Business

Coffee meet Crypto. Crypto, meet coffee.

Coffee does not seem like a likely ally for Crypto currency, however Culture of Coffee founder, Metasebia Yoseph or Meti sees an opportunity to build community by merging the two.

MaMany of us are familiar with Ethiopian coffee, but few are aware of the long, textured history of the Ethiopian coffee ceremony. 10 years ago, Meti set-out to raise awareness for the Ethiopian origin of coffee through a coffee table book and website called Culture of Coffee. Through this effort, she was able to host a series of social events, coffee tastings and partnerships with Ethiopian coffee brands.

T This year, Meti is relaunching her brand through a Web3 lens. With a “[vision] for an artful, dynamic, and community-owned crypto-artifact can be manifested to scale. All of this, while compensating the collaborators and coffee enthusiasts invested in collecting and preserving coffee culture, while actively shaping its future” according to her website. By developing a $COFFEE token, Meti will be ableable to crowdfund the project while members will have access to a worldwide community and ownership of different elements of the Culture of Coffee project.

Most members of the creative community rely on coffee, yet are still gaining familiarity with the crypto currency space. As crypto currency is the current buzzword, it’s not uncommon to be asked if you own any crypto? at a social gathering. With the $COFFEE coin, owners can not only learn more about the crypto space, but also through the lens of a tradition with African origins. Culture of Coffee promises not only introduction to coffee brands, and cafes but also elements of the NFT world such as 3D artifacts, an NFT gallery and access to members only events.

T The second iteration of Culture of Coffee will launch in May of 2022 with a crowdfunding campaign which will fund the second edition of the Culture of Coffee table book which will include AR integrations for print and digital design. Between June and August, the book will be available for hard copy and the $COFFEE coin will launch with a goal of DAO structure and the coin will become available for community members.members.

In order to become more familiar with the project; Meti and the Culture of Coffee team have launched a Limited Twitter Spaces series called #CoffeeSocial to unpack all things at the intersection of $COFFEE, culture, and crypto. Join them in their Discord for related discussions and help shape the project that’s documenting our collective heritage on-chain.

In the rapidly growing Web3 space, people of color are so often left out of the dialogue.

Broccoli Con Is Fueling An Ecosystem of Financial Health

Equipping Black communities with financial literacy is more imperative than ever before. Inflation is driving up the cost of everyday necessities, hitting our community the hardest. NFTs are rapidly taking over conversations, but we ’ re ooen leo out. Amidst these buzzy financial topics, procuring the financial health of Black people is fundamental.

TheThe 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances revealed that the typical White family has eight times the wealth of the typical Black family and five times the wealth of the typical Hispanic family. The persistance of this economic divide is a result of continued inequality and discrimination. The narrative is as old as this country. The last two years of the pandemic have only furthefurther revealed our financial wellbeing.

“During covid alot of things were exposed that were obviously already topics that we knew we needed to focus on, but a lot of that stuff came to light, ” said Brandon McEachern, a co-founder of Broccoli City. This year ’ s Broccoli Con is taking place May 5-6 at the Gathering Spot in D.C. The two day conference will zero in on five topics, Black wellness, fancial literacy, prprofessional/career development, technology, start ups/small businesses.

“We ’ll be doing a financial literacy conversation with JPMorgan Chase. It’ s focused around young people, and them getting the foundational elements together, like saving, and answering questions like should you use a credit card?, ” said Jermon Williams, a co-founders of Broccoli City. “A lot of the basics when it comes to financial literacy, ” he continues. Since November, the founders of Broccoli City have worked with 10 interns from area colleges, Howard, Hampton, Morgan State, and Georgetown. The internship will culminate in students attending Broccoli Con.

“This “This year was sponsored by Indeed, so we ’ll be doing a lot of resume building, workshops, as well as job placement. On-site we ’ll have Live Nation, Converse, YouTube, so we ’ re super excited to be able to be a pipeline to get some of these young kids awesome jobs coming out of school, ” Williams said. Beyond the two day conference, they ’ re looking to do Broccoli Con sessionssessions this summer. We want to be able to pump these exercises into the brains of the young ones. ” In order to support the financial ecosystem of the community, Broccoli City Fest also offers a Market Place on May 7-8, where entrepreneurs can sell everything from apparel to art.

“For many of us your credit score was already in the ground before you even started learning. However, we want to help people shio this. We ’ re going to continue to do Broccoli Con apart from the festival, so this summer we ’ll actually be doing a couple of programs, ” Jermon continued. The trajectory of our communities ooen is in the balance of how we show up for one anotheanother, Broccoli Con is working to educate communities, so this generation is ready to build generational wealth. “What we ’ re doing didn ’t come from George Floyd or anything of that nature. We wake up Black everyday, ” Jermon said. Broccoli Con encourages a culture where we discuss healing credit scores, developing savings plans, owning businesses, andand even buying homes.