Imagine planning a trip to Disneyland in Paris on a Friday post-work and spending the night exploring the amusement park and its best rides in real --- without needing to take a leave from work or spending on expensive flight tickets. This and a lot more are possible in the metaverse. Larsen & Toubro Infotech (LTI) has already started working on such projects, testing concepts proof for clients, while helping some early adopters evaluate ‘Metaverse First’ strategies.
LTI will be providing services across consulting, building and designing the clients’ metaverse platforms. Metaverse design broadly involves imagining the digital world and its various components, including 3D digital asset models of the things in that world to get the touch and feel, making it appear as immersive and real as possible.
“We are building use cases across different industries and domains. Some of our work includes industry-specific use cases like virtual storefronts, employee onboarding and collaboration, virtual event and concert spaces, fantasy worlds to reimagine travel, and more. We are partnering with clients to conceptualize, design and develop these use cases across platform, including Decentraland, AltspaceVR, Spatial and more,” Nachiket Deshpande, Whole-Time Director & COO, LTI, told BusinessLine.
Deshpande added, “As part of the offerings, LTI is focused on helping clients with metaverse strategy, including use case identification and ROI, metaverse platform strategy, blockchain and NFT consulting, metaverse design, including concept and art direction, environment and 3D Asset Modelling, metaverse platform architecture, and metaverse build including AR/VR/ XR implementations, digital twins services, blockchain implementations, asset tokenization, and more.”
Enhancing other services
LTI has set up a dedicated ‘Metaverse Practice’ unit, helping the company enable immersive experience -based services not just AR/VR, but also services around Crypto, NFTs and Blockchain projects. The enablement services will focus on AI/ML, IoT, Cloud and 5G in the metaverse context.
Deshpande further said , “The unit is conceptualized to not only develop and nurture Metaverse capabilities but also unifies LTI’s strengths around the areas of design, implementation, and blockchain.”
“Metaverse enables several use cases and possibilities. For instance, securing and monetizing IP using NFT or Blockchain is emerging in the retail sector. In the manufacturing sector, Metaverse-based collaborative CAD product development finds a ready use case. Insurance companies are exploring Metaverse from the perspective of NFTs insurance policy backed by cryptocurrency settlements,” he said.
Hiring Plans
For the new unit, LTI relies on a mix of experts and graduates from its Shoshin learning school, where it has set up ‘Dojos’ where these new concepts could be learnt and practised.
“This is mix of home-grown experts as well as we are actively hiring experts across Experience, Economy, and Enablement domains. In addition, as part of our Shoshin learning school, LTI has heavily invested into learning and development areas to build this capability in-house. We have setup Dojos where concepts around Unity, NFTs, Crypto can be learnt and practiced,” Deshpande said.