Akbar Hamid, co-founder of People of Crypto Lab, joins Cheddar News to discuss how the company is bridging culture and crypto with new metaverse hub, 'Valley of Belonging.'

Between Bells

The Sandbox and People of Crypto Lab Jump Into the Metaverse for Pride 

Welcome back everyone to between Bells and Cheddar news, I'm baker machado in new york. The metaverse in the L. G. B. T. Q. Community merging together, leading decentralized gaming metaverse, the sandbox is joining forces with people of Crypto Lab. That on the first ever Diversity and Inclusivity Center in the metaverse. Now launching this month, the Web three equity push is going to include a slew of perks that included avatar collection, social hub, entertainment and gaming experiences as well as the first ever metaverse pride celebration. So joining us now to discuss is Akbar Hamid, co founder of People of Crypto Lab. Akhbar is such a pleasure to have you here. Thanks so much for joining us. So first off, help us understand what people of Crypto Lab is and what sort of your mission here? Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me so special to be on here with you because I've known you for a few years. Um so people of crypto lab is an innovation lab and our purpose and our mission is to establish a blueprint for diversity, equity and inclusivity in Web three. So web three is the evolution of the internet, you've heard about metaverse, you've heard about N. F. T. S. It's the new way we're engaging digitally and so we're really here to ensure that we're setting the foundation from the start, including communities of color L G B T. Q. I. A. And differently abled. So that's really the premise of what we're doing. That's amazing. So that way everybody sort of feels like they have, they can play a part in all of this now Akbar your company firmly believes that web three can only scale if diversity and inclusion is rooted in the Foundation. So how does the metaverse work to be more inclusive? Or do you think it's already inclusive already? No, it's not. You know, that's why this was born from the frustration of my co founder symbol and barry, who's a black woman, I'm brown, I'm gay, I'm south asian and muslim. We check all the boxes. Um and we were not seeing ourselves reflected in rooms. You know, we've been working in this industry just for the last few years and in all these crypto conferences and tech engagements, we weren't seeing ourselves represented. We were seeing these companies talk about diversity, but there was zero diversities sitting at the table having these discussions. So that frustration led us to establish in this and we're really grateful to the founders of the sandbox that they really believe in this mission. The fact that they're opening the end of june exclusively to celebrate pride and highlight our communities is a really bold statement to the tech community that they cannot scale without including people of color, L. G. B. T. Q I A. And the differently abled because we are the global majority, you know, our avatar collection is 8430 that's 84.3% reflective of L. G. B. T. Q. I. And people of color around the world. Um and it's a really diverse collection of avatars. It's you know, you have people in hijab, you have 36 different skin shades, you have cultural identifiers, prosthetic limbs, um you could be any, you know, any color of the rainbow really in it, I love it and we were showing our viewers some of it, it looks so amazing. Akhbar let's talk about the debut of the first diversity equity and inclusivity hub in the metaverse pOC. You guys are collaborating with the sandbox which is a huge player in the metaverse and a huge get for Web three and the L G B T. Q community. So talk a little bit about the significance of the sandbox joining this diversity center on Web three here. Yeah, it's a huge, huge moment. You know, we're starting with the sandbox because they're one of the biggest cultural hubs. Currently, they have every brand from Gucci Adidas, they have people like Snoop Dogg steve, Aoki, all these incredible cultural players and movers within the platform. So they really are trying to show that culture is really at the at the epicenter of what we need in order to make metaverse platforms, scale, but also we need to onboard the masses, we need to get mass communities and communities of color and L G B T Q I a newbies as we call them in order for metaverse platforms to scale. So um there are extremely supportive of our mission but they also understand that Web three won't scale unless we bring these communities on board and there are some educational hurdles into getting people on board into these spaces, you have to open a wallet, you have to have some understanding of how to purchase an avatar in order to come in and engage. So we're trying to actually educate and do we have a whole education component to what we're doing to make sure marginalized communities like ourselves are not left behind, we are provided with access, we are provided with education so that we can make choices whether to be participants, whether to be creators. It's really important to note too, I'm a non tech founder, you know, and if I can do it, I think it's really a sign that anyone can and we want people to be able to engage because Web three is the future and the same way, you know, when when emails started and people were like, are we really gonna use that and look at us now and staying with instagram and Tiktok. So metaverse is in 2345 years, I mean it's gonna be a very normal thing. Absolutely. And by the way, there's also going to be an avatar, N F T drop as well, the N F T s representative of the estimated 84.3% of the global majority population of communities of color and the L G B T. Q community? So ahkbar, what challenges have gone into launching this hub. And when can people get one of these N. F. T. S. Yeah absolutely. So they're minting on june 17th. So if you follow us on twitter at people of Krypto, the of the O is a zero, um you can follow along for all the updates societies, people of crypto dot io so you can um come come over there to sign up for the welcome list and so they'll mint june 16th and 17th. Um And so there was a lot of challenges that went into this, you know when you're working in a Vauxhall ized Environment and and developing and building avatars and that kind of a creative space to actually show details and to actually be able to show and identify with different sexualities, orientations or skin tones. It takes a lot of work. So really simone, my co founder and I over the last few months have really been heads down working on this. And what's really incredible is we brought on a partner Nix cosmetics who's actually all the makeup you'll see on the generated avatars is Nick's makeup and they're super mission aligned. They celebrate probably 3 65. I think that's really important for us is to bring in partners for june for pride month where it's not just rainbow washing its people that lived and walked the walk year round and and so we're really excited to integrate them and their whole mission is makeup has no gender and I think it's really incredible. We're able to showcase that on our avatars no matter what gender you are, you can wear makeup and have fun. And are there any other brands you mentioned Nix Cosmetics? There any other brands that are going to be a part of this down the road here soon. We hope so. So right now it's next cosmetics and and they really want to continue integrating and playing in the space and bringing their community into the metaverse. But you know we are, there's a lot of spirits brands that are eager to break into the space. A lot of fashion brands. We are working with the C. F. D. A. The council of fashion designers of America to guide all of american fashion into the metaverse and unlock opportunities for their communities. Um So I think there's going to be a lot of updates coming out. Well it sounds like quite the party in the metaverse. Amazing stuff, congratulations and all the success of Mohammed, the co founder of People of crypto joining us here on cheddar news