Mentor's Musings on Role of Standards, Regulations & Policies in Navigating Through Metaverse and its Future Avatars

The metaverse does not exist yet, and probably won’t for some years to come. But there’s enough industry interest in beginning the process toward building it — whatever it may ultimately be. The concept may seem new, but it has been under construction for decades. The metaverse will bring together diverse technologies, requiring a constellation of standards, created and maintained by many SDOs. Now is the time to start standardizing. Much to everyone’s surprise what we’re seeing is the level of interest in standards for the metaverse. I think there is a thirst, or hunger, for them. The imperative is to foster pragmatic and timely standardization that will be essential to an open and inclusive metaverse. In these early stages of development of the metaverse, it is important to define the operating principles, standards and ways of working as we go forward. Frameworks that account for openness, interoperability and safety are fundamental to long-term sustainability and success of these shared ecosystems and communities.