Flosverse CIC Empowering and Enabling Girls & Women

Thank you, Florence for inviting me to the launch - it is a privilege to be here at the launch of METAGIRLS.

I was excited about the project - when you invited me - and now that I’ve heard you introduce the project - I am both more excited and totally inspired.?

As a woman who has been the Chief Executive of a couple of companies in which the leadership teams have predominately been women, I have to admit for a short while I thought the issues of equality were cracked.??

Why would I think that - some of the panel are asking and some of you might be.? Well because I was a woman who has had the opportunity to hold senior positions in the company, many of those working directly with me were women, and so it felt like all the marches and rallies we had all gone on in our late teens early ’20s had paid off and the world was a different place.

And yes the world is a different place, because of all we did in the past - but I see many of the challenges I faced as a woman as I advanced in my career are actually remaining.??

I now work in #Web3. I define this as my second career.? My first career was in public services.? I started as a youth and community worker.? This meant I run youth centres for young people and in the early 80s, we run lots of projects to empower young girls and other disadvantaged groups lesbian, gay and bisexual groups.

I got into this work because I grew up on a council estate in east London in a very abusive household.? I run away from the abuse and ended up spending eight years of my life growing up in foster homes and children's homes.??

All of the moving around, whilst in care, meant no one focussed on my education and I found myself at 15 with no education to help me go forward and develop a career.

Fast forward 30 years and I secured one of the top statutory jobs in a local council.? To put this into context there are only 152 of these jobs in England - so I went from council estate kid, to kid in care with no qualifications and education to Director/CEO.? The most important message in all that is if I can make that jump anyone can - please remember that.

And whilst I say that I also want to say I genuinely wish I could stand here and say your journey into your professional self will be different to the one I faced, but I can’t. But what I can say is that there are lots of amazing women standing around and alongside you to help make your journey easier.??

The project is dedicated to helping empower, educate, and elevate girls and young women and Florence will be making sure there is so much support to make that happen.? Everyone who touches this project will be leading business in Web3 in the future.?

Why and how do I know that….

Because you are here.? And you are in the project because you are a leader already.? You have made a decisive decision to invest in yourself.??

So a few tips from me to help you on your journey:

1. Be honest.? With yourself and with others.?
2. Ask for help.? Never think it is wrong to ask for help.
3. Try to walk in other people's shoes - constantly.? View the world through their eyes - this will influence how you approach the world.?
4. Never think you have to be perfect to take the next step in your career.? There is an old saying: women will only apply for a job when they are confident they can do it - whereas men will apply regardless. ? Tell yourself to jump in and fake it until you make it.??
5. Challenge yourself to learn something new every day.

This for me is how I came into my second career - I am a newbie here in Web 3.? I’ve been in it since Nov last year.? Sometimes my head has felt like it is going to explode with all the learning I've been doing.? I literally had never heard of an NFT or crypto wallet, blockchain, the metaverse or Web3 before Nov.?

Do I know enough now - this goes back to my earlier tip.? I know enough to get by and I will keep learning every day.?

I joined Pere to work at Metacampus because we are both committed to creating tools that help people who have less opportunity. We want to Unlock Human Potential and secure inclusivity in the Web3 ecosystem. ??

Web3 has the greatest chance of rebalancing the world economies through who and how we employ people - more on that another day.??

Currently, roughly 16% of NFT creators are women, this drops to 14.23% of those engaged in bitcoin are women and when you look around and see how many founders are female it is 6%.? So there is lots of space for you all to fill and this project is going to assist you to do that.??

I look forward to meeting you all as you progress to founders, creators and traders in Web3.