Tech Uncensored - An Altitude Accelerator Podcast

Hessie Jones: Hi everyone, welcome to Altitude Accelerator. This is Tech Uncensored and this is actually our premiere show. My name is Hessie Jones and we are at the Metaverse and 5g conference in Toronto. Today we'll be speaking to a few innovators who are working in this burgeoning field within the web three umbrella and I'd like to introduce our first guest. His name is Lorne Sugarman. And he is the CEO of the Metaverse. Group. So these are gonna be fairly short interviews, but I wanted to give you a taste of the kind of talent that we're talking to here at the conference. So Lorne, you consider yourself a web three company? Correct. Okay, so would you say you're one of the enablers of the sector?

Lorne Sugarman: So we believe we are an enabler. We've done many activations across multiple metal verses, and more specifically giving you a couple of quick examples we did recently did the Forever 21 store in Decentraland during Metaverse Fashion Week, which we're going to announce our new fashion week in a couple of weeks. That will be next year, but we held that we had very great success with that on average, people spent 27 plus minutes in the store, and we had over 3000 people in the store and 74 million media impressions for Forever 21 around doing that. Another very innovative thing that we've done recently was with Miami Fashion Week, they were the first fashion week to actually integrate the physical and digital world. So while they were doing the physical show in Miami, they live streamed their video content into their store that we built called La Italia. In downtown Decentraland, in the fashion district in central London at least, we ran runway shows and a bunch of other content. And I guess, last but not least, the most recent one we've done that would be interesting or what we think is enabling an innovative is the UPS store. So, we enabled UPS Store Fast Company and ink and what it is this for me is for small, medium and enterprise businesses to learn about Metaverse and NFT's and, the digital world and so we've provided content inside the store for levels of the store where they can actually read and understand about Metaverse and educate themselves about it.

Hessie Jones: Okay, that's really cool. So, you mentioned Decentraland. And so your company is very much, I guess, embedded within the real estate world. And in the Metaverse, Decentraland has been in the news lately, as you know. So for our audience, it's surface that the $1 billion valuation company only had 500 active users, which I guess in the VC world today, it's like, what what's going on? Usually, traction is usually a condition of investment. So while there's been some dispute by the company about this incidence, it also marks a moment where traditional VCs may be less enamored about investing in the Metaverse. How do you respond to that?

Lorne Sugarman: So, I'm a big believer that we are definitely in your early days. We've seen some of the early days you know, I was a banker in the 1990s for during the.com era and there were many people that said to me in those days I just like they say to me today, you're crazy like this is like it's never gonna happen. Well, I think we all know the Internet has happened and is integral to our life and we couldn't live with it every day and so when I look at Decentraland when the facts were unfortunately incorrect in that article, and there are central input posted at Sam Hamilton, who's the producer, they're posted. Twit, Twitter, twit tweet, excuse me, inability to speak with the real data around it and you know, talked about 50,000 average daily users a whole bunch of host of other transactions. They didn't look at all the smart contracts, all that type of good stuff. And I'm not going to go through the data, people can look it up. But I think what I come back to is what Decentraland is creating is a unique economy, a decentralized economy that doesn't exist in the world today. And so, for VCs to look at it and for others to look at it, you have to realize, and we've seen many tech companies over the years, they didn't you know, remember the olden days. Well, they only had users they didn't have revenue, or they didn't have this they didn't have that. And this is just one of the many examples are we are really but there are they what they've done, no one else has ever created. It's special. It's pretty unique and I think as more adoption happens is more unique content happened, some of the stuff that we talked about, you're going to drive further and further adoption and further and further use cases. And that valuation is going to make a lot of sense and look at some point in the future to be hopefully very cheap. So, I think these are the types of things we're seeing today. And we have to realize that there's an evolution happening here.

Hessie Jones: Okay, so well we know that early day and NFTs, rug pulls in cryptocurrency, all these schemes are causing this crypto winter. So, some would argue that Metaverse winter is also here. I guess there are a lot of the early adopters who have actually profited from the scheme. So, what's your view on the viability of this type of model and is it sustainable?

Lorne Sugarman: So first, of all, you know, just from our Metaverse perspective, we obviously own land and 12 plus Metaverses today, over 850 parcels we've never sold a parcel and have no intention of selling parcels. So, we're here to do this to build a business long term and to work with brands and corporations and building out their web three strategies and enabling them through the technology that we have. Having said that 100% Some of the early projects, were just PFP projects, they didn't have a ton of utility and prices dropped and unfortunately, investors got burned with that. I think where you're seeing the evolution and I think where people need to get their mindset around is there's so much more to do with this stuff. And specifically, you go to NFT's look at what Starbucks announced recently with respect to their loyalty program. I think they're I think you're going to see evolution and how we use these NFT's. And if NFT's are going to be exceptionally valuable, you can use them to authenticate things you can use them you know, for you have an Apple iPhone, you want to make sure it's an authentic Apple phone, you can tag them with NFT's in the physical and digital world. And so, there's so many different utilization cases, whether it's around utility, whether it's around Supply Chain Management, that we've just begun again and we're going to evolve from your just PFP projects to many more other projects in many different verticals, including, you know, for brands, my one of my favorite things I always pick on the Expedia Travelocity example is those hotel brands. Those airlines have lost their customers to Expedia and Travelocity. They own the customer. So, this is a way for those types of brands to take the customers back with unique NFT projects and you're seeing some of the hotel chains, looking at NF T's and other things to enhance their community and that is just going to continue and we're just at the beginning of that.

Hessie Jones: So like from your perspective, we will evolve from the Bored Ape scenario?

Lorne Sugarman: So – important– touches on a very something near and dear to my heart. And I'll use this example I spoke at Harvard blockchain conference about six months ago, nine months ago, can't remember the dates. And sitting in front of the room were a ton of people with Bored Ape merch on their T shirts and sweatshirts and stuff like that. And the reason I bring that up, obviously we're dealing with a highly educated group of people. And what was so unique to me about that is Bored Ape has created a community and a following. So yes, it was just an initial PFP project, but it has created such you know, excitement around it. You have celebrities you have now the other side Metaverse, they're going to enable those NFT's and their coins inside that metaverse. And so they're really weaving together a storyboard and in a reverse way to what you see we see brands come about every day. We don't question it that way that all of a sudden, this is my favorite new T shirt. They created it through a PSP project. Now they're creating the community, the loyalty, the merge, other games, other things. And so I actually think it's quite a unique project and brilliant in the way it's been done.

Hessie Jones: It sounds really exciting. So, one last thing. Do you see a timeframe when you think this is getting materialized within the mainstream?

Lorne Sugarman: So, I believe it's materializing. today. I believe there are different things that need to happen to make it easier and more friendly for everyone so that you know, my 90 year old dad will actually embrace NFT's and crypto and all that type of stuff but what I would say is that, you know, we need to stop talking about NFT's we need to talk about digital collectibles; we need to start talking about wallets and we need to make it easy so that people can access it using their phones, like any other app. And so, as that type of stuff happens as AR and VR gets better as all these use cases and technologies come into the marketplace, then we'll see more and more people gravitating it. Some of that starting today. And some of it obviously on the hardware side is just going to take longer to get there and maybe it's 2,3,4 years, but we're at the early days and it's going to happen much quicker than then enormous than we expect with this type of stuff.

Hessie Jones: That's great. Well, thank you. And thank you for coming. So we will be right back with our next guest.

Hessie Jones: Hi everyone. Welcome back. Welcome to Altitude Accelerator. This is Tech Uncensored. My name is Hessie Jones and we are at the Metaverse and 5G conference in Toronto. And I'm pleased to speak to our next interviewee. His name is Milton Toledo, of 3DVR designs and he's going to be speaking here at the conference. So welcome and thank you for agreeing to interview with me. Thank you. Milton, you're a hot startup in this space. you're also a client of Altitude Accelerator. So, for audience, you may have recently seen 3DVR in city TV, or HGTV for their work in the building and design industry. So, my question to you what tell us a bit about your company. When did you start and what kind of unique problem are you trying to solve?

Milton Toledo: Thank you for your time. We basically started this back in 2016. And it's been a long journey, but the problem that we're trying to solve is for home buyers to visualize their product before the build a home. That's what basically what we're doing.

Hessie Jones: Okay, awesome. So, what excited you about building this company like, especially in this space, when it's when it's still fairly nascent? What do you think is going to happen in the future that allows you to actually take a leap into what you're doing today?

Milton Toledo: So, what actually got me into this so I'm an architectural designer, so I deal with a lot of designers, builders. And I've seen where a homeowner had the difficulty of visualizing what their space was going to look like. And since I'm into technology, I basically say hey, why not try to build an application where we can help the end user, visualize what the space is going to look like so and that's how we basically started, you know, dealing with builders, focusing on their product and putting it into our program. So when the homeowner actually is ready to do a purchase, they can actually go through all the colors within the application. So, you know, it's a lot easier than to look at a two-way sample now. They're just basically looking at that color within the entire space.

Hessie Jones: Okay, so explain the journey of a person who wants to participate in in the metaverse like, why would they want to do it and like what are the benefits that you see?

Milton Toledo: Like I mentioned, the benefits are seeing, those colors within the entire space, right. So, when you are sitting in front of the design center with a designer, you know, they're showing you small samples, we basically incorporate that into the entire space so that's beneficial for the client is that they're walking around and selecting colors on the spot.

Hessie Jones: So for people in your industry like in in designers or architects how does this change the game and in their profession?

Milton Toledo: I mean, it's a lot easier. I mean, you know, it's beneficial for an architect, time consuming, you know, less mistakes happen also on site. Because, again, you know, when you're building a home, everything is to spec. So, if you see that on a 3D application, or if it's getting built, our application is not just visualizing color, you can also see what's behind the walls. So, when it comes to putting the help home together, you know, you can go through a 3D image easier than doing it on a 2D image.

Hessie Jones: So is it is there a monetization aspect to it? Can you make more money? Or is it a savings that you experience?

Milton Toledo: I would say savings

Hessie Jones: And how much time would people save by doing it this way? I understand that the idea of being able to see it visually but the immersive aspect of it and the ability to I guess get it to in front of the client faster. I would assume that that that saves time and money?

Milton Toledo: It would be for both for the customer also for the builder right for the customer as in you know they can do this from their home. They don't have to rush into do numerous visits to the builder. You know, to do the process of buying a home this can be done from anywhere in the world. You can log in at the same time with the builder or the designer and go through all those selections within the application.

Hessie Jones: So, how does 3DVR win in the space? So I've heard from Angela Bourne, your EIR, and she says that your platform is fantastic in terms of its hyper realism. So, do you think that is a point of your competitive advantage?

Milton Toledo: We have a big advantage with that. There are other companies out there that have something similar, but we've paid very close attention to detail because, again, I mean, this is someone that is going to be buying a home and what they see is what they're what they get so all the textures, all the finishes have to be precise. So, we took very, very careful detail on what we're putting on our application. So, I would say that the realism versus you know, the Decentraland metas, it’s very high end.

Hessie Jones: So, one last question. What would you say to entrepreneurs who are interested in pursuing a start-up in this space? What are the things that you would say you would have learned?

Milton Toledo: I would say you know, looking for the right people to to get on board, you know, programmers, people that have experience in you know, whatever software they're using -- if it's Unity, Unreal Engine, to get people that have experienced spend the time on getting people that have the ability to do what they want to do. And time I mean that’s the other thing is, you know, focus on your time and take your time to put all these things together, not just rush into things.

Hessie Jones: So anyway, thank you for your time. I'm glad you decided to give us
a few minutes. Thank you very much. Take care. We'll be right back.

Hessie Jones: Hi, everyone. welcome back to Altitude Accelerator. This is Tech Uncensored. My name is Hessie Jones at the Metaverse and 5g Conference in Toronto and today, I'm happy to present David Krauss of Ciena. And so, David, you're one of the speakers at Metaverse. You have an interesting title. You're a packet architect in the Office of the CTO, correct. so, Okay, so tell me about your company, tell me about your role and what you're actually doing to adapt to the advancement of the metaverse.

David Krauss: So, Ciena Corp is a networking services systems and software company. We basically provide equipment and software and other services that fuel or that provide the bandwidth for networks today and, you know, the internet being a large portion of that I'm in the office of the CTO where I'm exploring new architectures, new networking architectures, and new technologies that can advance the whole concept of providing more bandwidth and lower latency and more intelligent and automated networks.

Hessie Jones: So, we know decentralization is a big part of what the future holds. So, when we talk about centralization of things that's going to go away, so I think, from your perspective, it that's going to end, and with the I guess the emergence of 5g that's going change things a little bit, right?

David Krauss: Well, okay, so let's, let's break that question down a little bit. Okay. So, decentralization is one of the key components of what we'll be talking about now with the metaverse. It's also the key premise behind web three, which is a technology or set of technologies that may or may not wind up being the underpinnings of the metaverse. So, it is not guaranteed that the concept of decentralization will be successful. Now that being said, we're off to a pretty good start in terms of how it's progressing.

And I'll throw out one example. So, there's a company called Helium Networks, which successfully built a decentralized wireless communications network for low power devices. And the way that works is a person would buy their own wireless antenna and this then allowed them to build a network and provide connectivity through their own internet connection. Because of the low powered network, it worked quite well. They're now trying to do this using 5g technology. The question is, how scalable is this going to be? And how in the sort of the ecosystem of wireless networks will display with the larger more established players? One way to look at it is that this will help the larger players fill in spots that may not be economical for them to deploy. Another way to look at it is it may be a threat to their user base. So, I think decentralization is not a sure bet at this point. It's it has a fantastic philosophy behind it. But we're still in the early days of figuring out how to truly make it work and make it work scalable.

Hessie Jones: So when you're talking about this concept of ownership in the new web, you're saying that it's still early days to figure out, whether or not scalable, whether or not people want it whether or not people we can even do it.

David Krauss: Yeah, it's really a question of whether the concepts that that have now been developed, that we think we have a good handle on whether they can scale and wind up being used practically and then self-sufficiently in sort of a circular decentralized economy.

Hessie Jones: So maybe we should go back and define these things because I've seen the concept or even the definition of Metaverse being used interchangeably with web three. So can you be the person that clarifies this for us?

David Krauss: Well, I can be a person that can attempt to help, okay, put some common terms around what we're talking about because the metaverse means different things to different people. And I think at this point, it's still a little hard to define exactly what it is. And I don't necessarily want to be the one person who stands up and says, I know what it is, and this is what it is. No, I'm just going to throw out some concepts that I think what I hope we can all kind of agree to use is this groundwork over common ground I should say so at its core, the metaverse is a, an immersive, interactive, persistent, virtual space or set of platforms. That is interconnected and interoperable, but the key is really an immersive interactive space. Now one, it is also the evolution of the Internet. So, the internet has primarily been two dimensional for most of us, and this this will be a shift to a three-dimensional internet. The final point about the metaverse is that it will be based on but will not be defined by web three technologies. So, when we talk about web three technologies, we're talking about things like blockchain and NFTS, DAOs, decentralized autonomous organizations, cryptocurrencies – that's the that's the basis of the decentralization we were talking about earlier. But the metaverse and web three are two different things. The Metaverse may be enabled by web three technologies, but there's nothing to say that the metaverse could not wind up being more centralized.

Hessie Jones: Interesting. I didn't I didn't realize that I actually thought that that it was like a subset. And that when you're in a virtual world, the how you play in that world is based on the environment that you're given. And so a blockchain is not necessarily part of like a Decentraland, for example.

David Krauss: Oh, but it is Oh, for Decentraland.

Hessie Jones: Yes, sorry.

David Krauss: I mean, because it can help track assets, digital assets. But But I did want to say that, you know, the the metaverse web three maybe a technological component, Metaverse, but, but extended reality and augmented reality and virtual reality. That too, is a component of metaverse. And additionally, something like going beyond just sight and sound and touch. There could be taste and smell that could be components, technological components, that that comprise the metaverse or may be required actually, to make the metaverse a truly immersive experience

Hessie Jones: So, let's get back to this concept. Let's assume let's assume that Metaverse and web three take hold and decentralization become, I guess, part of the norm in the future, as well as alternative currency. So how much does this have an impact on the telecom industry? And more importantly, what needs to change from a governance perspective?

David Krauss: Yeah, so I guess the I'll first start off by referencing my earlier example of the helium network, so that could definitely be a way that decentralization effects telecommunications networks. There are a lot of complexities to that though, in the example I gave. We were talking about wireless access but ultimately, the wireless access points require connectivity to the internet, which is provided by wireline. I'm not seeing any potential disruption say in a more traditional wireline telecommunication space when it comes to something like decentralized technologies. In terms of the governance, I'm not sure it's going to affect that much either. I mean, typically when I try to wrap my head around what is the metaverse going to do and what is going to be required to make it work and what carriers or service providers, what are they going to need to do it? I think more along the increasing amounts of bandwidth and, and lower latency and additional compute and storage. Those are the kind of characteristics I think are going to be top of mind. It's what's going to be the biggest focus for telecom providers. Because the metaverse is going to require elements that we have in place today, just a whole lot more of them and when I think about a resource like bandwidth, or computation. Yeah, I'm not seeing a disruption say to a traditional telecom provider, for decentralized.

Hessie Jones: This is more of a when I think of governance, I think of this from the perspective of identity. And especially when you start creating, let's say alternative personas or you know, NFT's etc. And like a virtual version of me, how much does that impact how you govern or identify, like, who was real within this space and who's a person behind?

David Krauss: And actually that was just discussed in reference here. Yes. Amazing discussion - specifically about identity. And, indeed, there are some very big rocks ahead of us right now in terms of metaverse. So, identity management or privacy, governance, as you mentioned in this context, there's also access accessibility, commerce. A lot of these go back to standards. So there's an issue with them the interoperability between platforms that exist today. So take for example, places like Decentraland or Roblox or Sandbox or even Horizons World – These are specific instances of platforms that are not necessarily compatible with each other. There are there's now been a push, and there's an organization was created just a few months ago, called the Metaverse Standards Forum, which is a place that is trying to hold together what the standards are. They're not going to be creating any standards, but they're trying to help identify what standards need to exist and how the whole ecosystem can come together to build these standards. That I think relates directly to your question of governance. It but it's a but there's also ethical issues. There's safety issues, affordability issues, inclusivity issues

Hessie Jones: Well, education! I mean, this is this is the one thing that I worry about is my mom –will she understand how to use this, and will she adopt? I can see younger kids adopting this; I don't see how somebody who's been around for a while and are so used to things being done within a centralized structure, whether or not they're going to adopt this, but I think time will tell right?

David Krauss: Oh, absolutely. And I mean one of the one of the premises of the metaverse is like sort of a creative economy. So, the whole idea is for the participants to be creating what they're experiencing. And one of the things I've come across is this concept of codeless programming. So, think of Minecraft, where you're dragging and dropping. And now extend that even a little bit further in terms of it's not just something you build or put on top, but its functions or actions that I don't know if that's going to help your grandmother, but it may help you to actually be able to create inside the Metaverse without being one of the few people who are, you know, coding experts in the languages that underlie and democratizes it for every young person that wants to get into the space.

Hessie Jones: So, all right, one last question. So you seem to have confidence in the in the emergence of this space?

David Krauss: Yes, absolutely. One of the things that was just discussed today is that what we're seeing is a convergence of different all kinds of different technologies. And all of these technologies are going to be enabling, and so I think we're at the very cusp of some of these key enabling technologies starting to coalesce and come together. There's a long road ahead, and we shouldn't be surprised at just how surprised we may be and how quickly some of these things may come together. Put in the hands of the right innovative people. But I've got confidence that there's going to be a level of creation and pulling together on this that will amaze us all in the coming years

Hessie Jones: David, thank you for coming by. Thank you. Take care.