Facebook Parent Meta to Launch Metaverse Academy, Aims to Train 100 Students in First Year

Facebook owner Meta’s Metaverse Academy will be located in Paris, Lyon, Marseille and Nice.

By Agence France-Presse | Updated: 13 June 2022 09:54 IST

Photo Credit: Reuters

Metaverse refers to an immersive digital world that aims to recreate real life

Highlights

The school's goal wants to train for free 100 students in two roles
The teaching method will be in-person and revolve around projects
Particular attention will be paid to diversity

Facebook's parent company Meta and a French digital training firm will launch a "metaverse academy" in France for the new academic year, the two organisations said on Sunday.

Seen as the internet's next great technological development, the metaverse refers to an immersive digital world that aims to recreate real life via augmented or virtual reality and take the web from 2D to 3D.

The school's goal in its first year will be to train for free around 100 students in two roles, specialist immersive technology developers and support and assistance technicians, Meta's vice president for southern Europe Laurent Solly told AFP.

Meta's First-Generation AR Glasses Will Be for Developers Only: Report

The teaching method will be in-person and revolve around projects, with a focus on the 3D world and interactions in the virtual universes, said Frederic Bardeau, co-founder and boss of Simplon, the French firm working with Meta.

Located in the capital Paris and other cities including Lyon, Marseille and Nice, the metaverse academy will train 20 students per city each year.

Particular attention will be paid to diversity. Solly said the target was for 30 percent of the first cohort to be women, while Bardeau said he would not look at applicants' CVs and endorse positive discrimination.

Meta Reportedly Probing Ex-COO Sheryl Sandberg's Use of Company Resources

In October 2021, Meta said it intended to create 10,000 jobs in Europe in five years' time to build the metaverse, the US technology giant's new strategic priority.

The goal is tied to predictions that future job skills demanded by employers will be closely tied with the metaverse.

Meta and Simplon said 80 percent of the careers that will exist in 2030 have not been invented yet, highlighting the need to develop training schemes now.

Meta's Quest 2 VR Update to Open Door to Horizon World, Says CEO

Missed Apple's WWDC 2022? We discuss every major announcement on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated - see our ethics statement for details.

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.