Nina Jane Patel is a definition of selflessness, strength and passion for the safety and preservation of many generations to come. Against all odds, she has become a voice for the shaping of the Metaverse. As a researcher, she is concerned about how this technology integrates into our lives and she applies an evidence-based approach to this. She sees the evolution of this technology and the way it’s being used as a collective responsibility as she puts it in her words: the intentional use of the technology to elevate one’s life. If we focus on how to use technology to improve our lives then we together can build something that does not take away the aspects of what it means to be a human being. She would be talking about Metaverse, its usefulness and how we can be part of this evolution in this exclusive interview with Jane Onoh
Please tell us your name and about yourself.
I am Nina Jane Patel, Vp of the Metaverse research community, keystone speaker, a doctorate researcher and a movement psychotherapist.
What inspired you into the Metaverse space?
To work within the conversation of the Metaverse, as a researcher I love to work with a company that’s educational and also uses the components of the technology to integrate it into children’s academic programs from ages 8 to 16.
I believe in immersing the power of technology to elevate life while giving psychological support for what it is to be human in the digital environment.
How do you prefer to define the Metaverse?
I prefer to refer to the metaverse as the concept of devising a technology that we step into the digital environment wearing some sort of hardware which is usually a virtual reality headset; stepping into the virtual space and engaging with other human beings in a digital 360-degree virtual environment. My concept of it is 3-dimensional entering into space.
Do the avatars act on their own or are they interconnected to the physical world?
Based on the Metaverse-created platform where we have to put on headsets and enter, the avatar is connected to you, to your physical self by the means of the hardware, the headset. Your digital representation (your avatar) responds to how you are using the hardware in the physical.
I understand that the Metaverse can be a getaway for some children. How do you intend to protect children psychologically from having moments of pleasure, freedom and returning depressed in reality? Can the Metaverse be a place to inspire people to face reality?
Courtesy demands that more research is conducted in this area before we can assume everything is going to be fine and when it comes to how our children integrate the use of the technology in their lives. Where we are is a point where we need to learn from history how we can integrate the use of technology by asking these questions. We need to adopt some research to help us better understand the technology and how we can use it in our lives.
What made you share the traumatic experience you had on the horizon?
Why I shared my story is to prevent damage and trauma from happening to other people, especially children, in our digital spaces as the Metaverse continues to grow and expand and integrate into our lives more.
My mission and purpose are to help us think more and put safeguard and balanced checks in place, to understand and generate a technology that supports a healthy balanced future for children in digital spaces.
We have a concept of what it means to be a child growing up with the internet but we don’t understand what it means to be a child growing up with the Metaverse.
Will the Metaverse be beneficial to the 3rd world countries?
Absolutely, in terms of supporting children with technology that they can have access to. I believe the technology should be accessible to children in 3rd world countries. As a company, we seek to support UN goal number 4 and build a system that works for people in the 3rd world countries as well, so that we are not left with systems that do not work.
There are layers of thinking that require not only structures, it may take several years and beyond to be able to create a Metaverse that is a full service to the entire globe. It is truly a huge task.
The Metaverse is a fully functional economy, what are the possibilities of this digital economy affecting the physical economy?
Yes, the compelling aspect of the Metaverse is about building bridges between the physical world and the digital world; and how they can become more seamless and interactable to use. So, yes there would be an impact.
From my perspective, the biggest shifts first will be on human behaviour. Whether this technology is either fully immersed in or augmented into AI will affect human behaviour and interaction, and that is where we begin to see how it impacts other systems such as financial models. At the end of the day, we will see massive changes that happen on a large scale. However, this technology has a lot of positive impacts on our lives from education to health care down to work, there is a broad spectrum of possibilities of improving current systems and how it’s delivered. We have had systems built before that did not prioritize our needs as individuals and communities, we have to demand this time from this evolution of technology on ground, for systems that prioritize the needs of individuals and communities over every other thing.
Nina Jane Patel
Does the emergence of the metaverse prove a threat to norms which people, culture, and communities hold high?
With new technology comes the fear of teaching human behaviour. We need to think about how the technology is going to integrate into our lives. The possibilities are as obvious. However, should question its usefulness to uphold values that we hold dear to us; that’s why I advocate for the intentional use of the technology to elevate one’s life. If we focus on how to use technology to improve our lives then we together can build something that does not take away the aspects of what it means to be a human being. This world has been built, there will be opportunities for your children in the next generation to be able to put on whatever the hardware looks like in their time and travel to anywhere they want in the world. So, it’s important that you have a voice in the shaping of what this world will look like because if it’s led by some demographic set of people, then that will be all that will be available to use in the future and our children and next generations will not have a full spectrum of opportunities and possibilities in the context of the Metaverse. It will be limited to a certain subset of people and create systems that will offer them and no one else.
How can one play a role in the shaping of this digital world?
Every digital interaction we have, every click you make, every purchase you make digitally are data that can be analyzed in the shaping of what the next generation is going to become in the Metaverse. So everyone who makes use of social media is part of shaping and building the future of the Metaverse. So we need to become conscious and responsible for those digital decisions and interactions we make and use it to shape the future of the Metaverse because our children are going to have to deal with our choices in the future.
Tell us more about Kabuni, your progress and what we should expect next
Kabuni is currently in research development. We believe in an evidence-based approach to the integration of Metaverse technology into children’s lives. We are collaboratively co-producing our technology with educators, parents and children to co-create a Metaverse academic space.
The purpose of our platform is to support education and elevate our current educational system. We have partnered with universities and academic institutions to support our process and progress to the ethical use of the technology in children’s lives. We currently have about 5000 students integrated into our program and we hope to do more in the future.
Her advice:
It’s important to have these conversations open to people’s awareness around the world about how the Metaverse is being built. To consider the implications of how the Metaverse is currently being built and how they can be involved in that process by sharing their experiences and speaking out on how platforms such as the Metaverse are working out for them. Because now is the time to build.
