Jump Into the Metaverse and Learn Educational Content Your Way

TL; DR: If you grew up with computers, you’ve probably played an educational program or two. In my time, we had websites like CoolMath4Kids and animated computer lab programs. Today, students are using open world games like Minecraft to learn. But what about for the future? Well, they will have Edverse. Edverse is an immersive, VR-based educational landscape that brings the classroom to the student, no matter where they are. We spoke with Rishab Kapur, Co-Founder and VP of Strategic Alliances at Edverse, about the metaverse platform and how it gives students the freedom to learn what they choose.

Games are not only mediums of entertainment but also education. Some of the best ways to learn are through games. As a matter of fact, gamification can promote cognitive development and engagement among students.

As a kid, I would always look forward to the Fridays for computer lab and math. That’s because we would have a gamified learning experience that took boring subject matter like algebra and made it super engaging.

One website in particular was one of my top learning programs — and that was CoolMath4Kids. You could master everything from fractions to divisions just by playing alien or racing games. You can imagine how excited and blown away my third-grade mind was that this qualified as learning.

Edverse takes the elementary gamified learning experience and amplifies it to the next level. I mean literally. It not only integrates gamification into higher education environments such as universities and institutions but it also immerses classrooms into the world of the metaverse.

Before Edverse, the Edverse founders worked with different businesses, including Pearson and Oxford University Press, to set up VR-based education models for middle school students. That was the team’s first foray into gamified learning using immersive technologies.

With Edverse, the team decided to take virtual education to the masses.

“The idea is that you can go into a metaverse city, learn about any course or any topic that you want, and each of these cities is decentralized. So we’re not controlling which courses or institutions are listed,” said Rishab Kapur, CoFounder and VP of Strategic Alliances at Edverse.

Although Edverse is still in the conceptual stage, it has already built a layered and solid foundation for institutions to leverage and help students learn different topics. Below, we’ll explore the educational metaverse and find out what it’s all about.

Imagine obtaining a college degree through metaverse. Seems pretty futuristic, huh? Not so much, as the team at Edverse is already creating that future. As the world’s largest education metaverse, Edverse seeks to make education open, interactive, and immersive for students.

Launched in 2022, Edverse has a complete vision fleshed out. But the platform is still a work in progress because building an expansive metaverse with hundreds of topics takes time. We’re talking about a complete universe here (like Marvel’s size).

Rishab told us Edverse will have 21 different cities, which will be knowledge hubs for different subjects and topics. These 21 different cities will be split up across three eras. Here is how the unique vision for these eras will come to life:

• Ancient era: This era will house seven cities that will focus on ancient teachings, history, philosophies, social sciences, and how these topics originated.
• Modern era: These are six cities that will focus on the present day, including occupations and the skills that come with them.
• Future era: The last subset will be the futuristic cities. These eight cities will focus on the education of the future.

“Within these eras, you have different cities which could have formal or informal learning or just a skill or a hobby. So these different cities represent a collection of those kinds of courses and institutions,” said Rishab.

As of now, Edverse has a central land with a library of more than 1,000 3D learning journeys. You can put on your VR headset, launch Edverse, and learn everything from plant cells and human anatomy to the architecture of the Taj Mahal and interior design.

“We have those journeys created with hotspots that can be accessed through your laptop or VR. So those are available today,” said Rishab.

Edverse is for everyone. Rishab told us Edverse is an open platform that runs on community feedback. Although the team has prebuilt models and journeys, other institutions can submit and publish their own 3D, interactive models.

“If an institute wants to come in and publish a course on human anatomy, we allow them to publish that course completely on their own. We can even support them with a creator tool,” said Rishab.

All creators have to do is upload the model and add a learning hotspot. Once the creator publishes its course on the Edverse marketplace, which was recently released, anyone can view it.

With Edverse, it’s all about what you want to explore. Like open world games, it gives you the freedom to go at your own pace and try out different things you couldn’t otherwise in traditional settings.

“We allow you the complete freedom to customize your learning journey. You want to learn painting? You want to learn fine arts or mix it with statistics to show a different kind of shape? Well, go ahead,” said Rishab.

In traditional schools, your schedule and classes are usually set in stone for the rest of the school year. For example, in college, I could only choose six classes per semester and only had a week to switch out one if I didn’t like it.

However, in the Edverse, you can take a different approach. There are no rules or restrictions on what you can learn. You can choose the classroom you want to sit in on and tailor your learning experience to your needs on a day-to-day basis.

Edverse is also excellent for subjects that require visual learning, such as interior design and advertising. Rishab said Edverse gives users a serious advantage in these topics because they can test out subject material and showcase learned skills in real time.

“You’ll find most of our workshops are related to marketing or related to interior design. We’ve seen a phenomenal response to these particular topics more than anything else,” said Rishab.

Edverse places the power of education in your hands. It is able to offer this high level of flexibility and customization because of one of its core building blocks — blockchain technology.

“You can prove that you’re good at all of these different subjects and skills with a single profile which is recorded on chain. So this is the kind of freedom that we wanted to give our users by putting their entire learning journey on blockchain,” said Rishab.

Certificates and Degrees on the Blockchain

Rishab told us using blockchain technology has helped Edverse take the hassle out of transcript and degree verification.

Many people when applying for a job or grad school often run into issues while tracking down transcripts and verifying education. It’s a long, manual process that involves a lot of intermediaries, which can result in drawn-out turnaround times.

“So we plan to have certificates and degrees listed on the blockchain, and that ensures authenticity and easy verification without any manual intervention,” said Rishab.

Blockchain technology is integral to the Edverse vision. It will help the team not only streamline certification processes but also allow its users to track and record the different skills they learn, so they can learn more and not worry about credits.

“It also helps recruiters analyze what your strengths and weaknesses are. It helps you showcase your portfolio without any doubt about your authenticity. So that’s where I think this idea of e degrees on chain really helps,” said Rishab.

As Rishab has said, Edverse is in the concept and design stages. Although the platform has a massive collection of learning journeys, the team still has work to do to develop the expansive universe it has envisioned.

Edverse is an ambitious project. But good thing the Edverse team has something to motivate it — to prove the naysayers wrong.

“There are some institutions that are doing it but not on a large scale because people think metaverse education is too complex to adopt or it’s not going to be widespread. If we make it easy, we can partner with institutions to get it done. It’s going to be adopted,” said Rishab.

For now, the Edverse team is holding off on building out the 3D walkthrough and cities portion of the platform. Instead, it is currently working on expanding the learning experience to give users instant access to the classroom.

The second objective on the road map is creating a better experience for educators. Rishab said Edverse seeks to give teachers more customizability with lesson plans and the platform in general.

“As an educator, I want something customized to me when I get onto the platform. I want certain 3D assets and a marketplace where I can pick them up and put them into my class, as easy as a drag and drop. And that’s what we’ve made,” said Rishab.

The team is also working on making this process seamless and interconnected. So if an institute comes to Edverse and asks for a unique combination of learning journeys, it can have it just like that.

“We are assimilating everything. Over the next few months, we’re going to bring all our journeys across VR and our website under a single umbrella and app with everything automated because right now everything is manual,” said Rishab.