Home
News
At the beginning of April, our host, Capt Christopher German interviewed Dr. Mark van Rijmenam, a published author and Digital Speaker.Dr Van Rijmenam talks about Metaverse, Web3, NFTs, and their future.
Here are some key takeaways from that conversation!
But Before diving into the details of the interview, let’s understand the interests of Dr. Mark van Rijmenam a bit more.
Dr. Van Rijmenam is the author of the four books- among which three are best-selling management books on big data, AI, and blockchain. His fourth book is titled: Step into the Metaverse. Van Rijmenam is a future tech strategist who ponders how technology changes organizations, society, and the Metaverse.
At the start of the interview, Dr. Van Rijmenam retraced the journey of three of his books and then shared how he became a digital speaker. His first book was published in 2014, and since then, he has started doing keynotes around the globe.
He then goes on to talk about his second book called blockchain, which details how we as a society and individuals can use blockchain for social good. His third book was on management.
Immediately after that pandemic hit, closing the world into their homes. Dr. Van Rijmenam entered into the metaverse space, here’s how:
“I created a digital speaker, I created an avatar of myself, I created a hologram of myself, and I started doing keynotes and conversations like that, so I have my avatar has its own show tech journal where my avatar covers the digital world from inside the digital world and yeah that’s how I sort of stepped into the metaverse basically before everyone else.”
“We Are The Dawn Of The Metaverse”: Van Rijmenam
He shares that Mark Zukerberg announced Meta in October, and at the same time, he was asked to write about this book on Metaverse.
To get to the depth of the concept, he interviewed about 100 individuals, including stakeholders, creators of metaverse platforms, creative creators, and collectors artists.
He points out that different people have different notions about what Metaverse is. However, he created his own definition after talking with so many people. According to him, the Metaverse is the “convergence of the digital world where the digital world is converted into the physical world and vice versa.”
Van Rijmenam also believes that, contrary to what many people believe, the Metaverse is much more than just a virtual reality and does not equate to it.
He thinks that virtual reality is just a component of the Metaverse, and augmented reality will become a much bigger component of the Metaverse in the coming weeks. Further, he says that the Metaverse is also not equal to Web3 as of now.
But it’s definitely something that we should strive for, says Van.
He talks about achieving a hybrid web where centralized technologies are used for the streaming while a decentralized system where the users have full control and authority over their own data.
“We are the dawn of the Metaverse. There’s still tons of work to be done, but it’s certainly going to be a wild ride,” he adds.
Van Rijmenam quotes his thoughts on the Metaverse from his book:
“It’s a multi-trillion dollar opportunity in the next decade; it’s an endless blue ocean of opportunity…………………my main focus is on how to build an open metaverse that’s there for us and not for a big deck.”
NFTs To Improve The Standard Of Living
Through NFTs, for the first time, we can prove that we own a particular digital asset and also use it to monetize it. However, he notes that’s not what NFTs actually stands for; there are various use-cases for the asset class, such as you can collect it, earn from it, and a lot more.
NFTs also empower artists. It allows them to create digital artists and even sell those on various platforms and start making money.
NFTs can also be used as collateral; you can keep them and borrow against them.
He basically encourages people to use the technology of decentralized finance to increase their wealth and the standard of living as a whole.
He says the technology is democratizing as it eliminates all intermediaries and our reliance on them for our own money. Crypto and NFTs are enablers through which people as an individual can have a bigger impact on the global GDP.
On being asked to comment on the sanctions imposed by the west on Russia after it invaded Ukraine, he says the situation is definitely challenging and, like every technology, emerging technology, blockchain, and digital assets, too has pros and cons attached to it.
Andrew is a blockchain developer who developed his interest in cryptocurrencies while pursuing his post-graduation major in blockchain development. He is a keen observer of details and shares his passion for writing, along with coding. His backend knowledge about blockchain helps him give a unique perspective to his writing skills, and a reliable craft at explaining the concepts such as blockchain programming, languages and token minting. He also frequently shares technical details and performance indicators of ICOs and IDOs.
