A virtual reality showroom for the furniture industry, reduced energy bills through artificial intelligence for various office buildings, or cybersecurity advice for 140 Flemish cities and municipalities are just a few examples of the collaborations that Howest establishes with companies, organizations, and governments. Thanks to a Research Infrastructure grant from VLAIO, Howest can give a significant upgrade to its AI Lab, where research on artificial intelligence is conducted for various sectors, and can inaugurate the Web3 and Metaverse Experience Lab.\n\nThe Web3 and Metaverse Experience Lab is a platform for researchers in Business Management and Applied Informatics, enabling them to conduct practical metaverse, blockchain, and Solid projects. The Lab is perfectly equipped, for example, to create a digital version of a physical store - you can scan physical clothing items, place them in a metaverse store, and immediately showcase them on a virtual mirror with precise tracking. Trying on thirty different outfits can now be done in just a few minutes. In this way, we aim to facilitate the development of a complete virtual shopping experience directly from our Lab. We bring things that are possible on paper into practice immediately.\n\nOr perhaps you want to create a lifelike virtual representation of yourself in the metaverse? Thanks to our extensive sensors and equipment, you can transform yourself into a 'virtual human' in no time, and we can also deploy AI models to mimic your voice and speaking style as accurately as possible. We observe in the mainstream market that the leap into Mixed Reality and collaboration in the metaverse is becoming increasingly popular. In our Metaverse Lab, we install state-of-the-art Mixed Reality headsets, which are also used as training devices by the U.S. military. These impressive headsets are powered by a cluster of computers with tremendous graphical processing power to make it as realistic as possible.\n\nAdditionally, with the Web3 and Metaverse Lab, we aim to explore the future of the internet and develop practical use cases. Privacy is becoming increasingly important, and consumers are more conscious of their own data. Decentralized technologies such as blockchain and Solid offer a lot of potential, but it is a challenge to get businesses on board with the opportunities of Web3. Unknown is unloved! With our Lab, we want to make Web3 more accessible and build concrete applications to make digital interactions safer, more efficient, and more privacy-friendly. The Lab, equipped with various servers and blockchain nodes, will play a crucial role in our research projects. An example of this is the Future Flemish Pig project, where blockchain technology is used as a transparent and infallible means to achieve quality assurance and improve animal welfare in the pig production chain. With Web3 technologies, you can perfectly choose which information from your own data vault you share with third parties (such as on a social networking site) and revoke your consent at any time. In this way, we bring power back to where it belongs - the user.