There are many companies angling to make money in the metaverse at the moment, but far fewer trying to use its technology for public good. The World Economic Forum hopes to change that with the Global Collaboration Village, which will be introduced at Davos this year ahead of a full rollout. The virtual village has been designed to function--and look--like the real Swiss town, except that here the people convening in co-working spaces, attending conferences in government buildings, and browsing museums will be doing so as avatars. WEF executive chairman Klaus Schwab, who has spent decades cultivating in-person interactions between world leaders, hopes the village will serve as a consistent meeting ground for Davos' stakeholders, transforming the conference from a cloistered one-week gathering to a year-round project. "This could revolutionize global collaboration," Schwab told TIME in the weeks before the January gathering.