African Metaverse Ubuntuland Launches

Metaverse from page 97

information and assets online.

To be clear, this is not yet a universally agreed upon idea. Second Life, Fortnite, and plenty of other platforms have been doing just fi ne without NFTs. But one reason NFT/crypto is one of the noisiest places on the internet is because it’s fastpaced, novel, and supported by an absurd amount of money.

I don’t mean that in a negative way; but this area is the unmapped, build-it-as-we-go, unsettled frontier of life online. There are some fascinating projects at the front end of this, but whether NFTs do or don’t power some dematerialized system of capitalism misses the point that NFTs are likely more important than just ‘owning stuff ’.

Now we can tie together everything we’ve learned about the Metaverse and review a recent scene from an online event to explore the way NFTs might play a role.

Here is the ‘Metaverse Festival’ (yes, a real thing) that was headlined by performances from global stars like Deadmau5. It happened in the browser-based Decentraland (a spatial, game engine driven, virtual environment).

It’s Friday night and you head to the nightlife district of Decentraland (a plot of land which is an NFT). To get in you must be of age. You carry an identity token (which could be an NFT), to verify your eligibility for entrance.

You notice someone wearing a hoodie (an NFT) from RTFKT, a virtual apparel company recently acquired by NIKE. Those are expensive, I’m told.

It’s free to enter, because the event is sponsored by Kraken, who wants to be the cryptobank of the Metaverse. By attending you’re issued what’s called a ‘proof of attendance protocol’ token, or POAP (that is an NFT).

Later, when you sign up at Kraken, they off er a discount to those who can show, with that token, they attended the event.

Metaverse or no Metaverse, as John Palmer describes, NFTs mean the internet becomes a place where everyone has an inventory. Earlier we mentioned the Metaverse is an interconnected collection of experiences, and if that’s the case, you might want to carry your single identity, history, and inventory of assets around with you. If that sounds familiar it’s basically giving users back their own cookies and personal data from big companies. I don’t want to go there; but it’s why a lot of people are scared of Facebook/Meta building a centralized Metaverse instead of one that is open and decentralized.

Stitching it Together

I’ve gone way down an NFT sideroad here, but it’s worth stitching together the spatial computing/ virtual world developments with what’s been happening in crypto/web3. When I started this research 7ish years ago, crypto people were far away and somewhere else. Today, I now have to explore Web3 stuff , since these areas are merging.

If you’re still here — thank you — you might still be wondering: so what? How does any of this

By Unlock News Desk

AFRICA’S FIRST METAVERSE Ubuntuland plans were announced for commercialization of the 3D virtual reality experience, a virtual world that marries creativity, cryptocurrency, and commerce. Africarare will be developing the metaverse joined by MTN and M&C Saatchi Abel.

MTN, Africa’s largest multinational mobile telecommunications company joining Africarare with an upcoming 12×12 village (144 plots of real estate) secured in Ubuntuland. Additionally, M&C Saatchi Abel have entered the metaverse as the fi rst South African agency to do so. There will only ever be 204,642 plots

meaningfully improve anything about the world, or even the internet? How is any of this better than

what we have today?

Lots of people will have points of view, and I won’t advocate one perspective or another. But I do have a personal anecdote.

At the start of my MBA program, the UK government had implemented a rule that no more than 6 people could be together indoors. For 300 ‘zero-chill/connect on LinkedIn’ business students, that’s a tough start to the year.

We even tried a full zoom call with all of us.

My classmates will remember me as that kid who threw some weird internet ‘house party’ using a platform called High Fidelity. It employs spatial audio, so you only hear the people clumped around you. It took some getting used to, but was a reasonable way to get 150 of us, as basic 2D avatars, moving around in a shared online space.

What the Metaverse enables, through the dimensional space, is a way of replicating some but not all natural human behaviors which you can’t replicate in existing online spaces such as Slack, Discord, or Zoom. There are times you want the magical chaos of unplanned social interaction mediated by ‘personal space’.

In the professional world, I’m endlessly fascinated by this company which runs a 60,000 person organization from inside a virtual world software built in Unity. The founder of that software company tells me that when you have to actually walk your avatar from meeting to meeting, there’s opportunities for chance encounters you’d never get jumping from Zoom to Zoom.

I’ve also used that same software to run learning programs, and likewise, there are ‘moving around the room type’ learning activities I could never run using Zoom.

Additionally, the Metaverse might grow to become a more intuitive internet. Just like spatial computing interfaces are easier to use, websites may become like walking into physical stores, something our brains and bodies might better understand.

That said, it goes without saying, we won’t replace real-world experiences nor should we want to. We also won’t stop using today’s platforms like video-conferencing. The Metaverse is just the evolutionary next stage of the internet, and off ers a new suite of communication tools that will be helpful for some things and less for others.

To conclude: this is all a long-winded way of saying the Metaverse is the internet. But spatial. And built with game engines. And probably NFTs. And who knows where that takes us…

Please do reach out if you have any comments, questions or feedback. I’m always learning more too.

Read the full article here: https://medium. com/@aaronDfrank/how-to-explain-themetaverse-to-your-grandparents-b6f6acae17ed Image credit: IBM Corp, linkedin.com, hustlemag.co.ke

of land available, made up of diff erent village sizes in various community hubs. The land is positioned and priced according to a tiered value system.

Landholders will be able to customize their 3-D land spaces, such as hosting shops, producing resources, renting virtual services and developing games or other applications. Designated spaces will serve the community for work, play and wellness purposes, including a state of the art meeting rooms, online therapy rooms (with optional anonymity), concert stages, fi lm festival spaces, meditation lounges and other dynamic interactive environments. And, there’s more to come, such as staking, DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) and blockchain play-toearn gaming.

Renowned South African artist Norman Catherine has developed a unique collection of avatars for the metaverse, which will shortly be available to purchase. The Normunda tribe is based on the

Ubuntuland from page 99

artist’s signature lexicon, that has fetched record prices in galleries around the world. An avatar is a 3-D graphical representation of a user or the user’s character or persona in this space.

Furthermore, an exciting collaboration between Africarare and South African superstar Boitumelo Thulo has been announced. Popularly known as Boity, the acclaimed television personality, rapper, actress, businesswoman and model, revealed her fi rst virtual reality music video, entering the event in the same Sun Goddess custom creation upon which her outfi t in Queen Boity avatar form was based. The Boity tribe of 10,000 avatars will soon be available for fans, with a Boity village currently being developed and plans for virtual concerts under way.

The currency in Ubuntuland will be the $UBUNTU token, which is built on the Ethereum blockchain and available from later this year. Everything in Africarare can be bought, sold or traded using $UBUNTU tokens, including buying, developing, selling or renting plots or villages in Ubuntuland, and the in-world purchases of digital goods and services. The valuation of the token will be calculated according to what users invest / build / play / trade inside the metaverse.

Two art galleries will feature in Africarare, dedicated to showcasing Africa’s prolifi c creativity. The Mila gallery (Swahili for ‘tradition’), already open, will host curated collections by some of Africa’s foremost artists, while the Inuka gallery (Swahili for ‘rise’) will feature works by emerging African artists from later in 2022. Both galleries will stage various exhibitions on an ongoing basis with art pieces being be sold as NFT’s (non-fungible tokens).

In the Africarare marketplace, creators and developers can trade in in-world assets such as land, avatars, avatar additions and other goods and services that are and will be available in Ubuntuland. The marketplace focuses on four main areas: Art, Ubuntuland, Avatars&Skins and Digital Services. Users will also be able to trade on secondary platforms such as Opensea and others.

The Central Hub land area is reserved for Africarare custom made experiences, ranging from art to education and including experiences like galleries, live performances, stand-up comedy, video content channels, fi lm festivals, safaris and more.

“Africarare will connect Africa to this booming arena of the global economy, stimulate growth and create multiple new jobs such as digital designers, creators and architects ” said Mic Mann, Co-founder and CEO of Africarare. “Additionally, it will enable

South African artists to showcase their talent to the world and monetize their distinctive

creations,” he added. “With Africarare being built on collaborative partnerships, the possibilities for commercialisation are endless” said Shayne Mann, Co-founder of Africarare.

“This is an exciting moment for us as we lead businesses on the continent to enter the metaverse marketplace. This is exactly what our Ambition 2025 strategy is premised on – leveraging trends that amplify consumer’s digital experiences and engagement. We have always been at the forefront of technological and digital changes and we remain alive to the exciting opportunities the metaverse presents for us and our customers’’ – Bernice Samuels MTN Group Executive. https://www.unlock-bc.com/85107/africanmetaverse-ubuntuland-launches-with-mtn-andsaatchi-onboard https://www.bizcommunity.com/ Article/196/16/225516.html Image credit: africarare