Digital technologies are shaping our society and new services such as virtual worlds will have a profound impact on the way people will interact. One example is the so-called CitiVerse that will allow citizens and other stakeholders to «navigate and interact» in physical/virtual environments for multiple purposes from urban planning to educational services.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has just established a 1-year expert focus group  on the metaverse to contribute to the technical pre-standardization work of virtual worlds. The objective is to offer a venue to start laying the groundwork for technical standards that can help create an underlying technology and business ecosystem that encourages market entry, innovation, and cost efficiency.

Cristina Martinez (Technologies for Smart Communities Unit, DG CNECT) has been invited to chair the TG-coordination, aiming at setting up an open and collaborative framework to contribute to the pre-standardisation of the Citiverse. We invite experts and project leaders working in the context of Smart Cities and Communities, dataspaces and Digital Twins projects to join this metaverse focus group.

Participation is open to anyone interested. We encourage you to register and join the FG-MV at https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/focusgroups/mv/Pages/reg.aspx

You are also invited to the on-line meeting under TG-collaboration of the FG-MV that will be held on 19 April 2023 from 10:00 to 11:00 (CEST). This meeting will be for EU-based experts only. In the meeting we would like to get to know all of you, understand your expectations and particular interests and needs, and explore ways as well to collaborate and foster EU’s efforts under FG-MV.

The meeting will be followed by an open to all TG-collaboration of the FG-MV from 11:00 to 13:00 (CEST) where we will be identifying potential contributors, editors and other roles to work together towards the expected deliverables

Additional info:

Please be informed that the meeting will take place via MyMeetings - https://remote.itu.int/.

Please see information below:

• Remote participation link: via MyMeetings - https://remote.itu.int/ (only those subscribed to the FG-MV mailing lists can access the session)
• Documents: https://extranet.itu.int/sites/itu-t/focusgroups/mv/wg/SitePages/Task%20Group.aspx (only those subscribed to the FG-MV mailing lists can access the collaboration site)
• Please subscribe to the mailing list (see step-by-step guide)