Draghi meets Zuckerberg, focus on metaverse and investments

The Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, received the president and CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, at Palazzo Chigi in the morning. The minister for technology innovation Vittorio Colao was also present at the meeting. The meeting ended around 11 am and lasted about an hour.

“To give life to the metaverso a joint effort will be required between companies, politics and civil society. In today’s meeting we confirmed the our collaboration with the Italian government to enhance the country’s strengths in the technology and design sectors and identify future investments “, declared a spokesperson for Meta at the end of the meeting.” We are pleased to have been able to discuss the cultural, social and economic opportunities that the metaverse will bring to Italy and we look forward to continuing this collaboration “, he added.

Zuckerberg will now return to the United States after spending a good part of the week in Italy. He was first spotted on the streets of Siena last Monday with his wife Priscilla Chan and in the following days he went to Turin and Milan. In the Lombard capital, the founder of Facebook met Leonardo Del Vecchio, founder of Luxottica, with whom he talked about the development projects already started by Meta and EssilorLuxottica on smartglasses.

The two companies announced in September 2020 a multi-year collaboration “to develop the next generation of smart glasses”, with the aim of combining Facebook’s apps and technologies, Luxottica’s brands and leadership in eyewear and the technologies of Essilor lenses “to help people stay connected with friends and family”.