Yongsan-gu and KT, the Secret to Successfully Hosting a Metaverse Online Sports Day?

Utilizing KT RealCube Devices Installed... Event Held Dividing Children and Seniors... Children's Competition Won by Yongsan-gu Office Workplace Daycare Center

[Asia Economy Reporter Jongil Park] Yongsan-gu (Mayor Seong Jang-hyun) and KT (CEO Koo Hyun-mo) successfully held a Metaverse online sports event from the 21st to the 23rd.

Metaverse is a compound word of ‘meta,’ meaning virtual or abstract, and ‘universe,’ meaning the real world, referring to a ‘3D virtual world.’

The district and KT used the previously installed KT Real Cube devices to conduct the event, dividing participants into children and seniors.

First, the children’s competition was held on the 21st and 22nd at four locations: Yongsan-gu Office, Yongsan-gu Childcare Support Center, Yongsan-gu Community Childcare Sharing Center, and Yongsan-gu Malgeun Forest Daycare Center.

The events included ▲‘Cleaning Operation,’ where participants clean up trash in a virtual environment ▲‘Bubble Ocean 2,’ where players throw balls or touch walls to pop bubbles ▲‘Wall Push,’ which requires quickly touching popping walls ▲‘Color Switch,’ where players change wall colors within a limited time ▲and ‘Goal In,’ where balls are put into moving holes.

Sixteen local daycare centers (10?15 children per facility) participated, competing in real-time networked matches.

The championship was won by the Yongsan-gu Office Workplace Daycare Center, with Hannam, Ichon, and Baeksong Daycare Centers placing second to fourth. These four daycare centers will receive the mayor’s commendation next month. KT also promised to provide necessary teaching materials and tools to the daycare centers.

The seniors’ competition took place on the 23rd at the Yongsan-gu Dementia Safety Center. Ten seniors using the center participated, competing alongside seniors from Gangnam-gu, Dongdaemun-gu, and Daegu Jung-gu.

The events included Bubble Ocean 2, Goal In, Wall Push, and Cleaning Operation, with the district’s Dementia Safety Center team placing third out of four teams.

Baek Ki-dong, Executive Director of KT Enterprise’s Space and Video Digital Transformation (DX) Business Division, said, “We held the Real Cube Metaverse sports event to provide children and seniors with an immersive communication experience beyond time and space,” adding, “We will offer a better future to customers through various technologies and services.”

Seong Jang-hyun, Mayor of Yongsan-gu, said, “Cutting-edge information and communication technology (ICT) is transforming our lives,” and added, “We will continue to collaborate with KT to enhance smart childcare administration and cognitive and emotional functions for seniors with dementia.”

Last July, the district and KT established an ‘Artificial Intelligence (AI) Experience Zone’ at the district’s Dementia Safety Center. The experience zone is located on the second basement floor of the district office building in the Dementia Family Healing Cafe, where dementia patients and their families can use Real Cube, Super VR, Giga Genie, kiosks (unmanned ordering machines), and robot dolls.

Additionally, in December last year, they created a ‘Real Cube Experience Zone’ for children on the 10th floor Kids Zone of Yongsan-gu Office and the 2nd floor Childcare Support Center of Yongsan Dream Tree Complex Town.

In the first half of this year, the experience zones were expanded to the Yongsan-gu Community Childcare Sharing Center and the Malgeun Forest Daycare Center.

Real Cube is a device that allows users to experience mixed reality (MR) without separate equipment like AR glasses. It consists of a computer, sensors, a beam projector, and speakers.

It helps users engage in physical and learning activities by moving between reality and virtual through games.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.