Metaverse Education: Japan’s University of Tokyo to Offer Metaverse Courses

University of Tokyo (Todai), has announced that it will start offering metaverse courses this year. The school says the move is part of efforts to address the issue of the shortage of skilled experts in the digital innovation space in Japan. 

Todai Unveils Metaverse Studies 

The University of Tokyo (Todai), an institution of higher learning established in 1877, has revealed that it plans to offer its students metaverse education courses this year, in a bid to raise skilled professionals to fill the void in Japan’s digital innovation ecosystem.

Per sources close to the matter, Todai will formulate metaverse courses tailored to teach both high school students as well as individuals in the workplace, the fundamentals of the metaverse. Unlike regular degree courses at the university, the team has made it clear that its metaverse courses will be taught inside a metaverse that will be developed by Todai’s Faculty of Engineering and related departments.

At a time when entities in China and other Asian regions are actively exploring non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and the metaverse, the University of Tokyo aims to educate its students on the concepts of the metaverse and raise professionals that will help Japan to keep pace with other nations when it comes to innovative technologies.

Earlier in July, the Shanghai government revealed plans to make the city a hotbed for digital technologies by building a $52 billion metaverse ecosystem by 2025. 

An All-In-One Metaverse

Todai says its metaverse will be accessible to even students from other universities across Asia and efforts will be made to encourage more female students to join the metaverse train, as women are poorly represented in the region’s engineering sector.

Online and offline metaverse courses in the fields of artificial intelligence, entrepreneurial education, next-gen technology, and others, will be made available to students and certificates will be issued to those who complete the courses.

With its metaverse project, Todai says it aims to bring to life an educational system without borders, enabling anyone, regardless of their age, gender, social standing, and area of residence to learn about innovative technologies, engineering, and information science.

At the time of writing, Todai has not stated the exact blockchain network that will power its metaverse project. 

It’s worth noting that Todai is not the first university or educational institution to offer students metaverse courses. As reported by crypto.news on July 7, 2022, the UK’s University of Surrey announced plans to launch an academy for innovative technologies such as blockchain and the metaverse.

While bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies brought distributed ledger technology (DLT) into the consciousness of the masses, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), play-to-earn gaming, and metaverse development have also become popular use cases of blockchain technology.

On July 18, 2022, authorities in Dubai released the details of the city’s metaverse strategy, detailing how they plan to generate $4 billion from metaverse innovation in the region by 2027 and provide 40,000 jobs to residents via the metaverse.

According to recent research findings by Technavio, the metaverse real estate market share is expected to grow by $5.37 billion by 2026, with the growing popularity of bitcoin (BTC), altcoins, and mixed reality serving as key drivers of the industry.