The BSV Blockchain Association (Switzerland) and the University of Sharjah (UAE) have launched a joint research project to develop a blockchain-based Metaverse system to preserve the UAE culture and heritage, and maintain its ownership as a digital asset.
The project also covers a showcase platform as a trading marketplace for exchanging the physical originals as well as the virtual heritage assets as Non-Fungible Tokens [NFTs] in the Metaverse Environment.
Prof. Maamar Bettayeb, Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Studies, highlighted the importance of this project in strengthening the relationship between the university and the industry while providing a very useful use cases of the recent technologies such as the Blockchain, Metaverse, and the NFTs that help not only to preserve the heritage and culture of the UAE, but all the Arabic and Islamic legacy in the region.
Besides the research and development, the UoS is serving the community and the national economy by translating the vision of Emirates of Sharjah and the UAE to document and preserve the Emirati history and heritage in its various tangible and intangible forms.
Commenting on today’s announcement, Mr. Jimmy Nguyen – Bitcoin Association for BSV Founding President, said: “With a firm mandate from the government to build and implement world-leading blockchain technologies for the benefit of all its citizens, the UAE represents one of the most forward-thinking and innovative destinations for blockchain and data technologies globally. We are very excited and pleased with the partnership with a premier institution in the UAE such as the UoS to develop an innovative solution that utilize the latest technologies to preserve the nation’s values and history in UAE and the region. Launching a new startup will help in creating many jobs for the new technology graduates and create new economy for trading antiques, historic and modern artworks in a digital format and in virtual marketplace as NFTs”.
Dr. Mohamed Al Hemairy, the leading researcher, added: “UAE has a very wealthy culture and human heritage, characterized by numerous physical inheritances than new generation and expatriate don’t know much about it, and it holds intangible value and considered as tangible assets. Therefore, our research was focusing on how we can deploy the immutable properties of the Blockchain to preserve the intellectual property and ownership of the Emirati’s Families inherited treasures and to design a virtual art gallery for the Arabic and Islamic culture, heritage, antiques, historic and modern artworks in a state-of-the-art digital format and pertain its intellectual property as a Non-Fungible Tokens [NFT] and present them in a virtual art gallery in the Metaverse and based and backed by BSV Blockchain.”
He added, “We will also store the exceptional moments of our rich history, wealthy culture and achievements of the great UAE leaders and founders’ leaders and aware the upcoming generations of it. We will use the Smart Contracts to govern the transfer of these inheritance without third-party involvement in an automated & fully decentralized environment. From the economical perspective, the Metaverses have seen a great deal of interest over the previous years, with many brands and organizations showing interest in being in this virtual environment, which is expected to contribute about $500 million to Dubai’s economy, while studies predict that its global market size will rise from $27 billion in 2020 to more than $824 billion by 2030“.
The agreement will see the University of Sharjah undertake a multi-phased research and development program, beginning with the creation of a novel solution for maintaining the heritage and the modern belongings and offer a state-of-the-art trading platform that leveraging the latest technologies such as the blockchain and the virtual reality environment “Metaverse”. This will be followed by the development of a proof-of-concept application resulting from the R&D phase and will be commercially used at a university startup to operate the trading in the metaverse for the public and serve the community.
BSV Blockchain will be used as a public Blockchain “Open Source” that has thousands of peers distributed all over the world which validate the transactions and store the ledger in a decentralized environment. The BSV Blockchain has many unique features and properties such as stability, massive scaling for the block size, and a fast transaction rate with the lowest transaction fees. These features are so critical for the stakeholders and users to adopt the platform for storing their special assets and collections as a digital format and enable them to share them with others in a 3D format in the Metaverse and even trade them if they prefer that.
