By her own description, Kelly Vero is a ‘Metaverse and NFT weirdo, old lady game developer and creative badass.’ She’s also a best-selling author, femtech advocate and one of the most respected and influential leaders in the global digital space.
Kelly, who calls Switzerland home, currently works at the cutting edge of technology for web3, its philosophies and staunchly advocates its practical applications.
One way her work benefits others is that ‘a licensable framework for a decentralized unit provides the first step of regulation in this unregulated space.’ Another is that she’s the f irst person to create a trading standard for NFTs, now trusted by many brands, banks, insurers, and other verticals worldwide.
oving into web3 and the Metaverse was a natural evolution. For all her adult life, Kelly’s career involved working with some of the world’s most famous franchises, developing video games including Tomb Raider, Candy Crush, and Halo 3.
When moving to Switzerland as a games developer – where little was happening in the games industry – her ‘need to pivot slightly’ led her to blockchain and the first wave of NFTs.
“Then, through my understanding of digital objects for video games, I was able to study and manipulate their capabilities (positively) towards a framework for how else digital or games objects can be used in everything from VR to digital fashion.”
Switzerland Kelly acknowledges her ‘natural curiosity and being a bit quirky’ helped her slip seamlessly into digital leadership – through combining her passion for all things style, innovation, and video games. Yet her ‘love of pushing future technologies to the very edge of what can be developed and created’ may also have been a catalyst.
This forward-thinking approach has clearly paid off, even though some may regard Kelly as controversial (and no, it’s not just her self-made ‘Creative Badass’ title, penchant for red boots and vibrantly coloured hair!)
Kelly candidly comments that as a woman in this industry, for the most part, she has felt a little marginalized. Fortunately, finding her ‘tribe was the perfect remedy’ and she encourages others to ‘find your tribe and let them lift you.
Of the Metaverse, Kelly urges people to believe her when she says it’s a persistent shared experience, enthusing that ‘the social possibilities are infinite.’
Writing recently about the Metaverse in beyondgames.biz, Kelly comments what she’s looking for in the space is people. Besides ‘looking for people, for friends, for opportunities, for work,’ she’s eager for ‘people in this space to feel value when they buy or play with NFTs, the Metaverse and web3.’
Unapologetically avoiding anything web2 (like personal websites and several social media platforms), she’s emphatic that ‘Web3 and the Metaverse are VERY different beasts, each with their own part to play in our future.’
As an enthusiastic femtech advocate, Kelly remarks in a LinkedIn post, “I love the opportunities that femtech brings to EVERYONE in terms of telling the stories, diagnostics and data about our bodies, lifestyle, and our collective future.”
From her perspective, the current ‘digital bubble’ moniker feels a bit unfair, commenting ‘it’s a transient construct as femtech finds its feet and its way to cross the chasm.’
Regarding opportunities in web3 and the Metaverse in the next five years, Kelly is already streets ahead, accumulating diverse expertise in healthcare, businesses, education, entertainment, individual lives, and the future of work.
“From femtech to payment systems, from sextech to newsletters, the internet and all its tools and playgrounds are finally free of ownership, or at least that’s the way it should be.”
With her conviction that we’re already living the impact of the Metaverse, she believes the creator economy will be the biggest impact in our daily lives, because ‘what we create is measurable and it will be measured.’
While big tech will be a hurdle preventing mass trust and adoption of the Metaverse, Kelly enthuses that an amazing first step is the many open platforms that are foundations and not-for profits in this digital space. Along the way, advice she would have given herself is: “Stop giving a f*ck and focus on just you, and what you’re doing because believe me, it’ll be worth it.”
With some eureka career moments – like sharing her vision at ‘secret dinner parties and meet ups with some of the world’s greatest minds’ – Kelly says she’s already created her legacy in games and for NFTs. As for what’s next, this funky futurist quips, “I’ll continue to innovate and evangelize – the rest I leave in the hands of the Metaverse.”
KELLY VERO’S METAVERSE & WEB3 TIPS AND RESOURCES
