On Sunday, the companies said Facebook’s parent company Meta and a French digital training company will open a “Metaverse Academy” in France in the new academic year.

Considering the next major technological development of the internet, virtual worlds refer to immersive digital worlds designed to recreate real-life through augmented or virtual reality and transform the web from 2D to 3D.

Laurent Solly, Meta’s vice president for southern Europe, told AFP that the school’s goal for the first year is to train around 100 students for free in two roles, professional immersion technology developers and support and assistive technologists.

Frederic Bardeau, co-founder and owner of French company Simplon, which has partnered with Meta, said teaching methods will be face-to-face and built around projects, with a focus on 3D and virtual world interactions.

Metaverse Academy is located in Paris, the capital, and cities such as Lyon, Marseille, and Nice. Each city trains 20 students per year.

Particular attention will be paid to diversity. Solly said the goal is for the top 30% of women to be women, while Bardeau said he doesn’t look at job applicants’ resumes and supports positive discrimination.

In October 2021, Meta said it planned to create 10,000 jobs in Europe over five years, as it established the US tech giant’s new strategic focus, Metaverse.

This goal is closely related to Metaverse in predicting employer demand for future job skills.

Meta and Simplon say that 80% of occupations that will exist by 2030 have not yet been invented, underscoring the need for training programmes now.