Working Paper: From the United States to Europe: Collaboration Is Key for the Metaverse to Succeed

This is the 3rd milestone report of our 2023/24 Charlemagne Prize Academy Fellow, Elena Bascone, in which she explores the critical role of public-private collaboration in driving innovation, while offering actionable solutions and highlighting successful international partnerships in the technology sector.

Executive summary of the problem and proposed solutions:
1. Hypothesis testing: Why collaboration is key for innovation and needs to be maximized (This section includes a definition of European consortiums and a new application of Nash’s equilibrium on innovation, reviewed with ETH’s Master student Federico Arangath)

2. Case studies: Looking to the past at artificial intelligence in Japan and the present of extended reality in Europe (This section includes contributions from Prof. em. for East Asian Economic Studies / Japan and Korea Werner Pascha and IT company DWorldVR)

3. Solutions for the public and private sector: To-do list in detail

4. Adjunctive solution: Reinforcing the Euro - American friendship in the tech sector

5. Highlighting the results of the collaborative work done by international organizations and looking to the future with hope (This section includes a chat with Irkali Beridze, Head of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at UNICRI Irakli Beridze)

Elena's research is supported by:

• CEPS, host institution
• Federico Arangath, Master student at ETH focusing on mathematics and AI
• DWorld VR
• Prof. em. Werner Pascha, Universität Duisburg-Essen
• Irakli Beridze, Head of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at UNICRI
• Luca del Monte, Senior Executive, ESA
• Prof. Elena Calandri, University of Padova
• Dr Yu Yuan, Initiator and Chairman of IEEE-ISTO Masa
• Joan O' Hara, Senior Vice President for Public Policy, XR Association