TMCF Enters the MetaVerse with Cohort 01 of MetaScholars
The TMCF | MetaScholars Program story starts in 2021 inside the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Division (I&E) at Thurgood Marshall College Fund. I & E works with corporate sponsors to identify, position, and prepare the next generation of diverse global innovators to drive technological solutions that will change the world. Their programming exposes HBCU & PBI students to design thinking, ideation, entrepreneurship skills, and coaching. We help motivate them to become the next innovators and challenge them to solve the world’s most difficult problems through immersive competitions that provide first-head experience in BUILDING and PITCHING an idea.
As an Alum of Jackson State University and I & E programming, this mission hits home for me. I & E programs inspired my journey into technology investing and entrepreneurship setting me on a trajectory to study Technology Management at Columbia University as an HBCU Fellow and eventually become a Schwarzman Scholar. My active participation in Ally’s Moguls in the Making and The Pitch 2019 shaped my career in ways that I’m forever grateful for. The ability to give back at a critical moment in both technology and the advancement of equitable access is where the I & E division and the MetaScholars program will shape the future innovators of tomorrow, just as it did for me 3 years ago.
Moving into the MetaVerse
From 2020 and beyond, like most of the world, we have been unable to host in-person competitions and shifted towards virtual immersion using tools like Zoom to deliver the competition experience to our students. We have learned a ton during that year, documented our findings, and felt there could be a better way to combine real life with the virtual world. However, we can’t take all the credit because our HBCU & PBI STUDENTS and their ideas helped inspire our decision around building the TMCF | MetaScholars program.
Students came to the table with business ideas around Crypto, NFTs, BlockChain use cases, and ways to rebuild a new world around Web 3.0 Technologies. This made us proud to serve our students, but it encouraged us to enhance the rigor of our programming to serve our students better! Since November of 2021, we have spent time researching and developing a program and curriculum centered around teaching, investing, and helping HBCU & PBI students thrive in this new world of technology.
Our Associate Vice President of Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Tamaria K Perry, felt it was time to launch this program, so no HBCU & PBI student will be left behind in what we are calling the “Meta-Divide.” For communities of Color, the technological divide has endowed individuals without the resources to succeed in the Web age. A study was done by Deutsche Bank Global Technology Strategist Apjit Walia “ found that Black and Hispanic American workers could be disqualified or underprepared for 86% of jobs in the U.S. by 2045. Finding that Black and Hispanic communities were 10 years behind their white counterparts in the digital economy.
Vincent, CEO of Better Design Company and Experience Architect of the TMCF | MetaScholars program, says “that the technology divide doesn’t even include Web 3.0 technologies. How many diverse communities will be left behind in the age of digital wallets, avatars, virtual meetings, and decentralized finance?” Understanding this critical moment in technology, the I & E team at TMCF decided to put plans into action and help prepare HBCU & PBI students for this crucial moment in time. We have selected 12 TMCF | MetaScholars for the Inaugural Cohort of our program. The students will go through 10 weeks of hands-on training, in and out of virtual worlds, have a chance to learn from thought leaders in the space, and build meaningful Meta projects. This will culminate at TMCF’s The Pitch 2022 on May 22nd — May 26th hosted at Winston Salem State University. Students will have the opportunity to pitch inside of Mytaverse against 100 other HBCU students who will be in person at Winston Salem State University.
These are exciting times for our students and an even more thought-provoking time for me. As we continue to build this program, we are rapidly learning and discovering insights about Web 3.0 that were previously unknown. How long should students be in-world? What’s the best way to onboard students to platforms like Spatial.io and Horizon Workrooms? What can we do to motivate students to dig deeper? As they dig deeper, I found myself rolling up my sleeves and building alongside these student innovators because the fact remains that we are all genuinely learning together in this new territory.
Over the next few weeks, we will be blogging about our processes and learnings and highlighting the experiences of our talented students. We hope that this program inspires everyone to go down the rabbit hole of learning about Web 3.0, so we can all learn together. As an I&E alum, I’m proud to lead this monumental movement as the lead program consultant for the TMCF | MetaScholars. I’m thankful to the I&E team and my partners in crime, Amanda Kuff, and Vincent Hunt, for building with us. On a personal level, building this program and alongside other activations inside of I & E has been an incredible full-circle moment in my life. However, I know this will not be the end of this journey, but only just the beginning. Cheer’s to many more cohorts of MetaScholars because we can not afford to leave any communities behind in this new world of emerging technologies. Join us as we welcome the first Cohort of TMCF MetaScholars!
