March 3, 2022
BANGKOK – The university said on Tuesday that its future students will face no limits in studying in the virtual world inside the metaverse campus where they can go back in time to study history or carry out social experiments, among other possibilities.
Thammasat and its business partner, Brandverse Co Ltd, held a press conference at its Rangsit campus on Tuesday, to announce the T-Verse: Thailand Multiverse Bridge Platform, on which the university’s fifth campus will be built.
Thammasat rector Gasinee Witoonchart said the project is a result of cooperation involving more than 52 government agencies, universities and private organisations.
She said the cooperation would use new technology related to metaverse to build a bridge platform for businesses, education, and various activities to be possible on the T-Verse virtual reality universe and the cooperation would allow the country to develop its technologies along with the people’s quality of life.
She said the Thammasat Metaverse Campus will be opened at the university’s 88th anniversary celebrations this year.
The campus will provide education to both Thais and people around the world on the T-Verse platform, which will allow students to quickly and conveniently access all knowledge, researches and innovations of the university.
Vice rector Assoc Prof Dr Surat Teerakapibal said this would be the fifth Thammasat campus, alongside the four current campuses at Tha Phra Chan, Rangsit, Lampang, and Pattaya.
Surat said the metaverse campus will enhance teaching at the university in four aspects: provide immersive learning classrooms, provide virtual reality (VR) museums for historical, cultural and democratic learning, provide next generation omnichannel marketplace, and enhance its 88 Sandbox Spaces programme.
He said the immersive learning classrooms will overcome limits in the real world, especially for medical learning. For example, medical students can learn from VR human body instead of having to learn from real bodies, whose numbers are on the decline.
He added that social study students can also conduct social experiments in the virtual reality world without affecting real people in the outside world.
Surat said the VR museums would allow students to go back in time to study history, culture and democracy in context in the VR world without having to learn by heart.
He added that the concept of the next generation omnichannel market place would enhance Thammasat’s years of support of businesses of communities.
For example, communities can sell their traditional Pha Zin cloth as an NFT digital asset in the virtual world of Thammasat campus and when a buyer buys the cloth to drape her avatar, the real cloth would be sent to her house door.
Surat added that the virtual world of Thammasat would allow the university to enhance its 88 Sandbox project by allowing startup entrepreneurs to meet and discuss with their mentors and venture capitalists in the metaverse. They will be able to pitch, hold meetings and other activities among startups and mentors, for example.
Brandverse CEO Natthaset Traithipcharoenchai said the metaverse in Thailand is possible with the cooperation of universities, government agencies and the private sector. The project has received support from the Department of International Trade Promotion and the National Innovation Agency.
He said the T-Verse will be the first metaverse platform for all to use to design their metaverse worlds and users can use the T-Verse platform to cross among the metaverses.
He said the T-Verse will link 13 universes with 985 stars or metaverse worlds.
The Thailand metaverse project is now in the second phase with the launch of the T-Verse platform, he added.
The third phase will be launched in the second or third quarter with the launch of T-Verse coins and when the fourth phase starts, Thailand metaverse will be linked to international metaverses, Natthaset said.