IEEE CS Emerging Tech Grant Supports “Hack the Metaverse”

As the digital frontier continues to expand, the concept of the metaverse has gone from speculative to reality. This immersive and interconnected virtual universe promises unprecedented opportunities for social interaction, commerce, and creativity. But what’s the best way to provide a safe and resilient virtual place without compromising security and trust?

To bring awareness about the metaverse, the IEEE Computer Society (CS) Bangalore Chapter hosted “Hack the Metaverse,” a three-day event from 12-15 September 2023. Funded by a grant from IEEE CS’ Emerging Technology Fund, the initiative allowed students to go on a deep dive into the metaverse to better understand the technology, receive tutorials and training, take part in problem-solving, participate in hack-a-thon competitions, and meet with industry professionals.

Overview of the event

Overall, 162 participants took part in “Hack the Metaverse,” which included 52 teams across India from areas such as Bangalore, Madras, Bombay, Pune, Vizag Bay, Hyderabad, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, and Kolkata. Forty percent of attendees were women. In addition, 20 volunteers and 30 industry and academic volunteers supported the effort.

Activities included learning about development, metaverse tutorials, building prototypes, job and internship opportunities, and investor pitches. Participants were able to hear about the metaverse from global corporations, including TCS, Infosys, XR Central, and Cisco.

“The program helped in understanding how the metaverse affected areas such as health care, smart cities, transport, and industrial applications,” said Program Organizer Dr. Abhishek Appaji, with B.M.S. College of Engineering, Bengaluru. “The hackathon created crude solutions which will be further taken by the industry, helping to create long-term sustainability.”

Program highlights included a welcome presentation, followed by an industry-led symposium, which covered topics such as human factor analysis, building a metaverse, and the role of AI and 5G. In addition, participants learned about how to pitch to experts and develop team-building skills.

Feedback

Organizers, volunteers, and students all benefited from the session and are eager to apply their learnings to future endeavors. Dr. Prasant Misra, Senior Scientist, Tata Consultancy Services, Bengaluru said, “I was very excited to organize such an event on the Metaverse after working in this field for a couple of years. It is important to understand the latest technology and keep the budding engineers aware of metaverse opportunities.”

“For me as a student who has an ardent interest in participating in a hackathon, this program was truly a life-changing experience. Not only did we get a chance to prove our skills at a national level, but we also got to network with like-minded people from all over India. I advise anyone who is trying to explore new opportunities or wants to build around metaverse to participate in this program. I took home a world-class experience of managing time, while experiencing to build, learn and implement new skill set,” commented Riya Agarwal, a student at IIIT Bangalore who participated in the hackathon.

Hamsika DK, a student at PES University, Bengaluru added, “This event provided insights of how virtual reality can be used to solve many real problems in industrial, medical and educational domains, which helped in the exchange of so many new ideas and implementations.”

Future opportunities

The Bangalore chapter plans future events. For subsequent sessions, they would like to increase the number of volunteers, conduct more publicity in advance of the event, offer more frequent workshops, and hold sessions that last longer than a week—ideally it would take a few months to implement certain ideas. Finally, said Appaji, “All the solutions must be archived for participants to reuse the existing solutions and build on it instead of starting from scratch.”