MetaCampus: The interactive platform that will revolutionize your digital events
"Major technological innovation", "natural evolution of the Internet", "economic, sociological and media buzz": the worlds of the metaverse are constantly in the news.
Les Fontaines was interested in new models for designing digital and hybrid professional events. The result is MetaCampus, an interactive platform at the frontier between the real and the virtual.
Let us surprise you!
To bring this project to fruition, Les Fontaines' expertise in designing professional events was combined with the technological achievement of computer programming company MAZE.
Interview with Bertrand Cheyrou, President of Les Fontaines and Antoine Simon, Co-founder of MAZE.
What is MetaCampus?
Bertrand Cheyrou: "The MetaCampus is first and foremost a virtual digital platform on the edge of reality, where people can meet, work and develop human warmth.
Antoine Simon: "Yes, it's a space for collaboration and sharing, for connecting with colleagues and living a digital experience via a personalized avatar. A privatized metaverse of sorts!"
Why did you create MetaCampus?
BC: "The ever-changing world of events adapted very quickly when the pandemic began. With confinements, telecommuting and health protocols, the professional meeting had to reinvent itself via digital. But pure digital has its limits. It's top-down and a bit limiting. We dreamed of a new, playful, interactive space, where participants would once again be at the heart of the event, autonomous, and where they could develop their attention and commitment."
AS: "The idea was also to create this platform while retaining the best of digital technology - a videoconference, for example - and providing it with the formidable framework it lacked: the digital assurance of having the same organizational arrangements as a face-to-face event. Plus the soul of Les Fontaines!
BC: "Indeed, the soul of Les Fontaines is of paramount importance to us. Our current customers are very attached to our place. This platform only made sense if it included the codes and markers of the site, such as the Château and the Forum."
In concrete terms, what are the platform's features?
A platform for learning, entertainment and exchange
BC: "The MetaCampus is a place where we can train, meet, converge, diverge, organize team-buildings..."
AS: "...Relax, go for a walk, play games, take part in alternative workshops such as yoga or sports awakenings..."
BC: "...Your participants will be able to use their avatars to move around as they wish, in defined, designed spaces. They'll be able, for example, to enjoy the morning light over the château... which changes over time. You'll organize their days between scheduled workshops and plenary sessions led by facilitators/orators, and moments of informal exchange where they can chat with other participants they've met "by chance"!"
AS: "Bertrand is right to talk about informal encounters: this virtual platform does indeed provide the opportunity for "positive collisions" between participants. The unexpected, the informal, the 'happy accident' of meeting - in short, everything that makes a face-to-face event so special and boosts the feeling of belonging to a group - becomes possible when you take part in a MetaCampus event."
A platform where space is no longer a limit
BC: "We have plenty of fun, easily accessible places to work, meet and relax. In terms of events, the field is wide open. Access to the library, playing the piano in the castle bar, taking part in a plenary session with 500 participants, or an impromptu get-together with a handful of colleagues - it's all possible, easy, and encourages interaction, boosts curiosity, energizes and creates emulation...just as a face-to-face event would!"
AS: "I'd even go so far as to say that some virtual functions are impossible in the real world. Fancy an evening of karaoke after the last meeting? Not necessarily in the real world, but perfectly possible in the virtual world!
Organize 2 events for 500 people at the same time and in the same place? Impossible in real life, but possible in the virtual world... since the MetaCampus can be cloned ad infinitum.
MetaCampus combines the best of both worlds. Above all, it takes care not to "degrade" the real experience by going virtual: your e-seminar will indeed be a different experience than a face-to-face one, but no less good."
BC: "Indeed, MetaCampus is a bridge between the real and the virtual. As one complements the other, your hybrid events will become "premium" for your participants who can't travel."
Technologically, what has been implemented?
AS: "The MetaCampus is a technological feat...that doesn't show!
We've obviously made sure that access to this platform is as simple and intuitive as possible, and aimed at participants from all walks of life, equipped with just a computer.
Technology is forgotten in favor of an interface focused on people and encounters.
With several modes of exchange (video, audio, written), we make participants autonomous, while guiding them: Event Managers will play the role of coordinators, as in the real world, by authorizing access to certain areas and functions, according to the day's schedule.
What's important to remember is that with MetaCampus, it's the relationship that's digitalized. It's the exchange that's at the heart of our concerns.
BC: "I'd like to add that all this technology at the service of human encounters is also at the service of the planet. Less energy-consuming than a journey, the MetaCampus is a creation that fits in perfectly with the eco-responsible commitment put into practice by Les Fontaines almost 20 years ago.
In fact, we work with an independent French data hosting provider whose responsible values are identical to our own. This was a key point for us.
AS: "Simplicity. Interactivity. Technology. Ecology. These notions are no longer antagonistic in these metaverse worlds that are whetting international appetites!"
BC: "And on our scale, it's the stimulation, autonomy and human exchange that we're sharpening with virtual campus...made by Les Fontaines !"
As you can see, from Campus to MetaCampus, there's a virtual bridge to cross. Our teams are ready to accompany you on your journey!