Meta, Seoul National University jointly set up XR research center

Meta Platforms Inc., formerly known as Facebook, and Seoul National University (SNU) jointly launched an extended reality (XR) research center in South Korea. Meta’s Korean unit said on Wednesday that the center, XR Hub Korea, will focus on XR and metaverse policy research.   

The center will create networks of global XR experts in industry and academia and support them to exchange opinions on privacy and data protection in the metaverse. It will hold a collaborative brainstorming event “design jam” in September and November to discuss the ethical collection and use of online users’ biometric data.

Meta and SNU will co-host a policy hackathon and metaverse conference in the second half of 2023. The policy hackathon, a brainstorming event to share creative ideas, will cover issues such as economic opportunities, privacy, safety & integrity and equity & inclusion in the metaverse. The metaverse conference will support the networking of researchers who study metaverse-related policies.

SNU will set up XR Experience Center in its central library for both academic research and experience. The university will also hold XR innovation contests to accelerate finding experts and developing technologies.

Last September, Meta announced it launched XR Programs and Research Fund with $50 million to collaborate with industry partners, civil groups, governments, nonprofits and academic institutions to build XR technologies responsibly. SNU was among the initial partners of Meta. 

Write to Seung-Woo Lee at leeswoo@hankyung.com
Jihyun Kim edited this article.