Beyond my role as a professor, I have had the opportunity to serve in several leadership positions in higher education over the years, if not decades. This perspective has made the impact of the Metaverse and virtual worlds on education particularly important to me, which is why I dedicated an entire section of The Virtual Universe to this topic.
Immersive environments have the potential to transform higher education in multiple ways. First, they allow educators to move beyond slides and recreate rich, real-world contexts. A negotiation class, for example, could place students in a lively bazaar, where they observe and practice bargaining in real time. In biology, students might walk through a virtual human body to better understand how organs interact. In supply chain management, they could operate within a global logistics network spanning cities such as Bogotá, Johannesburg, Hamburg, and Ho Chi Minh City, responding to disruptions and making real-time decisions.
Second, virtual worlds fundamentally reshape the learning experience, particularly in distance education. A shared virtual environment offers far more engagement than a traditional online lecture. Presence, spatial interaction, and avatars foster connection, spontaneity, and active participation. Students can meet in virtual classrooms, break into groups, and collaborate around digital objects, making remote learning more interactive and less isolating.
In the book, I highlight leading examples such as INSEAD, a leading business school and a pioneer in this space, and IE University, which stands out for its strategic integration of immersive technologies, including programs and courses delivered entirely in virtual environments.
Finally, as President and Managing Director of Kühne Logistics University, I am proud to say that we, too, are actively incorporating immersive environments into our teaching. While there is still ground to cover, especially compared to these leading examples, we are positioning ourselves as a committed and forward-looking player, steadily expanding the use of virtual environments in our courses and pedagogy.
