Bio Bio Chile
Chile
December 17, 2022
Rodrigo Quezada is a computer civil engineer who left for Australia shortly before the onset of the pandemic. There, he became involved in the world of augmented reality and decided to use it to assist both small and large companies. His key to success? Democratising the Metaverse (and Instagram filters).
It was in 2021 when Mark Zuckerberg surprised the world with his new technological strategy, which he called Meta, short for "metaverse." At that time, he announced a virtual world that would operate with avatars, NFTs, and augmented reality.
Since then, the concept has been replicated among major companies aiming to provide technology based on experiences and interaction. But is this concept as Meta presents it?
The truth is that the "Metaverse" goes far beyond virtual characters, and there were those who began exploring it even before Zuckerberg himself, who seemed to commercially appropriate it.
In early 2020, just before the pandemic, Rodrigo Quezada, a Chilean from Punta Arenas, had just arrived in Australia in search of a change in his life and something that would motivate him. With a background in computer civil engineering, he began exploring augmented reality and how it could benefit both small and large companies.
About to start studying Digital Marketing at the University of Melbourne, Rodrigo arrived in the country four days before the borders closed due to Covid. It was during quarantine and online studies that he began devising his own business based on augmented reality.
From confinement, he noticed how the majority of businesses and ventures had to migrate to online systems, a modality not everyone handled and many could not implement immediately.
Rodrigo mentioned in an interview with BioBioChile that at that time, he was precisely addressing a topic related to augmented reality in his digital marketing diploma. It "discussed how companies were using augmented reality to provide customers with a new shopping experience."
"I was very intrigued by that, started researching a bit more, and realised that these tools are quite accessible and have a significant impact on the shopping experience," he explained.
At that time, Rodrigo sought a way to connect augmented reality with businesses, work with it in a simple and accessible way, and also look for an approach that could provide benefits to users. That's how he came across Instagram filters.
"I started working on augmented reality primarily with Instagram filters, figuring out the benefits and how to sell them to small and medium businesses," he says.
These tools, in question, attract a lot of audience and, at the same time, data. "For companies, the data behind the filters is crucial because they can see how many people used that experience, their age, gender, city of origin, etc.," explains Quezada.
The latter would be a key factor to identify, with greater precision, the target audience for a business, an institution, or a campaign.
However, an augmented reality-based filter is just one of several components that serve as pillars for the metaverse, and Rodrigo had to figure out how to connect them.
Subsequently, he began researching how to establish a business in the foreign country, which he discovered was much easier than in Chile, as the government encourages technological initiatives and the work of international students.
After creating a website and connecting with local organisations such as the Melbourne library, he started attracting attention from some media and institutions that saw the potential in his project. "That's when I said, 'Hey, this is taking off,'" he says.
Similarly, he managed to enter a mentorship program at the University of Melbourne, where his business began to grow exponentially and attracted its first clients.
"As clients started coming in, I realised that The Metaverse is a very complex topic to explain. People always think of avatars, but it goes much further," he assures.So what I did was break down the entire metaverse into several components that are easier to explain. I explained them one by one, and that made sense to Australians. They understood it a bit more, and that's when this really took off," he adds.
This term, as the expert explains, originated in a 1992 novel called "Snow Crash" written by Neal Stephenson. The fiction revolves around a computer failure referred to as "infocalypse" in the plot, and the cyberspace is called the "Metaverse."
"That's where the term comes from. However, nowadays, there's obviously marketing and the whole technological aspect that has been growing exponentially. So, the big companies saw this opportunity, and the first to take the step was Facebook. That's why it changed its name to Meta and invested 10 billion dollars," he explains.
Due to this global campaign, the concept began to be marketed as a virtual universe of avatars, even though it encompasses various aspects and is used with different focuses. In fact, the impact was such that the vast majority of people immediately associate the Metaverse with Zuckerberg.
"All major technology companies are working on The Metaverse—Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia; each with a different approach," admits Quezada. Although he, on the other hand, took a step before, with augmented reality.
The expert defines the latter as one of the four pillars he uses to explain the Metaverse to his clients, aiming to make the information simpler, practical, and accessible.
These four pillars precisely correspond to augmented reality, virtual reality, NFTs, and the physical structure, which is what supports virtual spaces, such as a server or smart devices.
"So when I explain it in that way, people understand it much better. And of course, I am now in the first one because what I seek in the democratisation of The Metaverse is for the person to understand it from the beginning, from the basics," he points out.
In Rodrigo's case, the focus is on creating experiences for his clients' users, with the most common being Instagram filters. However, he is open to various possibilities.
"The idea of my business is to work so that they can test their creativity; I contribute mine, and we create something together. Essentially, I help them create a virtual experience. (...) Whether it's a game, some interactive activities, or entertaining things for the customers."
Since The Metaverse boom began, entertainment was one of the initial focuses, targeting the gaming industry, music, and social networks. However, it is now also used in corporate and industrial spaces.
Companies like Nvidia, for example, have created their own systems based on The Metaverse to provide services to other clients. In this case, "Omniverse," a tool the company created to meet the demands of the industrial sector.
"It's a space where companies can plan, simulate, or create a virtual world where they can interact with the objects they are going to create. So, they use Metaverse techniques, for example, to improve the production chain or train personnel," explains Marcio Aguiar, Director of Enterprise Nvidia, to BioBioChile.
"So, for all of that, they use virtual techniques. This allows them to conduct studies more precisely, and when put into practice, it will likely be more efficient and with a clearer investment," he emphasises.
"It's a business model and a technology that is here to stay. It has always existed in the entertainment realm, but now we're talking about the corporate side. Currently, there are artificial intelligence projects, smart city initiatives, and training programs that are using these techniques," he assures.
Rodrigo Quezada's initiative, originating from Chile, has garnered attention in the foreign country, and some even suggest focusing the project on an educational aspect.
"They tell me, 'You are democratising the Metaverse for small and medium businesses, but why not democratise it so that anyone can understand it simply and from now on?'" he recounts.
The aim is to prepare users for the eventual advancement of this concept, as Meta proposes. "So that when this virtual world already exists, people understand it much better because it is a very complex issue," he assures.
"I believe that over time, if you educate from the first pillar, which is augmented reality, and go through each of them, when everything is interconnected, it will click in their heads, and they will say, 'Ah, perfect, now I understand it better,'" he concludes.
