Devising the Futures of Virtual Worlds in Latin America. A Foresight Workshop on the Metaverse*

This work is part of a more comprehensive project whose background is described in this <a href="https://jfsdigital.org/2023/05/20/the-futures-of-metaverse-and-the-creative-industries-in-latin-america-a-workshop-experience-at-centro-mexico/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">paper</a>. On this occasion, we describe and synthesize the findings of an educational experience for 14 graduate students created to increase their Metaverse literacy and enhance their anticipatory and systems thinking skills. CENTRO’s Futures Studies department created this educational experience based on Voros’ (2003) generic model of the foresight process, Hines and Bishop’s archetypes of futures (2015), Eden and Ackerman’s stakeholder analysis (2011), and Mathew Ball’s (2015) Metaverse concept. All these elements were combined in a 16-hour online course, split into four sessions between May and June 2022. The main findings of the experience were the following: <ul> <li>As a result of this experience, participants understood the difference between Metaverse, virtual world, extended reality, virtual reality, and augmented reality, among other key concepts.</li> <li>As a result of this experience, participants could learn about and implement a foresight process in three of its four phases (inputs, prospective analysis, and outputs), enunciating possible future scenarios for the Metaverse in Latin America.</li> <li>As a result of this experience, participants were able to elucidate different speculative design objects (souvenirs from the future) with the potential for a later prototyping stage.</li> </ul> <a href="https://cirila-thompson.medium.com/devising-the-futures-of-virtual-worlds-in-latin-america-a-foresight-workshop-on-the-metaverse-56d6228ca146">Read More</a>