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Yam & Raph, Co-Founders From World of Women - The Leading NFT Community Celebrating Art & Inclusivity, Plus Daniel Eilemberg Of Lil Heroes And More!
How can you create a positive global impact in the NFT space? Today’s guests are Yam Karkai & Raphaël Malavieille, Co-Founders of World of Women, the leading NFT community celebrating art, inclusivity, and equal opportunities for all. Joining Jeff Kelley, Eathan Janney, and Josh Kriger, they share how they’re bringing more focus on diversity and representation into the NFT world while creating a safe, welcoming space for women, minorities, and up-and-coming artists to navigate the Web3 arena. Yam and Raph discuss their World of Woman Galaxy release and tease more exciting new projects and collaborations currently in the works. They also talk about their vision for the future of the NFT space and their philanthropic efforts to make their vision of inclusivity and accessibility come to life. Plus, Daniel Eilemberg of Lil Heroes joins today’s Hot Topic to share how they’re making big moves in social impact as they introduce new characters in their TV show.
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Listen to the podcast here
Yam & Raph, Co-Founders From World of Women – The Leading NFT Community Celebrating Art & Inclusivity, Plus Daniel Eilemberg Of Lil Heroes And More!
I am Yam Karkai.
I’m Raphaël Malavieille. We’re 2 of the 4 cofounders of World of Women.
It is a project leading the charge to expand inclusivity and diversity in Web 3.0 and beyond.
We are here on the Edge of NFT, the show behind NFT LA, the event that attracts and empowers the true diversity of leaders and change-makers from all walks of life.
Keep reading.
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**Stay tuned for this episode and find out how World of Women is deliberate and effective at expanding its reach with the World of Women Galaxy release and the giveback work of its foundation. **
**Also on why the guests might know each other’s edge quick hitter answers better than themselves. **
Additionally, how Lil’ Heroes is about to make a big splash with its TV show and introduce Lil’ Villains to the world, all while making big moves and social impact. All this and more on this episode.
**Don’t forget. We put together a little soiree called NFT LA that brought out thousands of the world’s most innovative doers in the NFT space. Head to 2023.NFTLA.live to get on the whitelist for tickets to our bigger, bolder, better, but also just as an intimate and impactful event happening in Los Angeles from March 20th to the 23rd, 2023. See you there. **
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**This episode features Yam Karkai, Chief Creative Officer, and Raphaël Malavieille, Head of Partnerships, who are 2 of the 4 cofounders of World of Women, a community-centric brand celebrating art, representation, inclusivity, and equal opportunities for all. World of Women focuses on bringing more diversity and representativeness into the NFT world while creating a safe and welcoming space for women and minorities, and also supporting up-and-coming artists from helping people who are new to NFTs navigate the Web 3.0 space to creating and sharing inspiring derivatives and cultivating a welcoming environment for everyone. The World of Women community is inclusive, optimistic and uplifting. Welcome, Yam and Raph. **
Thank you so much for having us.
**It’s such a pleasure. We’re all about increasing the adoption and understanding of Web 3.0 and this amazing thing we call NFTs. You guys have had such an incredible global impact on the industry. It brought so many people into this space. It’s such an honor to have you both. I would love to start by learning a little bit more about the founding story and what inspired you to launch World of Women. **
World of Women was created by four friends. All four of us were cofounders. I wanted to make World of Women happen because there was a very serious issue in this space. I was frustrated by it and wanted to fix it. Through the World of Women, we could start the change and the switch in this Web 3.0 space by making it more inclusive and representative of women and diverse people. That’s why and how it started, and who started in a nutshell.
**How did you get together with your three cofounders? **
I have one of our cofounders, Raph, here. He’s my husband in real life, so this is how we got together to the World of Women because we were literally together. The other cofounders, BBA and Thomas, are friends from real life. They used to work with Raph in the same company. These are people that we’ve known for several years. It was the ideal situation.
**At least you know that you’re going to get along and skip some parts of that storming, forming and norming process that new companies have to deal with. That probably has something to do with your staying power and how much you’ve accomplished in such a short time. **
It’s possible. We like to believe it. It might have been difficult for Yam to launch the product if we didn’t have this relationship in real life because, at the time, we weren’t too sure how to find the people that would help us develop the asset and develop the website. BBA also develop the strategy behind it because Yam and I were more invested in the single edition artist side of things than in the collectible arts at the time and the PFPs. It was serendipitous. Probably that’s why it’s beautiful.
**I think that may be the case. We talked a bit about motivation for launching the project. We had this stat that jumped out to us from 2021 and some of these metrics that are out there. It was that female artists accounted for just 5% of all NFT art sales in the previous two years. This was published at the end of 2021. How has World of Women worked specifically to create more opportunities for anyone around the world to be the owners, creators and contributors to Web 3.0? **
The simple reason that World of Women exists and that World of Women gave women and diverse people a PFP they felt related to was already a big help in this switch in the space. What we’ve been doing from the very beginning and that we knew was going to be part of our DNA was giving back and supporting diverse artists from the beginning.
Since we launched, we’ve been collecting art pieces every day and spotlighting those artists, telling their stories, why we’ve collected that art piece, and putting incredible talents forward to new eyes. These are a few ways. We also have our foundation. We’re building our university now. These are the next steps in our journey in education and onboarding the next wave of people.
We’ve also had, from day one, a philanthropic side, where we’re giving back as well to different associations and issues that are close to our hearts. Most of the time, those conflicts, issues or places that we donate to have a lot to do with women, children and minorities because usually, they’re the ones that are the most affected by it. We think that a mix of all of that makes for a very inclusive environment for women to join and want to learn about Web 3.0
I’m going to add something here. It’s something that I realized after asking our community. They kept saying that it’s a very safe and inclusive environment, the World of Women on Discord, notably. I was asking what the difference was, and they feel like they could say something, come, ask questions, and not feel like they were being stupid and pushed back, and that the first step inside the space was enjoyable for a lot of people for whom it wasn’t enjoyable before. That has been a big difference.
**We have a number of different giveback initiatives for the company. It’s something we’re looking at, giving a good amount of focus to, and directing our efforts in an even more focused way as an organization. We’ve found as part of our DNA that raising awareness and education is such a key piece of the puzzle for everybody. We feel like we’re in a distinctive position to do that, given our place in media and events. It’s something that we’re looking at and thinking about how we amplify that even more. **
**At no other point in history that people had as much access to opportunity as Web 3.0 represents. There’s this piece of education and awareness that’s the bridge to even let people know that opportunity is there. Maybe people don’t even know that it’s there and have that initial piece of knowledge that they need to take that step forward. This is an important and special time in history. We’re right at the center of moving us across that bridge to meaningful changes in the world. It’s exciting stuff. **
**I appreciate this idea of making it unintimidating because it is intimidating. I can think of all the onboarding experiences I’ve had with friends and how much personal touch was required, whether it was someone older or someone that hasn’t been immersed in technology. There’s so much that’s intimidating about Web 3.0 and the idea of collecting digital art. It’s an intimidating concept if you’ve never done it before. With such an ambitious set of initiatives that we can dive into a little bit more, the natural question comes is, how do you measure impact? What are you looking at in terms of your primary metrics now? Where would you like to see these metrics go? **
I’m going to take this one. The answer might be disappointing but also transparent. We’ve been going fast in terms of organization. To be fair, until then, we didn’t have time, set up or a good organizational framework to measure our impact. One of our goals in the second half of 2022 is to become a data-driven company. We scale goals and the way to measure the results of what we’re doing. Until then, it has been hard to measure the impact. We’ve seen lots of women-centric collections. We’ve seen way more women acting in the space, but it’s hard to put a figure or number on it. For me, that will be the biggest thing I’ve seen that confirmed me in saying, “We made an impact.”
I agree with you, but we’re getting better at having actual numbers in front of our faces.
**With the foundation that you’re doing, you can look at the impact of the grants that you give. Not that you asked for my thoughts on this, but the number of pieces you’ve collected and the number of artists you’ve supported are meaningful numbers. **
There have been more than 300 artists that we supported through the foundation so far. What we do is we place or put their art for anybody. It’s not only women. It’s diverse people and artists that are new and artists that are more established. We believe that each one of those has an impact on their life. We know beautiful success stories of people selling a lot after World of Women finally purchased their art. That has been something. Another one that we didn’t mention is we gave a lot of money to charity, more than $1.2 million to date. We are looking in the next few months to reach $2 million.
We don’t like to see the impact of the money we have given. We would like to see the impact more in terms of lives changed, schools built, wells built, or trees planted. In this aspect, one of the biggest impacts we’ve seen was a school being built in Kenya by the NGO to whom we donated as part of the initial pledge of World of Women. It was beautiful to see this school being built.
We’ve seen way many more women acting in the space. Click To Tweet
**Since you mentioned that topic, we’re looking at the educational side of things with high schools and elementary schools, but also thinking about principals. If we can educate principals in schools, and they can educate the teachers, and those teachers can educate the students, there’s something powerful about that effect. It’s interesting to think about what it takes from a grassroots level to get this knowledge out to the masses. It’s cool what you’re doing there. **
Do you have plans to reach out to principals of schools?
**Let’s talk at the end of this episode. I’ll share some of the things we’re working on. **
**The key point in there is not just measuring the dollars you give, but the impact of those dollars. You’re thinking about that as you build partnerships, measuring the outcomes of them, and seeing the tangible outcome like building a school. That’s special. You’re seeing that ROI on the back. For others thinking about structuring the giveback program, that’s a key element that is often overlooked. **
It’s also even more important for us to see that it has a positive impact, not only on artists in this space but on the world because we are in a business that consumes a lot of energy. This energy has to be done not only for business. It also has to be done for good. That’s why it’s important for us to figure this out. Until the energy consumption of the business and the industries slows down, it’s very important for us.
**It’s obvious. We want to dive even deeper into your giveback program in a moment. Let’s also take a celebratory moment because the World of Women one year anniversary is upon us. It’s coming up on July 27th, 2022. Congratulations on that. It’s a major milestone for the company. **
Thank you. We’re very excited. We can’t believe it has been a year.
**It flies by. We wanted to take this moment. We talked about some things you’ve already accomplished that you’re very proud of, but let’s look back over 2021 and talk about other partnerships, initiatives, and programs that stand out to you as the most impactful on your vision. You guys have done a ton of work with Christie’s, Hello Sunshine, Monopoly, World of Women Foundation, Billboard Women and Music Awards, the NYC Madonna Party, and the VINCI Airports exhibit. The list goes on. It’s crazy that it has only been a year, and you’ve got all these things rolling. What stands out to you? What are the things that get you most jazzed about that happened over in 2021? **
I keep saying that this is the most difficult question people can ask in an interview because it’s impossible for us to just choose one or the top three or something. Overall, for me, the people we’ve gotten to meet, work with, and partner with have been one of the highlights for me of the journey. I’ve gotten to connect with people I probably would have never connected with if it wasn’t for World of Women and what we’re trying to do here. That has led us to incredible opportunities such as Christie’s. For me personally, as an artist, that was a big highlight of the World of Women journey.
It was an unbelievable moment. Many of us were together while that was happening. It was exciting and moving. We’ve been talking a lot about giving back. For me, it was special to see that for the first time in my life, something that I built was allowing me to help causes that I was never able to support before World of Women because I simply couldn’t afford it. I couldn’t do it. That was huge for me on an individual level.
Talking about meeting incredible people along the way, we’ve built special relationships with a lot of the members of our community. Not only the people that have been there since day one but also others that came along. Those relationships have ended up opening doors to different partnerships like Hello Sunshine with Reese Witherspoon. She was an incredible supporter since early on. Meeting Reese led us to Eva Longoria, Huda, Marge, and Gwyneth Paltrow. We then ended up meeting all these amazingly strong women that are doing great things. It has been very inspiring in our journey. They motivated us along the way to keep doing what we’re doing because it’s an approval from the outside that what you’re doing matters. It has been a lot.
We met them after they had already helped us so much as well online with their platforms. It has been very centric, all of these causes. It guides out from the support they provided to us online, even when we met them in real life, which was a bit crazy for people we looked up to a lot in our lives.
**It’s amazing. It’s a great testament to what’s possible in this space and how fast things can move if you do everything with intention, commitment and vision. You’ve inspired so many people. I’m happy for you guys. When I heard all this stuff, I’m enrolled. I don’t know any other way to describe it from an emotional perspective but it’s cool. **
Thank you so much.
**We’ve experienced a pretty wild year in a lot of ways too. When we started the show, we didn’t necessarily anticipate we would have a conference with almost 4,000 people in less than a year. This is the magic of this space that we’re in. As we talk about all these impact initiatives and the DNA that guide you, I would love to understand a little bit more about how you look at giveback in your planning. For example, with the program of the World of Women Emergency Fund and the Art Fund, how does that fit into your planning process? **
We were lucky to meet with Inna, our Head of Philanthropy. She was building with a partner a company called CODE GREEN to help support real-life projects which have Web 3.0 initiatives. She has been involved since day one with us in this philanthropic aspect. That’s why we pledged a big amount of the earnings to them. We trust them to find the best way to allocate those funds to the best people to make sure they have the maximum impact and to avoid just pledging money to the organization while we’re not sure where the funds are going.
We had this call to make sure to put a stamp of approval on the allocation plan for this whole year. There are going to be ten different schematics that we’re going to be covering. We’re probably going to be talking about them each month, but we’re going to be donating the money as soon as possible so that it can have an impact as soon as possible as well. The way we do it is we have someone plus their team dedicated to this in-house. That’s the way we do it. It’s not just a side gig.
**Our recommendation to folks that have tried to incorporate giving back as part of their companies is that you have to put it front and center. It has to be part of the planning process. Otherwise, it becomes an afterthought. That’s unfortunate, especially when you have that authentic desire to give back and incorporate it into what you do. If you don’t put it front and center as part of your planning process, that’s where we’ve seen it go. It ends up being secondary, and then it’s an afterthought. The impact is way less than you ever intended it to be out of the gate. **
There’s also a bit of being proactive about it. It is not just we’re giving away money. There is an aspect of challenging the organization to give money or to give back and to show what they are doing. It’s challenging them to do something with the money and go all the way. Maybe it’s presumptuous, but it’s needed. From what we see working with Inna, they are doing a great job at making sure the money is used to help people and also the planet.
**As you continue to release projects, form partnerships, and fund things, your latest collection, the World of Women Galaxy, we wanted to know how this particular collection is taking things to the next level for World of Women. How is it different from your original collection? Where should we expect things to go from here with that project? **
First of all, it has allowed us to onboard a lot of new people into our community that were not able to join us before for many different reasons. One of them being that it was not accessible for them financially speaking. We got a lot of incredible people on board which has been great. I don’t know the exact numbers. Raph, what are the numbers now that we have of unique holders?
World of Women: The difference was feeling like they could say something, like they could come and ask questions and not feel like they were being stupid and pushed back and that made the first step inside the NFT space enjoyable for a lot of people for whom it wasn’t enjoyable before.
It’s more than 17,000 at this stage.
That has been impactful for us and a very positive thing. It’s also the fact that the World of Women Galaxy collection is so different from the World of Women, thematically speaking. The theme is all about the future, sci-fi and some fantasy. There is entire lore behind it that we have been building since 2021. The World of Women Galaxy collection has allowed us to dive deep into the lore and its retelling of the World of Women overall. It has been inspiring and fun for us in that sense because many of us at the company are big fans of video games, sci-fi and fantasy books. It has been a fun journey to be able to develop the storytelling for all of this based on that collection. Those are three things that have been great that we’ve achieved through the second collection.
I would love to get in touch.
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It’s probably sweets when I was 4 or 3 years old.
Raph, how about you?
We have some trees.
It’s the World of Women NFT in the NFT market.
**That sounds about right. Raph, how about you? **
I’m going to say my dog but it’s not an object.
**Yam, how about you? **
I care a lot about people. It’s caring.
**Is this confirmed, Yam? How do you feel? **
**How about you, Yam? **
**Yam, how about you? **
**Yam, how about you? **
Thank you for having me.
**Do we have a date for Lil’ Villains? **
Count on it.
**All right, brother. We’ll talk soon. **
Thank you, guys.
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Thank you for having us. It was a pleasure.
Important Links
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Discord – World of Women
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Marta Belcher of Filecoin Foundation – Previous Episode
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@LilHeroesNFT – Twitter
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Discord – Lil’ Heroes
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Instagram – Lil’ Heroes
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@SissaLovesBeingAlive – Instagram
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@WorldOfWomenNFT – Twitter
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@WorldOfWomen.NFT – Instagram
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@YKarkai – Twitter
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@RaphFac – Twitter
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Spotify – Edge of NFT
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iTunes – Edge of NFT