Education
- Cornell University, 2010, Bachelor of Science, Computer Science
- University of Michigan, 2012, Masters of Engineering, Software Architecture
- World of Bizquest, 35th level commercial banker, with certificates of achievement in credit analysis (Gold), interest rate risk management (Gold), financial instruments (Silver), and fixed income investing (Platinum).
What would a virtual world need to be like to make such a resume snippet attractive to a major commercial bank? Well, for starters, the world would have to give participants an opportunity to learn about real world banking. Second Life and Entropia are fascinating places, and Anshe Chung is doing some impressive stuff. But as far as I know, neither world provides much opportunity to learn about interest rate swaps, duration matching and other staples of Wall Street banking. A world would have to be specifically designed to teach these topics, no doubt sacrificing other other aspects of virtual worlds.
Such a world would also have to a way of certifying players personal achievements. The certifications would have to be meaningful and credible. Thus, they would have to be more narrow than "leveling" in most games (pertaining to specific skills), and would also have to represent the learning of the human player, not the inworld avatar. (When a mage levels up in an RPG, the human player does not actually gain new magical powers. But a player receiving a gold certificate in financial instruments would need to be able to securitize a portfolio of loans and determine the appropriate prices and risks of the various securities created.)
A world that allows a computer science student to become attractive to a commerical bank won't take advantage of everything that virtual worlds can do. Judging from comments on my first and second posts, I don't think such a world would be particularly interesting to some TerraNovans, like Douglas, Prokofy, Thomas Malaby, or more generally, to those who are interested primarily in the cultural aspects of virtual worlds and their emergent properties.
But I suspect such a world would be of interest to many of the others (like Michael, Ted, whomever, Landon, Timothy, Tom) who focused on the more practical difficulties of creating a world that is controlled enough to focus on particular business issues, while still being rich enough capture the complexities of real-world business.
I think there the technology and market exist for a such a world. Would it be turn-based and web-based (rather than continuous and 3D-world based), as Ola and some others have asked? I don't yet know enough about alternative technologies, server loads, etc., to have an opinion on the 2D/3D issue. But I know that many business settings (like financial markets) are way too dynamic to be turn based.
Thoughts?
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