The Limitless Metaverse: Not Just a Moment but a Movement

By Alexandra Bower

AS THE TSUNAMI of change rears and roars with pandemics, global warming, digitization and crumbling social structures washing over us, we’re looking for new tools to manage our anxiety and become more resilient. The metaverse is emerging as an alternative existence, one which will grow exponentially as real life becomes more difficult due to political unrest and environmental decline. As future generations become more immersed in this world, the lines between IRL and virtual will become increasingly blurred.

Faith Popcorn, the “Original Futurist,” and Cathy Hackl, the host of Adweek’s Metaverse Marketing podcast, took the stage on day five of Brandweek with host Tiana Holt to discuss the magic of the Metaverse and their expertise in this evolving space that can no longer be ignored.

The future is now

The metaverse paves new pathways for how people will engage with one another. People will socialize, work, learn, shop and meet their friends and significant others within these virtual spaces. The duo agrees that brands that think they still have time to get involved in the metaverse are risking being left behind.

“If you’re thinking, ‘Oh, the future is going to start later. We don’t need to worry about the metaverse right now. We have time,’ you’re wrong,” Popcorn said. “That’s how they missed home delivery and bottled water. The metaverse is not maybe or if. It’s here now, and it’s actually crowning IRL out.”

Unlocking the imagination of the brand

brands and marketers with a unique opportunity to reimagine themselves and their career paths.

“Your brand’s DNA must be reimagined for the metaverse. It’s not an IRL copy,” she explained. “It must be widely flexible, artful and expansive. This is your chance to evolve and reimagine your career, too, as a brand marketer, as different titles and roles in marketing emerge within the metaverse.”

This reimagining gives brands the creativity and flexibility to try new things and think outside the box.

“Just because you sell deodorant in the physical world does not mean you need to sell deodorant in the virtual world. You can think outside of the box and create something completely new,” Hackl said.

The end of brand-first

The panelists told the crowd that one of the biggest advantages for consumers of the metaverse is that it ushers in the gamification of marketing while ending the brand-first approach that many marketers and brands have traditionally taken. https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/thelimitless-metaverse-not-just-a-moment-but-amovement/ Image credit: Sean T. Smith Photography for Adweek

Afropolitan is Building the First-Ever Internet Country to Create Opportunities for the African Diaspora

By Samantha Dorisca

MANY BELIEVE BLACK communities will fi nd freedom in a digital world. Community-as-a-service company Afropolitan is creating its own to support the masses in building abundant lives.

What Sparked The Pivot Toward A Digital World

Founders Eche Emole and Chika Uwazie are building a digital ecosystem to bolster economic activity within the Black community through their brainchild Afropolitan. The idea bloomed after a successful lineup of events, festivals, and concerts in Africa that generated nearly $2 billion. Emole was looking to continue the momentum until COVID-19 forced them to rework their idea.

“Come 2020, we were thinking, ‘Hey, we’re going to reload this.’ ‘This is going to be signifi cant.’ Then COVID happens and the question was, ‘What does a pivot look like in this space where there are no in real life events?’” Emole told AfroTech in an exclusive interview.

Afropolitan Will Be Built In Four Phases

Afropolitan steps into the power of the collective and reimagines a new world. The mission will be made possible in four phases: Events to connect Black communities globally, leveraging media to scale, building partner networks, and pushing for full-scale sovereignty.

“We want to layer on top of that digital country because the purpose for which we’re building this community at scale is to allow us to withdraw our colonial borders,” Emole said. “It’s much harder to say, ‘Let’s all move back to Africa.’ What if instead

of migrating physically, you can migrate

online? This would allow us to scale in ways that were previously unimaginable before. That’s what we’re building here.”

Afropolitan Embraces Web3, Set To Launch Super App

The digital country will tap into the Web3 space as Bitcoin will be the main currency. Black communities statistically experience diffi culties with banking or established institutions globally. So, Afropolitan will encourage Black communities to move their money into a super app during phase two. Here, users can send and receive money across borders seamlessly, gather risk capital, and begin e-residency applications, among others.

“Black people globally, we are very great at creating value, but we are poor at capturing it,” Emole said. “By building this entire fl ow, we solve for distribution, infrastructure, and for the ecosystem.”

Founders Embrace Emerging Technology To Keep Vision Alive

New ideas invite new technology. Afropolitan is embracing the current cryptocurrency wave. However, it will not hesitate to pivot when new technology emerges.

“Technology is not the end all, be all. It just allows us to leverage. If there’s better tech that comes, we will utilize that too,” Emole shared. “We are not a maxi to Web3. We’re a maxi to progress, opportunity, and utility. We’re not saying we want to die on the hill of Ethereum or Solana. We die on the hill of progress and prosperity for our people.”

Afropolitan Raises $2.1M

Although the fruition of the digital world could take a decade, the idea is gaining the attention of top venture capitalists within the tech space. Afropolitan recently raised $2.1 million in a preseed round led by Balaji Srinivasan. Olugbenga Agboola of Flutterwave, Walter Baddoo of 4DX Ventures, VC fi rm Hashed, and Atlantica Ventures — among others — also participated in the round.

“We are connected with the top venture capitalists and top partnerships in this space. The beauty of this being a community-led race is the network of people who are backing us across the world,” Emole said.

He continued: “We are building a network of abundance because for too long we have seen scarcity destroy our ability to move forward as Black people. We have never really created a nation-state or country through refl ection and choice. It’s always been through accident and force, so what we are saying is we’re utilizing a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) to build something through refl ection and choice.” https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/afropolitanis-building-the-fi rst-ever-internet-country-to-createopportunities-for-the-african-diaspora/ar-AAZRuwW