Event review: An inspiring step towards the AIM ETHIX Award

On 26 November 2025, we held our third pre-event for the AIM ETHICS Award in Brussels – a decisive step on our way to realising our award.

Insight into the event

Dr Reinhard Schultze from the Metaverse Europe Foundation opened the event with a fascinating introduction to the history of the AIM ETHIX Award. He impressively explained the inspiration and necessity behind this initiative.

Marisa Jiménez Martín, Director and Deputy Head of Metas EU Affairs Office, then spoke about the potential of artificial intelligence and the Metaverse to promote the EU’s competitiveness. She emphasised the importance of ethical innovation, also in view of the regulatory challenges.

Insights into the challenges of regulation

A highlight of the event was the keynote speech by Kai Zenner, Head of Office and Digital Policy Adviser for MEP Axel Voss (EPP Group) in the European Parliament. He shed light on the considerable challenges of the EU regulatory framework. He explained how frequent changes, new risk categories and diverse uses of AI systems force companies to carry out regular compliance assessments – a huge operational burden for European companies.

Guidelines and inspiration

Reinhard Schultze returned to the stage and passionately presented the guidelines of the AIM ETHIX Award. His emotional speech emphasised the importance of voluntary and fair practices, especially against the backdrop of the complex regulatory and economic landscape in Europe – a theme that was also strongly echoed in the previous keynotes.

Afterwards, our guests had the opportunity to ask questions and actively participate in the discussion. This led to an in-depth exchange and a better understanding of the topics.

Impressive showcases

Two impressive showcases rounded off the evening:

1. Dwayne Iserief (co-founder and CMO of Uptale – XR Spatial Learning) and Sebastien Leang (co-founder and CTO) showed how AI-supported immersive learning is revolutionising employee training.
2. David Bennett, CEO of Mimic Productions, closed the evening despite train delays with an impressive demonstration of how AI-controlled avatars can change the industry.

A look into the future

This event set sail for the AIM ETHIX Award – a beacon for fairness and collaboration in the uncharted waters of technological innovation.

Many thanks to our host and partner Meta, especially Marco Pancini and Aleksandra Kozik, as well as to our media partners Metaverse EU, XR Valley and XR4Europe for their valuable support. And of course we would like to thank everyone who was part of this inspiring journey!