How Metaverse-enabled product innovation can support longevity
Written by AGORA doctoral candidate Zafeiria Karlou Contemporary societies are experiencing a profound demographic transformation characterized by declining fertility rates and rapidly increasing life expectancy (World Economic Outlook, 2025). This shift has produced what is commonly referred to as a demographic crisis: a growing aging population relative to the working-age population. According to global projections, […]
Who Shapes the Metaverse? How Developers Are Quietly Rewriting the Rules on Roblox
By Milena Di Nenno, AGORA DC14 on Metaverse and Responsible Business Models, hosted by Innov-acts Ltd and pursuing her PhD at Cyprus University of Technology (CUT) The metaverse promises to be one of the most transformative shifts in how we work, socialise, create, and transact online. But who actually gets to decide what it looks […]
Metaverse’s missing ingredient: Responsibility
By Milena Di Nenno, AGORA Doctoral Candidate on Metaverse and Responsible Business Models, hosted by INNOV-ACTS LTD and pursuing her PhD at Cyprus University of Technology (CUT). In March 2026, Meta announced that Horizon Worlds, the virtual social platform at the heart of Mark Zuckerberg’s much-publicised bet on the metaverse, would be removed from Quest […]
When a Virtual Walkthrough Meets the Enterprise System
Why immersive retail needs more than a good visual experience By Ioannis Perachoritis, DC11 Agora Doctoral Network, Cyprus University of Technology Immersive retail often appears, at first glance, to be a matter of visual experience: the virtual showroom, the 360° walkthrough, the interactive product, and the smoot movement through a digital space. The promise is […]
From the courtroom to the Metaverse: why I left legal practice to explore the future of privacy?
If someone had told me a few years ago that I would leave behind an active legal career in Greece to research biometric privacy in the Metaverse, I probably would not have believed them. At the time, my world was very different. My days revolved around courtrooms, legal files, clients, deadlines and the constant intensity […]
The Distribution Problem in Immersive Media
Why award-winning VR rarely finds its audience and what my PhD is trying to do about it By Byron Chrysovergis · DC13, Agora Doctoral Network · University of Nicosia Most discussions of virtual reality begin with hardware. Headset specs, resolution, comfort, price. The implicit promise is that once the device gets good enough, the medium […]
DAOs Beyond Crypto: Can Decentralized Governance Reshape Organizations?
By Tonia Damvakeraki, PhD Researcher (University of Nicosia) DAOs began as crypto-native instruments, such as DeFi protocols, NFT collectives, and token treasuries. Now, a quieter question is in play: can their governance logic (smart-contract rules, distributed voting, transparent treasuries) work for any organization? The honest answer is yes, but only unevenly, partially, and after confronting […]
Rethinking Digital Marketing Ethics in the Metaverse: The Case for Tailored Regulation
Metaverse technologies have been applied across various fields to enhance user experiences during interactions with digital environments. Various fields have benefited from these technologies like healthcare, gaming, and social interaction. Among all these fields, one of the prominent uses of metaverses is towards branding and marketing. Brands, particularly in the luxury fashion industry, are increasingly […]
Governments in the Metaverse: What Actually Happens When Public Services Go Virtual?
The metaverse isn’t just for gamers, concerts, or brand experiments anymore. Governments are beginning to explore immersive virtual worlds as new channels for public services, citizen engagement, and digital readiness. From Norway’s public agencies testing Decentraland, to South Korea’s Metaverse Seoul, to the UN-backed Citiverse initiative, early initiatives show real potential; but they also reveal […]
How Metaverse reshapes the future of product innovation
AGORA doctoral candidate Zafeiria Karlou is researching how brands and consumers co-create products in the metaverse. She is particularly interested in exploring the consumer co-creation dynamics, mechanisms, tools along with the novel ways of collaborative interaction and engagement that arise within the metaverse. New channels for collaboration and communication are made possible by the metaverse’s increasing […]