we needed scheduling, we needed like air, con air to be ok for travel or a visa conditions to be ok for travel. So this uh people realized that actually um in digital way of working, there are much more flexibility in virtual reality office spaces. Uh We started seeing people gathering with their virtual reality headsets, seeing each other in the office space walking around. This is one of the snapshots from our very early stage um application in 2018 way before COVID times. Uh So that was fun. People like people were really having fun. If somebody put the virtual reality headset on their head, the problem was people didn't have this habit back then. So if it wasn't forced, they weren't using that. So it was immersive but lack of hardware habit uh was a barrier for this to happen.
So during COVID times, what happened is video calls just like right now we're conferencing here. Uh People started gathering online. Uh But there was like a talking stick, you know, when 100 people comes together in a video call environment, only one person speaks and the rest of the community just listens. Uh So what happened is people started getting bored of this because what happens between us is so um so flexible, so serendipitous, I want to talk to him and he want to talk to that, that person wants to join us and the other group of people talking there. So this could never happen in um video call environments. So people started losing this feeling of engagement with their colleagues, with their offices, with their cultures. So what happened was in, in the end of COVID times like when it got started getting better, um People wanted to run back to their offices, then they did. Uh But what they came up with was commuting the time they lost in traffic. That was, that was a horrible feeling for most of the people. And the time was valuable and freedom, the freedom of working abroad, working from the other city, working from the balcony, the um let's say the garden that was really important and that was really feeling nice.
And digital engagement was also important. When we're going to physical offices, we realized we can conduct a lot less meetings and produce a lot less uh because of the time lost in the other parts but have to merge both of them. We need to engage, we need to have this community feeling and we need this flexible world. But on the other hand, we don't wanna like do it in the physical way in a digital way. So there came the metaverse. So Metaverse definition, um Metaverse created our engagement, storytelling and thriving environment. I'm gonna explain them right away. So um what is metaverse? Let's start with that. That's a very hype word these days. And I'm not sure how many of them very familiar with that, but let's go over it again. So this definition was first pronounced by Neil Stephenson at a book called Snow Crash. So Metaverse is um can be summarized like some of virtual and augmented realities uh concentrated on a super long street in the book in the Snow Crash through which people walk as avatars and can access during uh using their goggles and um plugging into terminals. This was a dystopia. People were bored of the real world and they wanted some more in a digital world that was an escape gate for them from reality. Uh So then we are very much familiar with some of the movies.
For example, this is a snapshot from Ready player one movie. This is a great way to show how things happen in metaverse in terms of perception, not in uh like in algorithm. So again, there is this very dystopian world and there is this boy having his adventures and having his life participating some activities in Metaverse. That's a 3d virtual world. He's connecting himself with his uh VR headset or sometimes wearing a body suit that can stimulate the real actions.
Like for example, if I, if I digitally touch your avatar, my avatar, touch your avatar, you don't feel it. But if you, we have the body suits and if I do that motion, you just get the same feeling. So again, in ready player, one things were very dystopian. But now we're at the age that we're grown up enough to realize we can actually use it for benefit. Here comes the office spaces then. So leaving this gaming aside in a beneficial way. OK? The world has been um using this new technologies like for example, nuclear power people first went for harming the other people using the nuclear energy. But right now we're having a lot of uh we're creating a lot of energy resources using the nuclear power or knife. Nobody said OK. Oh my God. I need to uh cut this vegetable. So I need to have this sharp thing. No, we didn't start with that. We started using the knife for killing people hunting. Then we realized we can actually use it for good. So again, for the metaverse, we realized that in the beginning, all the fear was, oh my God. Are we gonna be captured by digitals? And uh are we going to be like um are we going to be uh trapped in this digital world? The good news is we're not gonna. So right now, what we're doing is when we're working, we're looking at this screen like this little box from the morning till evening when we stop, when we stopped working.
This environment also offers the same amount of time just leaving it open somewhere for creating your accessibility, increasing your accessibility, it's not covering the rest of your life. It's not sabotaging any of your life. So how businesses happen here is um in a 3d world, we're presenting ourselves with avatar bodies. We have got the ability to walk around to talk to people, sometimes open our cameras in special locations. And how does it help to us is all about uh first of all, it creates a flexible and fast communication. If we see the avatar of a person, there he is there, I can go and talk to him or um I don't have to talk to him. I can still see him and I know that OK, he is in my team and he is there. If I need to access him, we're gonna access or if we want to chit chat in our lunch break or whatever break, we can go talk just any talk. We don't have to gather on a video call to work. It's our uh engagement point and companies realize the importance of that uh in the same way in this flexible and fast communication, we get, we can gather in office looking environments, exhibition areas, conference halls and so on.
And what else we can do is like we can engage with our professional network. So in a special locations, we have got this limitless lens and digital and in infinite in infinity. So uh we can create very beautiful, very attractive, let's say networking areas that can be on a on clouds at a castle that can be underground, that can be in a very like soothing, very calming um garden environment that can be on a very elegant rooftop bar. So we can gather for networking with other people in the world that can make us grow our business and we can roam around in the free zones, we can randomly meet people just like walking in the street or we can experience uh we can experience the um experience the zones of the companies of the brands and learn about uh their journeys.
So um what else metaverse offers for businesses for the future of work to prepare us is the huge power of storytelling, whatever we do, we are human beings. So what we always do is understanding stuff through stories. It can be the very boring business detail or it can be a very fun part of your life. It doesn't matter, there's always a story. So the companies now have got the huge power of storytelling. For example, you see on the screen. There's this underwater city, we created this space for a company that is making some underwater diving equipment for their customers. But how can you tell what they're gonna feel where, what they're gonna see if they're not underwater? So, so there's this, like there's this challenge of you have to show what you have underwater, but we're, we're not, we're not fish, you know. So in metaverse environments in 3d engaging environments, companies can create their, all of their stories, put people into journeys and make them have this very unique experience. So, um plus, while we're working, let's say we went to, we, we're going to our office space, but let's say our office is based in um where should it be? Let's say we're based in New York, but there's this gallery in London that we wanted to see.
There's no way in our lunch break, we can go to London and come back and see this exhibit in a metaverse environment all of the time. And all of the spaces belong to us, we can walk around, we can see we can improve ourselves, we can visit art galleries, we can go to yoga parks and spend our time, you know, like improving ourselves, understanding ourselves. We can participate in very special training simulations and improve us in our um let's say, point of interest and we can visit university campuses, uh learn about stuff and university students can start their internships at the Metaverse environment. So this is the best space to thrive yourselves for the future. So there's also other benefits like representation. II, I identify myself in a certain way in a physical world. But in digital world, I have no limits. I can create my avatar the way I wish I can be exactly myself. I can change myself. My look, my gender, my skin, tone of skin, whatever you want to change my hairstyle, my eye color, I can even be a fox or a banana at TB, a business world. It doesn't matter, you can also have fun in your business environment.
So uh so this creates this democratization environment, the freedom and feeling of to be I am, I am who I how I feel like I am. So and it creates privacy as well. So when you're seeing my avatar, you don't have to see whatever I have in my background in my room. So this complete journey has started with gaming and this topic world is the physical world. So let's escape for games, make our earning for games. But um here is what we came for right now. All these enterprises, the companies, they are finding their way for future, all these office spaces and businesses, the way of entertainment, having these stand up shows, the talk shows at conference halls or setting up meetups for your community, creating events, throwing events, a party, uh a training, it doesn't matter any, any ticketed or unticketed gatherings um creating them in 3d environments.
Um creating exhibitions in a virtual way to attract a lot more people. Or even if you're at a physical exhibition, you can offer more. You can be an industrial company. You can put your very, you really hardly got that big gadget. You have industrial gadget in this room. There's no way you're running that in an exhibition hall, in an expo hall. But in a metaverse environment, you can just make people either on their web browser or on their virtual reality headset experience that like gadget that came from space. So there is no danger in that.
There is no limit in trying that. Um So tourism, we can take people to places existing or un existing places. We can even create this Saturn um tours where people can run on the, you know, the loops of the Saturn. Uh This is pretty much possible in a metaverse environment. Imagine how imagine wherever you can travel, that's what, what's gonna happen very soon. For health purposes, we can do our meditations, our yoga, we can get consultancy in health. So health companies right now are finding their way to describe what they're doing and helping people, they can tell how their medications work, how to identify a sickness, how to find themselves, how to connect with them all sorts of capability. Right now, they have through metaverse that they don't in a physical other environment and well being, this is what we love, we have got yoga parks in our complete world. Um So well being is one of the one of the few, one of the few things that we're really missing comparing to all, all the years, other years. Uh So in a well being, um what we mean is like in our very high paced business environment, business life, we're mostly forgetting to spend time for ourselves to relax, to focus, to let our stress go.
Um But right now in such an environment, we have got all of these facilities. OK, come jump on. So let's do that. Let's have your time, your most important thing of all in your whole life, not your business, not the other stuff, you be healthy first. And one of the other um environments that are now moving is like education. So in the education, we're carrying all these schools, all these new campuses to metaverse, merging with the business environment because they are just linked with each other. Business education is for teaching kids to future and the future people are like needing this new kids. So the rules of the world is the same everywhere. When, when I throw a rock here or when I throw a rock in the other part of a world, no matter what language we speak, the rock will like fly and fall. So this is about physics. This is the rules of the nature can be repeated in i in unlimitedly in a metaverse environment and making much more um uh high uh high level educated uh people come to the world uh joined to business life. So, in, in uh in a short way, metaverse, we can say that metaverse has become a layer for companies uh in the middle of nowhere, but merging everywhere and everyone. So please uh let's connect us.
Please find me uh for designing the future of your work, the designing your environment in this digital uh unlimited new WW uh world, new universe. Um Thank you for listening to me. Uh So um if you have any questions, I can uh answer that if you don't. Um I think we're about to about the end of our time. Mm I think I cannot see any direct questions to me. Thank you for listening to me and have a very nice day. Um See you at the next Global Conference of Women Tech Network. Bye bye.