Cheryl Ankrah-Newton describes herself as a Metaverse newbie, yet this enigmatic entrepreneur has bravely leapt into uncharted digital waters. As CEO & Co-Founder at Illuminate Africa Group Ltd. (IAG), Cheryl’s company helps businesses, platforms and ideas gain traction on the African Continent across industries like traditional retail and hospitality, e-commerce, agri-business, and online ventures.
Alternating between Cape Town and Accra, Ghana, this self-described global citizen has nearly 20 years’ experience working for leading global property companies in Europe and Africa and holds a BSc (Hons) in Urban Estate Management.
Known as adaptable and confident, Cheryl’s philosophy has ‘always been to embrace adversity, improve continuously and bring order to chaos.’
Aside from some web3 ventures, she’s creating a members-only VR lab, merging the physical with the virtual in a first of its kind for Ghana, and possibly Africa. She’s also ‘building a virtual museum to represent an underrepresented group.
Cheryl’s fascination for the Metaverse – especially how it could impact Africa and African creatives exploiting this new digital space − began last year. She realized instead of just observing her ‘seven-year-old son’s Roblox exploits, she needed to immerse herself fully to understand the Metaverse better. Luckily, borrowing her husband’s Oculus VR headset opened the gateway to her first Metaverse experience.
“I’ve been truly blown away by how technology has advanced. So far in my VR, I’ve built myself an Avatar, connected with friends worldwide, played games, meditated in a virtual setting and done amazing virtual walking tours.”
When starting to work in Africa a decade ago, Cheryl’s focus was prime property developments, giving retail strategy advice for airports and major shopping malls.
Her work also included securing commercial rental store space for top ultra-luxury brands including Prada, Versace, Jimmy Choo and Dolce and Gabbana − a first in Sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, her involvement in e-commerce platforms forced a thought shift from traditional brick and mortar concepts, to ‘explore, innovate and get creative.’
Already in 2012, Cheryl displayed her pioneering mindset when she pitched the idea of a virtual mall to the CEO of the property company she was working for. Despite his interest in the concept, the company’s core business was property, not tech and the project never materialized.
“That experience made me realize the problem with being too early to the party is that no one else is there. Fortunately, the party’s about to start now as I’m visiting the mall of the Metaverse in VR, “she quips.
Writing in a series of LinkedIn articles, Cheryl comments the Metaverse is ‘a digital world where users interact in increasingly immersive ways through virtual reality, augmented reality or mixed reality.’
And with her property background, she predicts it could radically influence physical spaces. This includes ‘building digital twins of existing spaces, managing entire properties and avoiding over development of an already overpopulated planet.’
With her focus on Africa, merging her passions of the physical built environment with the virtual world, Cheryl stresses ‘it’s really important that communities that have been typically left behind now also have the opportunity to flourish.’
She knows several barriers hinder mass adoption, especially in under-represented communities − lack of digital infrastructure, cost of hardware like headsets, as well as universal jurisdiction and policing in the web3 environment.
However, the Metaverse has shown immense potential for creatives in developing nations to leverage blockchain and ‘leapfrog the need for an entirely physical space.’
Cheryl envisages NFTs and cryptocurrencies playing a huge role for emerging African artists to express themselves creatively using technology.
With tech giants backing the next-generation internet, she’s optimistic the Metaverse offers African creatives ‘a game-changing opportunity to focus on creative collaborations and revenue-generating experiences.’
Explaining that Africa is her ‘roots and legacy,’ Cheryl clearly wants to leave her mark on the continent. As for the future, she’s most excited about the role of technology for its impact in future on the trajectory of development of small businesses in Africa. With her personal quest to constantly evolve, Cheryl’s final rhetorical question − on why African creatives should limit themselves to standalone buildings – is so apt.
“They could go even further and use opportunities of this new 3D digital world to rebuild entire cities, beaches, safaris, music, art, fashion. We can have it all, to help us build immersive experiences seeped with exotic African culture.”
CHERYL ANKRAH-NEWTON’S METAVERSE & WEB3 TIPS
