Why does the Citiverse Matter?

Bas Boorsma.

Bas Boorsma

Several decades of digitally powered change has resulted in a system shift in the way we work, live, produce, serve, entertain, move, educate and communicate. And while we are still coming to terms with the impact of it all – both on the positives and negatives that have come on the back of the previous wave of digitalization – the next system shift is already making its impact felt. Once again a new wave of digital technologies is set to impact our economies, our societies, our cities. And amidst that new wave, I would like to say: welcome to the CitiVerse.

It has been said that the first decades of digitalization were about calculation, and that the following series of decades will be about virtualization and simulation. The Citiverse program leader at the City of Rotterdam, Roland van der Heijden, has been one of those leading the perspective that cities have been expressed in two dimensions for as long as they have existed: the physical dimension, in which you can touch, feel, smell, and physically live and work, and the social one – culture, exchange of ideas, trade. For the first time in the history of human-kind, cities now increasingly are being expressed and defined in a third dimension:the digital one.

Digital renderings of physical things have been around for a long time – they typically have served as early tools to analyse, design, create and better understand, say, a molecule, chromosomes or an architectural design for a building. These tools have helped optimize an old, purely physical world. Yet we are about to embark on a system shift yet again: the emergence of a full digital rendering of our environments in which we live, learn, work, entertain, befriend, care, build, trade, in which we immerse ourselves. And all of this is not happening in isolation from the old physical and social environment: it is impacting those old dimensions deeply. It cuts both ways: the old city serves as the starting point for our digital renderings and realm but the digital, virtualized realm also profoundly impacts the physical, social city as we know it. As such, the evolving Citiverse isn’t merely a means, a tool – it is becoming an outcome.

Depending on who you ask, the ‘Citi’ part of the term Citiverse refers to both cities and citizens. It is about us, about us as citizens, urbanites, us as human beings living our lives in a broader, physical and virtualized realm. The term is a conscious step away from the generic term Metaverse which evokes the image of headsets and big tech companies. The Citiverse concept has been introduced to remind us that the digitalization and virtualization of our world is, and must be, about our human future. And that while headsets and various types of virtual and augmented reality technology applications are welcome and are necessary, it is more about mindsets than it is about headsets. Taking on the grave responsibilities of getting the next wave of digitally driven change right, means getting the rules of engagement sorted within the concept of the Citiverse itself.

The Citiverse, as an umbrella concept, can be defined as a value-based platform that aims to foster open, interoperable and innovative virtual worlds of relevance to whatever stakeholder in both the virtual and physical realms. A platform that can be used safely, and with confidence, by people, public and private entities alike. A platform that can only succeed by leveraging a series of converging technologies effectively,including data, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and Web 3.0 ,among others. A platform that will be governed by appropriate governance for which one size will never fit all– with such governance depending on culture, values, collective aspirations and desired output. Building our Citiverse comes with great responsibility: those who dominate its development will see their image reflected in the outcome that gets produced. Please, hold a pause for thought: whose image do you want to see reflected first as you step into the Citiverse? Crafting the Citiverse is not about gadgets, nor is it about the creation of a next iteration of Second Life. It is about crafting a fair, open, responsible, wholly digitalized realm of our societies and ensuring we use the best of technologies, yet also ensuring we have the governance, the rules and the conditions that allow us to get what we collectively want. That is a big task, and no one can do it alone. So let us expand the conversation. Let us build collectively. Let us solve real issues and live up to real aspirations. Imagine what this will mean. IMAGINE the Citiverse.

Bas Boorsma.

Speaker introduction

Bas Boorsma is founder & partner at Urban Innovators Global and Professor of Practice on Urban Innovation at Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University. Bas has spent close to a quarter of a century on digitalization and the city in a whole series of functions & leadership roles and he now tries to make sense of it all.

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