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00:00so i'm honored to have the incredible iris nevins i'm going to come on up and interview
00:15come up queen come up queen wow honor come on up please sit so it's a pleasure
00:26thank you thank you so much for having me before we even get started i just want to say it has been
00:33huge for me to sit here and see these powerful women uh come up here and their ceos owners of
00:39their own company creating a new space in the web 3 experience so thank you for even bringing your
00:44man your expertise your education that's the biggest thing to this stage um first of all
00:49just to see that you stopped you shifted you pivoted multiple times come on
00:56before i even get into the the cue card reality right i have it wouldn't be i wouldn't be done
01:01if i did this and just what made you shift and trust the shift which shift the one to tech the one
01:11great question the one to both because you were in a complete you were engineering you were in
01:17engineering you just said okay not only am i gonna leave vox media i'm gonna shift into this and be my
01:23own ceo own my own company and branding into web 3 i know what i gave the whole spiel about who you
01:28are and you can totally do that but i guess for me as a black woman in this industry that that is
01:33pivotal and i want to know where you were in your headspace and why you felt so confident enough to
01:37say i'm gonna leave this corporate design and go this way yeah so you know that decision really goes
01:46back to my original decision to join tech the tech industry in the first place right i started out as a
01:52teacher i was teaching social studies in middle and high school and i was also an activist in south
02:00florida doing a lot of community organizing work and in the black lives matter movement and i realized
02:08through that work that there was a really large gap when it came to technology and that a lot of our
02:16organizations were actually struggling to be effective and a part of that came from the lack
02:22of like tech that like the lack of use of tech in our um in our organizations and so i decided to leave
02:31my job as a teacher i left my my social justice work and i enrolled in a coding boot camp in san francisco
02:38i learned how to code that's the big one yes um and i got a job in in tech and you know when i when i
02:46made that decision i was like i'm gonna figure out how this tech thing works because i feel like there's
02:51something here and if black people can figure out how to leverage this technology we can actually like
02:58start solving our own problems in a really big way and so that's how i actually got into tech in the
03:04first place and so then when web 3 came around it was just like okay like this is this is now another
03:12opportunity to take this to a whole other level because one of the ways in which wealth is built
03:18is by leveraging new technology to solve problems and disrupt industries right like that's what the
03:23internet did and so all the companies that were able to figure out how to use the internet um
03:28to to you know solve problems and you know revolutionize industries whether it's like
03:35the streaming industry for example or you know the the film industry or even you know in hospitals and
03:42in schools like everyone is now using the internet right um those those uh leaders and builders and
03:49founders have been able to build large amounts of wealth for themselves for their families for their
03:55employees and so web 3 and blockchain technology is is another opportunity to do this again and to
04:04make sure that black people this time around are actively involved in that process when you speak
04:09on disruption that's a big one right you come into this space and you have your company which i really
04:15want to know the name and why the name for your company but also how the disruption that you speak of
04:23uh matters for our community specifically right because to me in the tech space most times that
04:30disruption comes from people that don't look like us and i hate that right and so what why is it
04:36important for us to be a part of the disruption why is the culture having that culture within that
04:42disruption important and why the name because i feel like those things all matter together
04:46umba daima means create forever in swahili and we had chosen that name because when we originally
04:56founded the company it was actually an e-commerce store and we were helping artists in africa and
05:01the caribbean sell their work online and so that was the original like genesis of the project it was
05:07it was more of a side project we didn't expect for it to become like this whole big company that i'd be
05:15doing full-time right that wasn't the original plan um but then once we started learning about
05:20nfts and web3 and how to help artists leverage nfts and then once we realized that you could actually
05:26help way more than artists in in blockchain and crypto we decided to just like pivot fully into the
05:33nft space and go all in um the reason why it's so important for black people to be a part of this
05:40is because one we're we're not gonna overcome the issues and the problems that we have until we're
05:47able to build power and you know i think we've learned throughout history that power is really built from
05:54wealth right and power is built from owning um industries it's it's built from owning uh the the
06:03it's built from owning resources right owning land owning real estate right and and having power in
06:11an industry where you can actually band together and make decisions that impact people's lives and we
06:19don't really have that power quite just yet at least for from what i from what i see so um if you're able
06:27to use business and um and entrepreneurship to solve a real problem that's how you attract customers
06:38that's how you attract an audience that's how you build like a product that people want to use
06:42and then you can use that to build wealth into for your for your community again for your employees
06:49um you can build out whole local economies and then from there you can start to influence policy
06:55right which is what all these that's what these other big companies are doing
06:59you're magnificent by the way and i love that you spoke about things that give me just greatness i love
07:05hearing us black and ownership together it gives me that's something that we we don't get enough of
07:13we are not taught early on to understand that we can even have wealth right generational wealth the
07:18concept of equity ownership what does your company offer to the to us right the education because
07:25to me that's pivotal too you can get into this all day but if you don't have the knowledge and the
07:29education behind what these resources are you're lost you're lost what do you offer to us in this
07:36space what is this company why is it so special yeah our offering is really threefold so we focus on
07:43first onboarding people into web3 and so that's really kind of helping people understand
07:50at the most basic fundamental levels like what is this what is the technology and why does it matter
07:57the second thing is creating an ecosystem an environment where now that people are onboarded
08:04they can continuously learn continuously develop new skill sets network and build relationships
08:10within the space and then the third part is helping to connect them to opportunities
08:18opportunities and so those opportunities look different for different people for artists for example
08:23it's visibility it might be helping them you know get featured in shows or helping them
08:29you know get jobs on nft projects and so forth um but it also might be helping to connect founders
08:36to funding right it might be helping to connect um developers to web3 jobs um helping people that are in
08:45marketing or you know other skill sets uh professions that are highly valuable helping them understand
08:52how they can actually shift into a career in web3 and do that exact same job um in this new industry
08:59and so yeah that's really kind of the that's our focus and we we started off focused primarily on black
09:07people now we've expanded so we're more focused on on broader um broader ecosystem development so that
09:15means race that means gender that means uh being inclusive of of people in developing nations for
09:22example which i think is really important as well um but yeah we're we're it this kind of work is so
09:30kind of multi-faceted uh which is a part of what makes it really fun speak more to me about how
09:37blockchain is involved in that right because i think people when they sense blockchain they get
09:41afraid immediately right because it seems like this vast thing people think of cryptocurrency and
09:47they they're scared right same thing with nft it seems like this vast hole of i don't know if i want
09:52to do it i'd love to pick your brain on what you feel blockchain is and what it donates to all of those
10:00those assets yeah so i'm gonna break down a few terms that i think because yeah so the three the
10:07three ones that i that people oftentimes kind of use interchangeably but they're actually different
10:13you have web3 you have crypto and you have blockchain okay so blockchain is literally just
10:20a technology it's a it's a type of um software technology that you can use as kind of building blocks to
10:29build applications on the internet that's what it is at its at its core um but it's a new type of
10:37technology because it it allows you to track data in a way that we haven't been able to track it before
10:47okay and so basically what it does is it allows you to create these like digital tokens
10:53and you can store data on that token and anytime that token is exchanges hands between one person
11:02or another or one institution in another or one wallet in another etc all of that data is being updated
11:09and maintained and stored on these tokens and so that's really powerful because we are constantly
11:19creating and consuming and interacting with data on a day-to-day basis if you think of like you know
11:24just you're you're registering for this conference right or um you know when you go to the doctor and
11:31you have to fill out forms and they take your blood right like all of that data like where is it going
11:37right it's not really stored very efficiently and so that's why if you want to dig up your health
11:43records you got to call you know 100 people to get it right but imagine if all of that data could be
11:49stored in one place that was safe that was secure that was protected that you could access whenever
11:54you needed it and anytime it was updated you knew that those updates were um were were verified uh
12:03updates right so that's the power of this technology now think of how you could apply that to
12:08to every industry so that's blockchain technology then you have crypto which is one of the ways
12:17that blockchain technology is being used it's being used to create digital assets that function as
12:24currencies um so just like you have the us dollar right you have the pound like these are currencies
12:32they're physical currencies now you're talking about virtual currencies or digital currencies
12:37so the blockchain technology is being used to create these digital currencies and now you can use
12:43those currencies to do things online you can trade you can you know exchange services and goods for
12:50this currency and so it allows people to actually kind of have economies and trade systems outside of
13:00the the the government essentially that's going to change obviously the government will start to
13:06regulate it but it's really exciting because there's all these innovations that you can do that uh with
13:13digital currency that you can't do with physical currency so that's crypto um and it's you know just
13:21like with any asset any new asset it's a volatile industry it's a volatile asset so it goes up and down
13:28it can drop 80 in a day like that's very normal but what we're seeing is more and more and more
13:34adoption year by year of digital currencies and people are using them to do real things like buy art
13:41and buy nfts right um then the third term web3 is what people are using to refer to the new internet
13:50and that's the internet in which blockchain is being incorporated into all these different facets of
13:58life where cryptocurrency nfts etc are like becoming a part of our day-to-day life and facilitating all
14:06of these new like ways of of interacting with each other in the world there's some specific philosophies
14:12that people have around like what this should look like and there's a lot of disagreement there's terms
14:18like decentralization for example that's anything with the wild wild west right when something's so free
14:23exactly exactly so you'll probably hear people disagree a lot on what web3 is supposed to be
14:30um but yeah those those are if anything i would say remember those three terms and go from there
14:36and i think that's needed you're like and to me what your business and what your model is is so
14:41important because the education is pivotal right we have to know what we're getting into because it's so
14:46vast and so i asked you this what can black women creators learn to hone in the power of technology
14:56and really take this to the future what advice can you give them when they're out there looking to take
15:01over this how do they have their seat on the throne in this space the beauty of the beauty of blockchain
15:11technology when it comes to art is really around nfts and so nfts are they're called they stand for
15:18non-fungible tokens so they're they're built in a way that's very similar to how digital currencies are
15:25built but it's slightly different so with a digital currency every single token is the same has the same
15:32value just like every single dollar bill has the same value right it doesn't matter if you mark up the
15:37dollar bill or you know cut off the corner of it it's still going to be worth the same as any other
15:42dollar bill so that's that's how bitcoin eth and so forth functions then you have nfts which is where
15:50it's a digital asset but it's unique it has a unique identity on the blockchain a unique signature and it
15:57can never be replaced and so what artists have been doing is taking these uh taking their art
16:07and using and tying it to nfts and using nfts as essentially like a deed of ownership that says
16:15you know this nft is tied to this particular artwork and in order to buy the artwork you have to buy the
16:22nft and if you want to trade the artwork you have to trade the nft the artwork like goes with it
16:27basically what's powerful about this is that you can do this online and you can do it using these
16:35tools that make it very simple and straightforward you can sell it directly to your audience or to
16:41your to your buyers and so forth you don't have to go through like galleries and things like that
16:47if you're a digital artist right if you do digital painting if you do animations if you do photography
16:55and things like that it actually makes it a lot easier for you to sell your art as a unique
17:02authentic like in like a unique authentic piece of work right which was almost impossible to do before
17:11if you create it digitally um so you know that that is really huge but then you also have the fact that
17:18this technology is smart and so the thing that's really exciting is the ability to implement royalties
17:25through this technology and so you know through the through the nft every single time that it's traded
17:31you can set it up so that as the original creator you get a percentage of that sale it's gold yes which is
17:37huge because again black people have a history in our history we've historically been taken advantage
17:44of our ip is taken advantage of um you know we generate millions or billions in value and sometimes
17:54that value is off is even created after we're dead but our families and our legacy don't get to see that
18:00to see that so this is a way that allows you as a creator to really kind of protect your family and ensure
18:06that your creations are bringing you recurring income it's also a way to kind of like show the world who did
18:14what first and i think that's also really powerful because again you know black people black women in
18:20particular are huge innovators and oftentimes that gets lost when you know the colonizers trying to write history
18:28so you know this is a way to kind of say on the blockchain you know records and data that's stored
18:35on the blockchain are there forever they can never be altered they can never be destroyed and so um and
18:41so when when a when a black woman uses an nft to say i created this artwork and i'm putting it out there
18:48to the world that data that record will be there forever and i think that's going to be really powerful
18:54for protecting our intellectual property powerful that's powerful you guys really listen to that
18:58because it's powerful and with that because i i think you just spoke to something this is my last
19:05question to you and it's big because you just mentioned this can web 3 and blockchain acquire general
19:12wealth generational wealth for us for our community because again we just spoke about that if we can own
19:18that ownership and that power can it go that far into being generation generation of wealth absolutely
19:24it up it absolutely can um and i'll give a few examples so one you have the example of of art of
19:31using art um to uh using nfts to sell our art to sell our creations right think about all the people
19:40around the world even in you know cultures in africa in the caribbean where they have really amazing
19:45hairstyles and in fashion and dances and so forth like all of this is is is is such highly valuable
19:54intellectual property that is has been really hard to monetize historically so imagine if we could
20:02help all of these amazing black creators around the world monetize their intellectual property through nfts
20:09and then allow them to generate um recurring revenue forever and as that as that intellectual property
20:18grows in value the amount of money that their their families are earning from that intellectual property
20:23is growing over time that's really really really powerful then you have the fact that if you are able
20:30to be a founder right in this space and build a company that is highly valuable and that can be sold in the
20:36future or maybe stays in the family or something like that that's a that's a way to build significant
20:42wealth as well there's no reason why we shouldn't have hundreds if not thousands of black founders
20:48building out companies with the plan of selling that those companies for 10 20 50 100 million dollars
20:54you know take the truth ma'am and then you have the fact that as a professional even if you're not a founder
21:01not everyone's cut out to be a founder not everybody wants to be a founder right it's out
21:06it's it's a it's it's pain and suffering um 80 of the time so uh look good though um so uh you know
21:16but there are so many ways you can team up with the founder you can be one of the first engineers on
21:21a founder's team you can be one of the first marketers on a founder's team like you can find the
21:25people that are already out there kind of trailblazing essentially and say hey i want to be a part of
21:31this i want to support this and get on that equity table get your stock options right so that when
21:36that founder sells that company for 100 million dollars you get a part of that i can't say enough
21:43thank you for giving us your knowledge and your your time we love your company what you're doing
21:49you guys please give it up for ours nevins and if you walk away from this with nothing else
21:55understand the possibility of what we can be what we can be right what we can pass on tech opens up
22:03opportunities she is an example of that her company the way she puts her culture in the name of her
22:09company that is who we are we always take things to the next step the next level and we do it with
22:16such elegance and drip and sauce that we create something even bigger than what they say tech is
22:22sterile and i say you haven't met us in tech yet oh yeah oh one quick thing i mean give it to me
22:29because i'm in love with you i think the i think the once black people on board into the tech industry
22:38like seriously on board is game over it's over it's over sis i agree and with that thank you guys so much
22:46please give it up for iris nevins umba daima make sure you make umba daima look it up it's lovely thank
22:54you so much your queen thank you that is all our segments oh with oh cute let's look cute first
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