The Sandbox collaborates with People of Crypto Lab to create the metaverse’s first diversity and inclusion center.
People of Crypto Lab’s People of the Metaverse The Center for Diversity at The Sandbox
The “Center for Belonging” will launch in June 2022 during Alpha 3 of The Sandbox. It will also include a collection of diverse avatars, an educational social hub, entertainment and immersive gaming experiences.
It will also begin hosting the first Metaverse Pride and a “play to win” game to celebrate our differences.
According to the schedule, POC will launch the first #MetaPride in partnership with NYX Professional Makeup on June 24, 2022, during the special “Belonging Week” event.
Dubbed the Valley of Belonging, the new center will see the Sandbox open ahead of its Alpha Season 3 “to celebrate our differences, boldly reaffirming the importance of an equitable Web3.”
POC is based on promoting cultural differences in the metaverse, empowering “creators and communities with diverse stories, teams and projects that represent black and brown women, people of color and LGBTQIA+ creators, developers and brands,” the company wrote in a statement Tuesday.
The platform wants to incorporate brands and creators who build metaverse projects that represent diversity and inclusion in 3D virtual worlds.
The company has already set in motion steps for global cosmetics giant NYX Professional Makeup to join The Sandbox metaverse.
POC and NYX are planning to launch a collection of 8,430 non-binary avatars to celebrate Pride Month. The NFT avatar collection will include voxelized makeup looks for each group represented in the Progressive Pride flag.
The minting will take place on June 17 and will incorporate one of the most diverse NFT collections, characterized by 36 skin tones, every ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identification.
It aims to celebrate cultural and physical differences, from different abilities, such as prosthetics, to cultural identifiers, such as the hijab.
On the other hand, POC Lab’s black and neurodiverse co-founder Simone Berry commented, “Culture drives commerce, so Web3 can only scale if diversity and inclusion are ingrained in the foundation of what is being built. Black and brown women, people of color and LGBTQIA+ people have immense combined buying power and unprecedented cultural influence.”
Sebastien Borget, COO and co-founder of The Sandbox, added.
“Diversity, equity and inclusion are essential in a truly open metaverse. Rather than replicating real-world bias and inequality, the metaverse must break down barriers and forge an inclusive and welcoming global community.”
Meanwhile, People of Crypto Lab (POC) is dedicated to increasing diversity, participation and representation in Web3. In addition, it aims to build the metaversal project for inclusion across Web3.
This is what POC is building:
- Educating and onboarding brands and consumers, creating meaningful brand integrations on Web3 based on celebrating diversity.
- Developing, investing in and promoting brands with diverse stories, teams and projects that represent women, black, brown, brown, people of color and LGBTQIA+ creators, developers and brands. POC will reinvest 50% of NFT sales back into the community.
- Create new empowerment opportunities for underserved creators and users. The Lab will develop intellectual property, brands, games, multimedia content and NFT projects built for the next generation audience and communities of the future with all marginalized groups in mind.
- It will remain blockchain agnostic and create unbiased use cases for multi-chain interoperability.
- Finally, create one of the most diverse avatar collections in web3 history, with a representation of 57 skin tones representing all ethnicities and backgrounds, and avatars with different disabilities that include all people of the world. Diverse gameplay with MPCs in wheelchairs and drag queens.
“As someone who has had to hide behind their real identity, I’m looking forward to the metaverse allowing marginalized communities to have a safe space to express their true selves and feel represented,” said POC co-founder Akbar Hamid. “Our deep understanding of culture and the consumer journey to Web 3.0 is our power.”