NFTs, AI, and the Metaverse: Crafting the Future of Digital worlds

NFTs, AI, and the Metaverse: Crafting the Future of Digital worlds

SPEAKERS

Nadja Bester, AdLunam Inc Co-Founder

Charlene Nichols, Pioneer & CEO of The Omniverse City

Nelly Tacheva, Founder & CEO of Tangra

Cai Felip, Co-founder & CEO of Union Avatars

Nadja Bester: 03:41

All right, I see We have everyone in the house, so I'm gonna get us started. 3,2,1, hey web3 world. This is AdLunam co-founder, Nadja Bester, and you are listening to the future of NFTs, where our expert founders and builders of the future take us through exactly how they do it and what the landscape looks like for tomorrow. So on to today, we are discussing the future of digital worlds as created by technologies like NFTs, AI and the metaverse. So from digital avatars to digital twins and NFT powered personalization, this episode will be jam packed with insights into the future of the metaverse and digital experiences. So joining us today is an amazing panel of builders who walk the walk and talk the talk. I'm going to kick us off by asking each of you to give me a one word answer to the following questions so that we can also check your sound at the same time. So the question being, if you could describe the future of digital worlds in one word? What would it be? So first up is Cai Felip, the co-founder and CEO of Union avatars, Europe's leading company creating virtual avatars for 3D platforms and video games to help people explore and interact in 3D worlds and video games with the. Unique digital identities. Cai, welcome good to have you.

Cai: 05:03

Thank you. Thank you for having me. I would say in one word, exciting.

Nadja Bester: 05:13

Absolutely. 100% agree with you there. So looking forward to an exciting talk about exciting things. Next up, Nelly Tacheva, founder and CEO of Tangra, a platform that uses AI and virtual reality to create engaging training and onboarding experiences in immersive digital environments. Nelly, you are, yes, you are a speaker. Very happy to have you. What is your one word to describe the future of digital worlds.

Nelly: 05:41

Hello. Thank you for having me, Nadj+*a, it would be interoperable. That's my word.

Nadja Bester: 05:50

Absolutely love that, and we are certainly going to cover that tonight. I'm 100% sure of that. And then finally, but definitely not least, Charlene Nichols, the founder and CEO of Omniverse City, a platform that helps local businesses and communities thrive by making advanced digital tools and virtual environments accessible and easy to use, which is definitely music to our ears. I think Charlene, welcome. What is your one word?

Charlene: 06:18

Well, thank you again for having me, and I would say serendipitous.

Nadja Bester: 06:25

Ah, love that as well. So very, very excited to have in the spirit of excitement, interoperability and serendipity, to dive into this episode before we get there. Very quick, the future of NFTs brought to you by AdLunam, the web3 investment ecosystem, pioneering engaged and Proof of Attention models for tokenized investment and community engagement. And then, very quick announcement, I'll be speaking at the Gatherverse safety summit tomorrow, October 2, on a panel titled securing the future- AI's impact on global safety and very special, Tangra is offering a 50% discount on the Tangra AI image generator, so stay tuned during this episode to get the code. Thank you very much, Nelly and Tangra, and then let's get into it. So we are talking today about the future, as we always do on the show, and we are more specifically talking about the future, building the future, using these technologies that we of course, no matter what your exposure is, to the Web3 industry and to all of the different technologies, you've heard of these technologies. Some are very well versed with NFTs, but don't understand AI so much and the metaverse, of course, we've been hearing it. Some of us have gone very deeply into it, and for others, it might just be a buzzword. So today, we're really just going to dive into what do these technologies mean in the grander scheme of things, I think in the web3 space, we very often have the hype cycle. And you know, everything sort of revolves around the hype cycle. So if the metaverse is in right now, that means everyone wants to get on the metaverse. And when it's fallen off of, you know, fallen out of favor, similarly, similar to what's happened with NFTs, then no one wants to talk about it. But of course, these are all tools that we are using in order to shape the future of tomorrow. So with that in mind, going to get started and first get into, I think, something that we can all relate to, which are avatars, if you've used social media, if you've used the game, pretty much any sort of digital real estate on the internet, you've probably used an avatar before. So let's first start by looking at what are avatars as we go forward. So Kai, I'm going to start with you. Union avatars, of course, has made a significant mark in digital identity, specifically in the avatar space. So we'd like to know from you, what is this demand for personalized avatars? How has it evolved over the years, if you come, let's say, from a web2 background and now into web3. What is that difference between a web2 avatar and a web3 avatar?

Cai: 09:08

Well, interesting question. I'm happy to be here with all the speakers, by the way, happy to share stage with them. So I would say, like, especially, I come from a more gaming background on web2, but I've been really obsessed with identities over the last maybe 10 years, trying some identity solutions. And I think one of the pain points that we have when we use avatars that, by the way, are used by at least half of the gamers that we can find either right now are multiplayer platform, so most of them just any sort of Avatar or visual projection of their identity. I would say one of the hassles that we all have is that every time you access a new game, a new platform, you have to keep. Creating a new avatar, a new profile. So it's impossible to have a standing identity, that you can move from one platform to the other, and then at the end of the day, you can even spend several money in one game, in your avatar, schemes, weapons, whatever, assets, garments. But then at the end of the end of the day, if this platform disappear your avatar or your profile disappear with it. So you have to start from scratch on every new release or every new platform. So I think something that web3 can provide is this sort of ownership of your own data, of your own vehicle identity or avatar, and then, as you were mentioning before, probably this sort of portability or interoperability to move our identity across platforms.

Nadja Bester: 10:53

Lovely, Cai, thank you so much for kicking us off, I think especially with an area of web3 that people are very familiar with. I mean, we've been talking about how gaming is going to bring mass adoption to web3 technologies, so definitely want to get back to that in a little while. But in the meantime, Charlene, so you work with much more traditional businesses than hardcore gamers. What has your experience been in terms of people, especially, you know, small and sort of local businesses, wrapping their head around, well, maybe it starts with an avatar, or it can go all the way up to the metaverse. But where do, sort of, you know, business, businesses taking a very dipping, a first toe into this, into this new world, say, how are they seeing things at the moment, considering that it's still very confusing, and no one has a shared language. And you know, one word might mean one thing to one person and quite something else to the next one. So how do you experience this sort of messy stage of the adoption?

Charlene: 11:54

And I listened to it, and in: 2018

Nadja Bester: 15:15

Well, I absolutely love that. As an aside, I used to be head of digital marketing for a top 50 pharma company. Now, as much as you know there was, let's say, an invitation to innovate, I 100% know the backlash from all sides when it comes to such a traditional industry and adopting technologies that, I mean, just seems so far fetched from the reality of, you know, being in the practice room, or being in the in the in the in the ER or whatever. So absolutely commend you for taking such a huge step in such a niche industry so early on. But I think something that you that you said, really sparked, you know, a follow up question. But I'm not going to follow up on it immediately. I just want to quickly touch on it, this idea that for a lot of people, during covid, changing how they looked on Zoom was perhaps the first step that they've ever taken in really personalizing their digital representation. So I think that's a really important point, because as much as we talk about, you know, adoption at the level of being knee deep in the web three space, and, you know, the whole D Gen culture at the same time, there are people entering these technologies that have almost no digital foundation as a prelude into coming into this. I think covid really was the big sort of pivot point for a lot of us in the world. So with that, then Nelly, so you are focused on, you know, sort of the training aspect of the metaverse. So from the perspective of using the metaverse for something fun, which I think is something we've seen quite a bit, as Charlene mentioned about Ready Player, me think most people have tried that. They've done whatever they can in there, and then that's pretty much it. It doesn't have the kind of stickiness that would make you come back, necessarily, so curious. Then from a training perspective, how is that Metaverse adoption and all of the related technologies happening in your experience?

Nelly: 17:21

So what we've been seeing, and I will get back to your question, but I just wanted to address the avatar, since they're our digital identities, we absolutely see that people need to have the diversity and the representation everyone likes to create an avatar who looks like that, like them, and having whether a uniform or some quotes representing the brand, this is what we keep hearing and seeing people requesting they want the avatars to be expressive, so having features like lip sync, for example, or making the avatars doing certain gestures, or we have certain dance moves of our avatars in Tangra, so all that contributes to a much engaged experience in the metaverse, right? And back to your question, Nadja, what we see with regards to corporate training, onboarding, we absolutely see an uptick of an interest, maybe initially the metaverse was positioned more like, you know, hangout space or networking space, or a place where, you know, young kids would hang out and play games and that kind of that's going away already. Many brands companies are realizing the potential and the benefits of creating these and using these Metaverse experiences. So what we see with regards to virtual learning, we know that it is ineffective. We know that completion rates of you know, online courses, for example, can be as low as 3% we hear it time and again, how people lack the interaction, they lack the engagement while going through, let's say, a corporate, you know, harassment training or whatever. So what we offer is these immersive spacing spaces, 3d spaces in Tangra, and those training or learning experiences, and we see people being engaged. We see people being want to come back, and we see uptick in interest from brands so.

Nadja Bester: 20:00

Yeah, I love what you said Nelly about you know this, this perception that the metaverse is for x, y, z, these boxes that we tend to place technologies in when they first emerge, and then we kind of get stuck there, and it's difficult to move past that. Because, of course, as we know with any technology, the business onboarding of tech takes longer, but when it does start happening, it doesn't really stop. So Cai, I want to then bring it back to you, really, just to linking what Nelly and what Charlene said, I think we have, speaking of diversity, a very diverse panel here tonight, representing many different areas of the adoption of these technologies. So are you then also seeing, I think, in the in the more sort of purely gaming space, also this idea that, yes, people want to own things, but they also want to have their identities be immersive. We'd love for you to talk a little bit more about that.

Cai: 20:57

Well, I think so that there is different points, no, since we I talk about our specific case, so always take that in consideration. So it can be different for different companies or different use cases. But what we realize is that, from our experience, just in like in real life, no, we don't dress the same when you when we go to the gym or to the office. So we see that in the virtual environment is kind of the same, like we especially at the beginning, we were focusing more on realistic avatars. So mostly the traction that we were getting was more coming from the corporate environment, like using it, using the avatars for education purposes, corporate meetings, training of new hirings, etc. Now we, this year, we release a more cartoonish avatar, something more anime, or you want to call it, so now we are seeing much more traction from the gaming industry. But I would say, for me, what is interesting is that at the end of the day, there is so much people in the world, and each one of them want to you can find people that wants to look exactly like how they are. Some people that want a superhero version of the of who they are. Sometimes maybe people that is more into web three. They want to totally unknown identity that they can relate to it, but maybe it doesn't look at all like them. So I think the important part is offering a very, very like different options to project yourself. And for me, there is an important part. And again, here is maybe where blockchain is really applicable. In the sense of, it's important to have one unique identity, but then different ways of projecting it. We still see that most of the traction is coming from the gaming environment, but at the same time, we see a lot of applications on more corporations when it comes to the utility that they are giving. So I would say I would not put the balance or the weight in, none of the two sides. I think there is like an interesting space in every in every part,

Nadja Bester: 23:13

absolutely 100% agreed. Then I want to ask Charlene, we as you, as you were describing you are catering, or used to cater, at least to a very, very niche community. So how was that experience of as Kai is saying over on the gaming side? I mean, we have adoption from people that, of course, that don't necessarily want to look like themselves. They want to have this wide variety of options and choices. And then in a more traditional space, you can't all be wearing the same outfit and Ready Player me, you still need to kind of express yourself, even within a much more sort of limiting environment, we still have to be very professional. So what have those challenges? What have you what challenges have you faced in kind of building something that caters to a small group of people, but still has enough variation within that, you know, the small confines of the parameters that you had to work with.

Charlene: 24:08

pulverized that word. You ask: 1000

Nadja Bester: 28:58

Thank you, Charlene. I love that I want to then give the next, next question to Nelly, building on what Charlene said about the definition even of the metaverse is so complex, and there's so many people who don't want to use the quote, unquote, dirty word, you know, NFTs or crypto or web3. How have you found these conversations happening? Is it difficult to explain to someone what the benefits are if they are staring at the definition and it's a definition that they don't like or don't agree with?

Nelly: 29:30

Yeah, it absolutely is. And I believe we've been focusing too much on the technology, like, is it blockchain or what an NFT is, or the metaverse, and I always suggest focusing on the use cases and the benefits to brands and consumers. Instead, that way, we can have a conversation, a productive conversation, and honestly, they don't. Necessarily care what the back end looks like if we've built on top of a blockchain, or what exactly blockchain as soon as they see the benefits for their organization and their users? Right? So my approach to those conversations is depending on the level. Usually people come to us, you know, as newbies, they had never experienced the metaverse. And when they come, I start with explaining what we can do for them and what these immersive experiences may look like for them. And depending on, you know, the brand and the use case, we go into more depth something else, I want them to experience it. So I host my meetings and demos into our Metaverse Tangra. That way, they are literally one click away from seeing it for themselves. So instead of showing elaborate images or videos or, you know, slide decks. I would rather them set their foot into such an experience and show them what's possible that is much better at conveying all the information, all the benefits, because they get to see it. And again, instead of us focusing on the technology, whatever that is, or on a particular word, yes, the metaverse world got tainted kind of some negative press. So did many other you know, cryptos, even NFTs, right? That way, instead of focusing on the word itself, the name the technology, we should rather convey the benefits and explain the benefits to these users, because there is so much we are just scratching the surface. But again, let's focus on what we can do for you, how it can improve your brand awareness or your engagement with your clients, or whatever the case might be, or the learning retention when you are training upskilling or reskilling your employees. So this is where I like to focus.

Nadja Bester: 32:13

Now. I love that. I think we have, as you said, been focusing on the technology, and also the fact that everyone should just love the technology, despite the fact that no one understands what it is, no one understands what it works, how it works, and until, as you say, they actually try it, it's like, almost like explaining love to someone. You can't explain love. You just they just have to experience it for themselves. I think a lot of these technologies work in a similar way. You just have to experience it, and then you can make up your mind. If you try and understand what it is, you can try for the next 10 years and you still won't feel like you like you have a doubt. So just the experiential aspect, I think, is incredibly important. Thank you. Nelly, it's a very important point to make.

Charlene: 32:56

Can I add one thing to Yes? Please go.

Nadja Bester: 32:59

Go ahead.

Charlene: 33:01

you're absolutely right. And if anybody's ever built a website before, you know we're a web development company. That's how we started. People don't really care what goes on. They just want the front to look pretty. And it's the same thing with the space. But when it comes to some of the problems that we're solving, we have to remember that we know these problems. We know this pain. There's a lot of people that are dealing with this pain, and they don't even realize it. They don't realize they don't have control of their lives, their data, their experiences. They don't realize that ads are driving them to do everything they do. They 99% of the world, from what I've seen, is so complicit with the problems at hand, they don't even realize what's going on around them and that they finally are in a position to think for themselves. We're going to have to break a lot of spells to really get people to want the benefits that we're providing.

Nadja Bester: 33:52

Yes, no, such an important point. I actually did a TEDx last week on the topic of identity and ownership in web three of you know, data and all of this, and I found it so incredibly difficult to distill, I mean, because you have to talk about the solution, but in order to talk about the solution, you of course, have to address the problem. And it's really difficult when you realize that if you're speaking to a mainstream audience, the problem needs to explain. Because although people understand part of the problem. They don't understand the problem deeply enough that the solution is compelling. So I think, yeah, we definitely have a long way to go. But Cai onto, the one group that you know seems to cross both these worlds, web two, gamers that everyone wants to onboard into. Web three, I think Charlene asked the question earlier that yeah, definitely. Also would love to get your opinion on so when it comes to gamers, I mean, we have seen over the last few years in web3 that despite the, let's say, the enticements of bringing web2 gamers into web3, there's just been massive resistance. So. Love for you to talk a little bit more about where this currently stands and what some of the main issues are that's preventing this onboarding from web2 into web3.

Cai: 35:10

Yeah, nice. Well, first of all, let me also talk about what Tangra was saying before, because I think that's an interesting point in the sense that I think I completely agree that sometimes I mean we as like first, like pioneers or geeks, or however you want to call it No, but we are really interested in the technology. And I several times I use an analogy when we talk about crypto, in the sense that, for example, when, when we go to an ATM, no, and get some money from the ATM, putting our cart and getting some cash. We really don't know what is happening behind this machine. No, we just get the money and go with it. And I still think on web3 people, we tend to try to over understand what is happening. So people still don't have this confidence. So we are, like even the brands that we are working on that we put too much focus on talking about the technology and not that much on the benefits. And I think we have to talk more about the benefits and just put the technology as an underlying technology, and then use it on the back end. Because people don't really care about what I mean, most of the people don't really care about what's happening, and then whoever want to check it, they can find it. And there is tools and ways of knowing more, no, but it's not needed to be able to use that. And then answering to your question on the on the web2, web3 gamers, on boarding for me, and that's coming from my personal experience that I think some of the web three games still tend to think too much about the about how to make money on the game. And to be honest, like I played several games, I work to get my money, and then I play games to enjoy and have fun. So I don't care, even if I have to spend some money on the game, I'm not winning games. For sure, if I can win some assets and then sell it and trade on a secondary market whatever, I will be happy, and that's a plus. But for me, the important part of the experience is the playing game itself, and then I think at some point for me, and again, that's really personal, but I think for me, it's more important to use the blockchain and the ownership and traceability that it gives us when it comes to being able to trace The scarcity of an item where it has been used before, in the sense of, I don't know, I probably I would pay more money if I can buy weapon or an asset that somebody that I follow has been using for the last year playing a big competition. So it have an extra value, not only on the type of asset, but on who has been using this asset. And it's just like, if I can buy a sneaker that a good NBA player used to win a championship, no, probably I would pay more for that. So I think we have to play more on this side, that on the revenue that they are generating. Because again, like I think most of web2 players, they play games not to win money, but to have fun or to win a status. So yeah, I think we need to think a little bit more about it. Like it's interesting to have a monetary, economic incentive, but I think it's more important to have, first of all, a good game that you can play, and then second choice abilities. So I know that if I'm acquiring or I'm selling an asset, there are X amount of this asset, so I can put the price on it in a better way, but not focusing that much on the revenue in tokens. Because at the end of the day, I think even if we try to give a lot of utility to the token, most of the people end up dropping the token on the market and trying to get, like stable coin, or whatever, like a more stable money or crypto. So, yeah, I think we have to work a lot on the gameplay of the of the games, and making them fun for the people to come without putting too much in the front the technology. But again, that's what Tangra was saying before. Like in the sense of for me, it's important to just talk about the utility and then having the tech as an underlying technology behind it.

Nadja Bester: 39:36

I want to ask you a follow up question. 100% agree with you. I mean, I've seen this just crossroads between web2 and web3 gaming so often. But then the question becomes, with a lot of gaming companies in the web3 space, really seeing the tokenization of, you know, the token that represents access to this game or utility inside the game. They. See it as the primary source of funding, and so in what you're explaining about this sort of, you know, I mean, it really just doesn't work. As you say, there's so many gamers that absolutely love using games to relax, and as soon as you tell them, hey, you can relax and earn money, they're like, No, thank you. I'm not here to earn money. I'm here to relax. So it seems like there's just this fundamental difference with between how web3 gaming companies see the model of their own companies, and then the audience that they are actually trying to attract. So do you think that in the near future, this is something that's going to shift? Do you already start seeing shifts in terms of how web3 gaming companies approach this or not? Not quite yet?

Cai: 40:40

Yeah, definitely. No, no. I think we are seeing already a shift, and we will see a shift there. I don't know some new games. I don't know nifty Island, for example. I think it's a good example of a really well done platform, from my point of view. Or even these telegram games that we are seeing lately that they are intimating a lot of web2 users that I don't know. I have several friends who didn't even know that there was an airdrop related to some of these telegram games, and they were just playing it for fun, and then later on, they realized that there was a card, sorry, adrob, related to it, and a token related to it. But I think we are seeing a shift in in this sense, on the other side, I understand that, like, companies need funding, and sometimes the token is important, but I think especially because of the regulations with the utility tokens and everything, most of the companies try to force, sometimes, a utility on the token, while what the real reason behind it is just getting funded funds. So I think it's especially when you when you create a token, you have to think a lot about also the speculative part of it, because nobody release a token thinking that it will go down, or nobody purchase a token thinking it will go down. Everybody expected to grow. So that's the only way to go is. The only way is way up. So I think it's important that also when you do all the token design and everything, think about this speculative part of it that will make the people keep the token. Because if you just think about the utility. Well, probably at some point people who have a lot of tokens might drop it just to get other revenue. But yeah, definitely, I think we are seeing a shift on that.

Nadja Bester: 42:34

Yeah, definitely, very good news. I think it's been very difficult for gaming companies getting traction. The funding has been quite easy, but then, of course, there's so many challenges post getting funding that as with the metaverse, we're seeing a lot of issues pop up that now need to be cleaned up. So to speak, Charlene and Nelly would love for you to also add to this question. I know that you don't focus on exactly the same sort of target audience that Cai does. But from your perspective, what have you been seeing as a shift in terms of people? I mean, I think we've seen over the last few years, a very heavy focus on tokenizing everything. And as Cai said, you know, really just grasping at straws in terms of finding utility, because it's really just a disguised funding mechanism. So what are your thoughts and observations, especially now where we are today, I think we've come out of a very difficult crypto winter when there wasn't a lot of liquidity in the market, and now, of course, we are seeing an uptick again, but not it's not going to be the same that we saw before, because, of course, the space is always evolving, and it is getting far more mature than it than it ever was before.

Charlene: 43:47

Well, you know, Nelly, um, do you mind if I take that or, you know, I don't want to jump,

Nelly: 43:53

that's fine. Go ahead.

Charlene: 43:57

I avoided crypto at all fronts when I was building Omniverse city because I was looking to build something that my industry would feel comfortable with. And there is absolutely no crypto conversations going on globally in the optical and optometric industry, and I'm a key opinion leader, so I had to be very careful it didn't appear that I was building something that, first of all, would make the general public within the industry uncomfortable, and secondly, would start poking all the big bears up top. So I use in game currency for everything that I do. It worked for robot Roblox. It worked for Fortnite. It worked for, you know, a lot of these games like you play like Candy Crush, you win like this little points and things. This is all in game currency. You can use these points to cash in for things that you would normally have to spend money on. You can buy down your subscription costs or your upgrades. And this gamified currency is something that works. We are integrating. With on ramp, off ramp systems that are powered by other web three companies we're working with, for instance, z by, who just partnered with the NFL and Medic keep, who is going all over the world, partnering with like department of motor vehicle types of companies to put their licensing on chain. So we're really carefully selecting who we're working with for our web three infrastructure, and we're making sure that starts with the wallet. First, we're making sure that those wallets are non custodial wallets, and they're being used in very diverse use cases. Because what I'm finding is you could tell a lot about a wallet sustainability by the diversity of the communities that it works with. So if everything that that wallet interacts with and that chain and that currency interacts with is very much kind of like this audience that came out of nowhere, and they're this like thriving community and X overnight, if it came up quick, it's going to go down quick. But when you've got these communities that have this history, this legacy, there's real problems. They're trying to solve blockchain, for instance, for agriculture, absolutely needed, for climate control, for under forecasting, I'm working with people that are collecting data that's very powerful, that can help us to understand and prevent some of the natural disasters that are going on. They're putting that data on chain. So it's really more about the data and the utility and the purpose and the vision than it is really the technology. Much To Nelly's point earlier, and there's people out there that are fighting problems that they've been fighting for centuries. I mean, you mentioned that you're in the pharmacy world. You probably know what happened to pharmacists is what's happening to opticians right now. And we might think pharmacies are like, okay, it's a small, little niche industry who here has filled a prescription in the last five years. I mean, okay, optical, it's a niche industry. Raise your hand if you like to see. I mean, we got to stop looking at these very important industries that are under assault by corporations as niches. And I believe that there's power in this type of technology, and we've got to really give it to the community leaders that are going to use it with they're the ones building their community. They don't need the technology. They already have 80% of the infrastructure. The technology is just there to fill in the gaps. And I'll end on this note. In Omniverse city, when we built our second version, which we're in the middle of launching. Now, it's called Odyssey. We built it with Jay's support, very much, keeping communities siloed but connected. So we have the arcade District, which is for gamers, people that are interested in gamers, brands that want to market to gamers. So you're going to have mostly gamers there, but you're going to have some people there that really want to get in front of the gaming industry. And this is a way for them to get into an avatar, get into the game, and do your own market research. Talk to these people. They'll talk to you. Gamers are an incredible community. No matter what age they are. They're incredibly intelligent. They're very vocal about what they need there. If you can't make them happy, you're not going to make anyone happy. But if you can't make them happy, you can make everyone happy. And they'll tell you when they're happy, and they'll tell you when they're not happy, and it's, you know, it's scary to go in front of an audience that is that vocal and that is that demanding, but in this day and age, you better be ready to take a lot of bad feedback, because the world is begun. It could become very unforgiving over the next two to five years, of bad experiences, and 80 to 90% of the businesses that I meet have a horrific customer journey up from their website. Forget about metaverse. They're not even ready for metaverse. We won't even talk to them about building an Omniverse city. We actually have to incorporate website design into our Metaverse design, because we can't have these people meeting in virtual spaces when they haven't even trained their community yet how to interact there. So creating places where people can meet like minded people, but then creating the bridge from community to community. I think that's the right design for the future. We cannot build silos in these virtual worlds. If we do that, we'll lose this opportunity that we have, because we haven't seen a large company dominate this space yet. They've tried, and they've tripped on their own shoelaces. Thank God, but it's coming, and when it does, we won't have a choice anymore. This is our one moment. We got me maybe three years, if we're lucky, to build an infrastructure before giants like meta and Google and Microsoft and s lore, Luxottica all start building framework that we just won't be able to compete with.

Nadja Bester: 49:41

Thank you so much. Nelly, I was about to ask you, please go ahead,

Nelly: 49:46

yeah, I second what Cai and Charlene were saying, only use technology when it makes sense that it is as simple as that, not because it is trendy or fancy or someone told you about it. It only when it makes sense. And on your earlier question, Nadja about onboarding, as with each new technology, you have to approach onboarding and make it very easy and very seamless. You have to make it seamless. That's it doesn't work any other way, and especially given that, you know, early adopters and innovators make up just 16% of the population, right? So most of us are not early adopters and innovators. So we have to account for that and to make it easy to people. That's why we started building tangled web, because everyone is on web, and that makes sense, clicking a link and bringing you into a virtual world is far much easier than you know, going through the installation of an app and then kind of learning new things how to navigate that space. Something else I wanted to say I already mentioned explaining the benefits rather than the technology absolutely always showing people numbers. For example, learning retention being 15 times better in virtual worlds rather than, you know, in a regular classroom environment or online environment. This is a strong point to make, right and then last point, we offer AI assistance in Tangra. And time and again we hear the question about data, privacy and security. This is something people are very serious about, and they keep asking and digging and trying to find out how we ensure that we protect their data, and this, especially with the open you know, AI models, this is a huge thing, so even though we don't need to necessarily explain them what's behind the scenes on the back end, etc, etc, when it comes to their data and to the privacy and security of their data, corporate or personal data, then we need to actually go into details. We have to explain them about the private AI models or the dedicated servers and all of that for them to trust us.

Nadja Bester: 52:27

Yeah, I love that, because I think it still comes down to utility. People are only interested in the technology if there's a utility for them to be interested in it, and the average person is not interested in the utility other than when it comes to privacy and security. So thank you for highlighting that point Lily. I have a follow up question, though you say that their attention. I mean, it's shocking the statistics on how much higher their attention is in virtual worlds. Why is that?

Nelly: 52:54

Because people are engaged. If you remember the pyramid or cone of learning, we only retain 10% of what we hear, 20% of what we see, etc, etc. And when it comes to what we hear and see and do and say, then it is at 90% it is as simple as that, when people participate in their learning experience, they are engaged, and they learn better. It is as simple as that, and when you place them into those virtual worlds, they have no other option. They cannot just nod off in front of a zoom screen right they are to navigate the space they are walking around. They are doing certain things at different, you know, corners of the space. It's not just placing them into a virtual world where they stare at the screen, right? They are actually taking ownership and engaging with their learning experience and something else. Because we can utilize AI. We can make the experience personalized. So it's no longer the case of, you know, this is the classroom, and we are teaching down everyone the same thing over and over again in these virtual worlds. We can make it a personalized experience so it is adopted to everyone's individual learning style, right? So take having the ownership and being part of your learning, and then that learning experience being customized and personalized to your needs is what it makes it so effective.

Nadja Bester: 54:42

Yeah, love that. I think, as you say, we are not in the model of the past anymore. And if we look at how education and learning has been approached for very, very long time, I mean, it's been completely outdated, definitely since I've been to school. And I'm pretty sure my parents said the same thing, and perhaps even their parents before them. Yeah, so it's, it's amazing to see that as the entire world evolves, perhaps that, perhaps that's how education will then also evolve, because it has no choice. I see we're almost out of time. So I want to definitely address one very important question before we end, and that is interoperability. So we know that it's incredibly important for things to be interoperable. But what are the challenges Cai at the moment that we are still facing that makes this very difficult, if not impossible, to really just take your digital identity and go somewhere else?

Cai: 55:32

Yeah, totally agree. I think so. Right now, there's certain like solutions or projects trying to solve this, or having this this way, in one side with the use of blockchain, but there is also a Metaverse standard forum trying to create some sort of standard when it comes to this portability or interoperability. I think we are on a stage where interoperability as itself is kind of buzzword in a way. So it's something that we will love, and we are heading to, but it's not there yet. I think we have some sort of portability now with file format or with certain standards that we as industrial can try to apply. So if more or less everybody decide to go with the same file format, with the same skeletons, with the same restrictions, when it comes to the weight of the avatars, the polygon, this sort of things, there can be, there can be a minimum viable standardization, let's say, for this interoperability. But I think, yeah, there's still some work to be done. But again, like when it comes to standards, even if we talk about traditional internet, there have been a lot of back and forth with different standards. And then there is a point where sometimes corporations or the industry have a need. So finally, people decide to go with one, even if it's not the best. But then people decide to go with this. So I think there are a lot of options on the table now, at some point we will see something that we will have more strangeness than the others, and then everybody will go into that, and then we will improve from from that point. But I think that's key to have interoperability at some point, definitely.

Nadja Bester: 57:18

Yeah, thanks Cai, especially for highlighting that, yes, portability might exist, but interoperability is still a way off. Nelly And Charlene, please, would love your thoughts on this as well.

Charlene: 57:30

When we built Omniverse city, the reason we didn't call it a Metaverse is we imagined being the world that connects all worlds. And you know, saying that when I first started, I had massive imposter syndrome, because there were huge companies building in this space at that time, and a lot of them have sunset their own products. Omniverse city still stands, because we are truly interoperable, and we are currently working with as many platforms that are our formula for interoperability is number one finding owner operated platforms, because we find that those are the people that are empowered to make decisions that can be, you know, community first. When you're designing interoperability, it's, it's all about the customer experience. It's not about the data transfer or, you know, how can we make the money go from point A to point B? Or even asset transfer? It's really about, how do I make that experience seamless for the user? Everything else is secondary. There's enough, you know, technology out there now. There's enough creative ways to move assets around from platform to platform, that we can make that part of the interoperability, which is what everyone's really excited about happen. You can make an asset that is compatible with, you know, Roblox, Fortnite, spatial Unreal Engine, and still looks good on your WordPress website. And, you know, it's not the interoperability that we imagine right now, but it's close enough that person is in all these different spaces using a version of that asset, and they can show ownership of all versions of that asset on chain. So there are creative ways to make that happen now, but the most important thing is that leaders who have their own foundational technology need to begin integrating together, because it's that, it's that foundation and infrastructure that's going to foster interoperability at that second tier.

Nadja Bester: 59:32

Thank you, Nelly, please go ahead.

Nelly: 59:34

I would like to add, we need the shift of our mindset in a way that the way we have built technology, and actually brands have requested building us technology, has been to ensure user stickiness and to make it difficult to leave right? So if I were to move my data from one medical provider to a. Another it should be very difficult for me, and I would rather not do it right. And now we are talking about the exact opposite. Not only am I taking my data, but I'm taking, like literally everything, my avatar, my digital assets, any learning experiences and what not, I'm taking them and moving them between various virtual worlds seem mean seamlessly, right? So this is a complete, complete shift of mindset, so we need to start there again. What the benefits are why we have to do that, and then build all the standards necessary, as came mentioned, and then build the technology around it so that it allows it. And again, it should be seamless. It should be easy. It should be like stepping from, you know, one room to another not it shouldn't be a drag on the end user, right? So having those kind of exclusive or closed off worlds, it's just the beginning for us to get started and to build everything else that we have to but we are all or we should all be building with interoperability in mind and making sure that it's not something difficult to implement later on, but rather we have kind of built our worlds and avatars and digital assets with that in mind.

Nadja Bester: 1:01:40

Nelly, Charlene, Cai, thank you all so much for all of the insights that you've shared with the audience. I think there's so much to unpack here that I wish we could have gone for another couple of hours, or at least have a session too. But in the meantime, if you've tuned in for the last hour, I think there's so much for you to dig into. Definitely follow the speakers. They all have amazing insights based on the incredible things that they have been building and will continue to build. And thank you the audience for investing another hour in your own education and your own understanding of this brave new world that we find ourselves in. And as a thank you from Tangra, they are offering AI image generator, Tangra, AI image generator, 50% off code. Go to Tangra.link/images and use the code full 50 all caps, and until next week, I will catch you again for another episode of the future of NFTs. Brought to you by AdLunam. Cheers guys to all our speakers. Thank you so much. We'll definitely be following closely with what you guys build. Have a great week.

Nelly: 1:02:46

It was a pleasure. Bye,

Cai: 1:02:48

thank you. Bye, bye.