Alan Smithson, co-founder of MetaVRse and Unlimited Awesome shares his entrepreneurial journey, which includes extensive work in music technology and virtual, augmented, and mixed reality.
Key Takeaways:
- Persistence is Key: Staying committed to your vision is essential, even when faced with setbacks.
- Transforming Education: Alan aims to revolutionize the education system by integrating modern technologies and success principles.
- Global Innovation Access: Unlimited Awesome seeks to democratize access to innovation and entrepreneurship for individuals worldwide.
- The Power of Gratitude: Practicing gratitude and mindfulness is foundational to success and resilience.
Together with wife, Julie, Alan has been working for over two decades to create a new education system that focuses on success principles rather than traditional subjects. They realized that existing educational frameworks were not adapting to emerging technologies like AI and XR.
This realization led them to embark on a mission to build a comprehensive education system from scratch, one that inspires and educates future leaders to act responsibly in social, economic, and environmental contexts.
Throughout the conversation, Alan emphasizes the importance of persistence in entrepreneurship, reinforcing the idea that setbacks are merely bumps in the road on a larger mission.
Unlimited Awesome seeks to democratize entrepreneurship, leveraging AI to connect individuals globally. Alan envisions a future where anyone, regardless of their background, can participate in the innovation landscape.
Alan Smithson is a father, founder and futurist. His purpose in life is to inspire and educate people to think and act in a socially, economically and environmentally responsible way. Alan and Julie, his wife and partner make creator tools including; METAVRSE, 3D creation engine for the spatial web, Your Director AI, automatic AI video switching and Emulator, a touchscreen system for the music industry. The couple is building a new education and entrepreneur system to encourage global innovation through technology called Unlimited Awesome.
He is a board advisor to HSTAR Space, a space transportation company and a juror for The One Creativity Awards and Named Top Retail Expert, 2023 and 2024. Named Top 50 Digital Futurists (2022), Alan is a TEDx Speaker, and host of Daily Tech News w/ Alan Smithson.
A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.
At The Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.
In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.
If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.
Nathan C: Good morning and welcome to the Glow Up: fabulous
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conversations with innovative minds.
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Today I'm talking with Alan Smithson of MetaVRse and
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Unlimited Awesome.
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Alan, thank you so much for being here today.
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Can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you
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do?
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Alan Smithson: First of all thank you very much for having
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me, Nathan.
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I really appreciate the opportunity to share.
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I've been in in entrepreneurship for a long, long time I've
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developed many, many different companies.
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My wife, Julie, and I have been working together for 23 years
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and Julie is our chief operating officer.
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So I come up with the crazy ideas and sell it and then Julie
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builds them.
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And so we've been working together for a long, long time.
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we invented touchscreen technology for the music
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industry back in 2010 before the iPad.
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And then we went and parlayed that into working in virtual
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augmented mixed reality, and now our vision and mission is to
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build a new education system for the future of humanity.
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And one of the things that we're really, really keen on is
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leveraging the different technologies, such as AI, XR,
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and blockchain as well as video and audio and podcasts and all
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these things to create personalized learning
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opportunities for everyone, for people to not teach them about
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science and math and the things that school systems already do a
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great job on, but really focus on success principles, things
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like mindfulness and gratitude and financial planning and
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investing.
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So that's our long term vision, and we've been working towards
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that for many, many years now, and we're super excited about
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it.
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I, as I describe myself to the world, I'm a father.
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A founder and a futurist
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Nathan C: In that order,
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Alan Smithson: in that order
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Nathan C: love it.
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Alan Smithson: I do a Daily Tech News show every day and I use a
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bunch of different AI tools for that.
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It's called Daily Tech News with Alan Smithson and I've been
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doing it since March 1st, every single weekday.
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And that has been an enormous educational thing for me
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because, you know, as much as it's great to learn about things
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it's great to be able to learn and then teach people.
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And I think that was the key with this is that being able to
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teach people really is the key for me.
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So I've done, if you could look back here, I've done all these
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different episodes, everything from, you know, AI generated
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tools to that one, there's like, You know talking about AI being
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used in the Olympics I talk about everything from space
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travel to to AI, to molecular genetics, to robots.
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It doesn't matter.
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Every day there's something new, and there's usually between five
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and ten different things every single day, so you can jump on
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my YouTube channel and subscribe to that too.
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Nathan C: Those are amazing.
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I I jump in when I have a free moment, and it's always a very
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quick learn.
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Alan Smithson: I'm trying to, I tried them to 10 minutes and
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then they got a little crazy and then they were like 20 minutes.
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I was like, so now it's going to be 10 minutes every day.
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I'm chiming myself.
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Nathan C: Alan You mentioned being an entrepreneur for quite
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a while, and you know, at The Globe Up, we're both in big
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ideas, as well as that, that journey of what it takes to
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really bring an idea that's ahead of its time to a market
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and to stay on the field long enough to see that moment come
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for this technology.
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When you're thinking about This small problem of transforming
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the education system, can you tell me a little bit about that
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core problem that inspired this big vision?
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And yeah, and maybe a little bit about that journey to where you
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are today?
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Alan Smithson: Sure.
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I mean, Julie and I have started I think we're at like 12
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companies over the last 20 years.
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Some were successful, some exited you know, with great,
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great success.
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Some we had to close down.
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So you kind of have this bumpy road along the way.
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It's never just, you know, that the, the VC graph, the nice, you
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know, graph that goes up like a, you know, hockey stick.
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It's never like that.
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It's usually a series of ups and downs and bumps along the way.
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But years and years ago I was given some advice by a sage
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business person.
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I actually don't remember who said it to me, but the advice
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was very simple.
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The only rule in business is never give up.
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And that has stuck with me forever.
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So even though, you know, I've lost companies, I've been fired
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as CEO of my own companies twice.
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I don't recommend that, but it has been a thing.
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And so never give up, keep going.
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And you know, when we decided to build a new education system, it
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wasn't that we wanted to you know, ruin our lives by building
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something so hard that was impossible.
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It was that our daughters were going through the current
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education system.
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And we were going through things like you know, the Ryerson
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Digital Media Zones.
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We had gone through an accelerator.
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Our companies have gone through five different accelerators.
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I've been a mentor at TechStars.
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We've been a mentor at TKS, the Knowledge Society.
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We've been judges for the South by Southwest Pitch Awards.
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When I say we, my wife and I, and so what we've done is we've
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been able to see what the most cutting edge stuff learning is
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for entrepreneurship and then compare that to what our kids
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are learning in school and we saw this massive disconnect
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between these new tools like AI coming online and XR and
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blockchain and all this, and absolutely zero being taught
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about those in school.
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And the reason why we set a massive goal of building a new
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education system is because we tried to fix the current
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systems.
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We went at the school level, we went at the board level, and we
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went at the provincial level, and we realized that one, every
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province, state around the world has its own education system and
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they're not connected, they don't listen to each other,
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it's, and they're almost impossible to change.
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And this was a problem.
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So we decided to build, start from scratch and build a whole
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new education system from scratch.
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And we're going to do this for the rest of our lives.
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I think one of the things that people underestimate is the
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power of having a lifelong purpose or mission.
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Our purpose, Julie and I," is to inspire and educate future
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leaders.
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To think and act in a socially, economically, and
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environmentally responsible way." And that mantra has been
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our guiding path for the last decade.
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And so when you're on a lifelong mission to do something, the
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bumps in the road don't matter.
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Yeah, they suck.
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You know, having, being fired from your own company sucks.
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You know, losing a big client sucks.
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These things are terrible.
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And at the time they seem, you know they seem almost over
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overwhelming.
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But if, if in the back of your mind, you're part of a bigger
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mission, that's bigger than yourself, and you're really
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pushing towards that, it really doesn't matter that just bumps
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in the road.
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Your life does this.
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But your, your mentality just stays like this, nice and
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smooth.
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And so you can't get too excited with the wins and you can't get
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too depressed with the losses.
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And I think that's key.
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Nathan C: I'm feeling that as a marketer who always professes
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you have to put your customers first, you really have to you
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know, stay focused on the number of things that you try to do at
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one time.
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This idea that starting from your mission gives you the focus
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and the long term path, even if it's not clear I'm just, I'm
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feeling quite a lot.
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Alan Smithson: So eight years ago we, Julie and I stood on
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stage on my birthday in July 4th, And we said, we're going to
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create a new education system.
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We didn't know how, we didn't know anything about it We didn't
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have any research.
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We had no connections.
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We came from the DJ space.
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We, we invented touchscreen technology for the music
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industry.
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And in doing that.
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We had lots of connections in the music industry, in the DJ
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world, but we had none in virtual reality.
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I tried VR for the first time, I tried the predecessor to this,
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this is the the Quest Pro, but I tried the DK1 back in 2014.
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So I had a chance to try the DK1.
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It blew my mind and I was like, Oh my God, this is going to be
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the future of how we train people and teach.
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And so we set out with the goal of building a new education
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system, but we knew that in order to do that, we also needed
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the technology stack to do that because it didn't exist.
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So we ended up building MetaVRse, which is a 3D creation
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platform akin to like a game engine.
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But on the web, on the browser.
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And the whole idea was how do we allow everybody the opportunity
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to create, and be part of this new, you know found medium known
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as XR and so the only way to do that, everybody talks about,"oh,
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what's the stumbling block of VR when VR gonna take off?" When
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it's easy to make content?
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And it is not easy to make content yet.
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So our MetaVRse engine.
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We started with drag and drop low code, and the next phase of
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it will be introducing AI tools.
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So instead of having to create a 3D object, you just conjure it.
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I need a 3D object of this, boom.
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I need an environment of this, boom.
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And AI does the work.
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And so we're kind of leapfrogging this whole creation
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idea of having to create every asset by hand, which is time
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consuming.
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expensive and it should be as easy as Canva to create 3D
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experiences and deliver them to all devices around the world.
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So our Metaverse engine, when you hit publish, it goes out to
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smartphones, tablets, VR, all from one click publish.
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You don't have to build an iOS version, an Android version, a
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Mac OS version, a Windows version, a VR version, a Quest
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version, an HTC version, a Pico version.
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You build one and deploy to all over the browser.
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And that has been our ethos.
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And in doing that, we also we've been building projects for some
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of the largest companies in the world.
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In the last eight years, since we decided to get into virtual
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reality, we've built over 200 projects for some of the world's
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largest companies.
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One that we're especially proud of last year, we won Best
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Advance in Education, Delivered Through Technology, for the work
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we do with Siemens Healthineers.
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So we have a long term contract with Siemens Healthineers where
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we take their products and we turn them into experiences for
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training and that has been an amazing eye opener for us on how
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enterprise level education and training works and we, we built
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to that level of, of specificity.
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And the reason why is We built that enterprise level is because
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if it's good enough for enterprise, it will work for
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everybody.
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So enterprise security, privacy, all of these things, we adhere
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to all of those.
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And that has allowed us to kind of now have a platform that is
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ready for distribution to creators of all shapes and sizes
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around the world.
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But if you started at the bottom and when it worked your way up,
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you wouldn't have those protocols and procedures in
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there.
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So starting at the top allowed us to know what corporations
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want.
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And at the same time, we were winning best advanced in
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education.
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We also won last year, Best Digital Marketing with the work
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we did for Mars Wrigley in the Juicyverse, which was a virtual
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world we built.
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It was like a virtual world gamified thing where you run
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around and it was the way it was actually three, three world
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firsts in one.
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It was the first IRL to URL, meaning you could scan a QR code
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in Walmart Go into the virtual world.
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We would give you an NFT.
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Once you completed all the tasks, you get an NFT, put into
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your Apple Google wallet, and then you can take that into the
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store and scan it for a discount.
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So all of these things that we've been doing over the years
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have just been you know, mind blowing for us.
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Nathan C: You mentioned this idea of it's,"it's a long
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journey, there's ups and downs, you shouldn't take any one award
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or any one loss, too seriously in the, in that long term
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journey.
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How do you measure the impact of the journey when you know it's a
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bumpy ride?
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And, and how do you stay connected to that long term
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vision?
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While going through these very human ups and downs, that, that
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can feel very big.
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Alan Smithson: I think one thing that that is, it sounds so
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analog and easy.
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But we took our mission of "inspire and educate future
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leaders." We wrote that and we printed it and we put it in our
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bathroom.
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So every morning you wake up, you're brushing your teeth and
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you see it.
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It's there.
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And it sounds analog and really easy, but it's, it's one of
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those things.
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If you really, really are passionate about something.
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Write it down, put it on your mirror or beside your, you know,
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beside where you brush your teeth every morning, and repeat
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it.
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And repeated mantras over time become just ingrained in who you
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are.
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We are big proponents of of practicing gratitude.
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And, you know, we practice gratitude.
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That's actually the first lesson that we're teaching as part of
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the the Unlimited awesome program.
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We actually have, we're building a, we're calling the six
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castles.
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I was going to show you an image, but I think I'll save it
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for later, but we're building the six castles of success and
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the six castles of perseverance.
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So under perseverance is gratitude, mindfulness, deep
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breathing, yoga.
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And that type of thing.
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Then you have creative problem solving, right?
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So you go in and learn about creative problem solving, even
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coming up with great ideas, seeing what problems around the
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world, that sort of thing.
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Then you have teamwork and mentorship.
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And teamwork and mentorship comes down to surrounding
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yourself with great people, how to identify those people, how to
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connect with those people, how to communicate.
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Then you have you know, economic responsibility, financial
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planning, being able to read a financial model.
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All you need to know is, An asset, a liability, your income,
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your expenses, and your net worth.
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And most people don't look at a net worth statement on a regular
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basis, and that's part of our education platform as well.
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The next one is, social responsibility.
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How do we do things with ethics?
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How do we make sure that we're not harming the earth or harming
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other people?
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How do we live our lives with the best social impact we can
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do.
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And then the last one is environmental sustainability.
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And that obviously it goes without saying that we need to
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protect this, this Earth.
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We are one race on this planet the human race.
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And we're on a spinning rock, spinning around a giant
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fireball, flying through space.
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When you look at the kind of microscopic impact that each
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human has, And then you look at some humans have outsized
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impact, like Elon Musk is creating all these different
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companies.
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He's having an outsized impact on the planet.
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And why are we not teaching everybody that they can have an
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outsized impact on the planet as well?
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So the whole idea of Unlimited Awesome is that, Anybody from
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anywhere in the world can participate in innovation, in
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entrepreneurship.
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And that's the whole thing.
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And so one of the reasons you go to like Harvard or Stanford or
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schools, is for the connections the people you meet there.
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And what if we could meet virtual worlds?
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We have an AI that does a matchmaking service.
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So it takes your, your social graph and says, you're a Nathan,
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you're interested in XR, you're interested in entrepreneurship,
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and you're interested in, it gives you 10 things.
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And then I'm interested in those and it matchmakes us and we can
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meet in a virtual world and have a conversation from anywhere in
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the world, and we have real time language translation as well.
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So now, you're taking people from everywhere around the world
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and allowing them to participate in innovation because, 10 years
00:14:45
ago, even most innovation and VC and venture capital was limited
00:14:50
to the Valley.
00:14:51
And one of the interesting things about that is if you look
00:14:53
at Y Combinator you know, I've been a mentor at Techstars, but
00:14:57
Y Combinator is the kind of the, the OG.
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In the last 20 years, Y Combinator has returned outsized
00:15:03
returns from the investors.
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Astronomically outsized.
00:15:07
To put it in perspective, the stock market returned about 12
00:15:10
percent over the last 20 years annualized per year.
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Venture Capital, which is this great group of people investing
00:15:18
in new technologies, they returned 26%, overall as a
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category.
00:15:22
And to put it in perspective, Y Combinator returned 176 percent
00:15:27
annualized returns over the last 20 years, Blew everything out of
00:15:32
the water.
00:15:32
So now Unlimited Awesome will be the Y Combinator for the world's
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ideas.
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Nathan C: And is, do you see Y Combinators outsize success as
00:15:42
part of the network, as part of the education, as part of their
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support of the business side of things?
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Alan Smithson: I don't think you can isolate any one thing,
00:15:53
Nathan.
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I think it is a combination of the fact that they're picky with
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who comes in.
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So they, they have a filtering process, which with Unlimited
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Awesome, we're going to do the same thing.
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We're just going to use AI to filter.
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And people's ability to, to invest.
00:16:06
So you have a filtering process that filters out 99.
00:16:09
9 percent of the ones that may or fail.
00:16:11
Then they have a support network.
00:16:13
Then they have access to investors.
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So it's not any one thing.
00:16:18
It's the combination of all of them and being part of a network
00:16:21
where you can get a meeting with, with you know, anybody
00:16:24
really This is empowering and impactful, and we're going to do
00:16:28
the same thing.
00:16:28
So with Unlimited Awesome, we just announced the first 75
00:16:32
mentors.
00:16:33
People like Tom Furness, the grandfather of virtual reality.
00:16:37
Yourself as a mentor.
00:16:39
Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, is on there.
00:16:42
Shelley Peterson, who used to run spatial computing for for
00:16:45
microsoft, also Lockheed Martin before that.
00:16:48
So we've surrounded ourselves with some of the smartest people
00:16:51
on the planet.
00:16:52
Not just smart because there's a lot of smart people who are
00:16:54
assholes, but smart people who are amazing humans and do
00:16:59
believe in the power of humanity, not just the power of
00:17:02
making money.
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Nathan C: I really want to kind of roll back.
00:17:05
You mentioned having these 200 projects, you know, with
00:17:10
enterprises and businesses of all scale to help you understand
00:17:14
and navigate your model.
00:17:16
I think this is rare, right?
00:17:18
For a technology and innovation to have 200 examples out there.
00:17:22
Many of us are maybe earlier in that journey.
00:17:25
And sometimes listening to those signals or, you know really
00:17:29
absorbing those learnings when you're on a mission trying to
00:17:32
make something happen.
00:17:33
Can be really hard.
00:17:34
You're presented with a challenge or a piece of new
00:17:36
information and you maybe have to pivot, you maybe have to to
00:17:40
grow.
00:17:41
Can you talk about how maybe a moment or moments where you've,
00:17:46
where your interactions with your customers have helped you
00:17:50
better understand your mission and the path you're on and how
00:17:53
you've had to maybe adjust or respond in that?
00:17:58
Alan Smithson: One of the problems that a lot of
00:17:59
entrepreneurs get stuck in is that they fall in love with the
00:18:01
technology and not the problem.
00:18:04
And I think I did the same.
00:18:05
I tried VR.
00:18:06
I said," this is amazing.
00:18:07
Oh my God.
00:18:08
But back then it was 360 video.
00:18:11
So we had to 3d print.
00:18:12
360 camera rigs.
00:18:14
We took a 3D printer, printed them out and snapped GoPros in
00:18:18
there.
00:18:18
And we, and then you had to stitch the footage one by one.
00:18:20
It was nuts.
00:18:21
It was very hard and actually brutally hard, but then 360
00:18:25
video kind of came and went.
00:18:27
And then augmented reality came and we did a bunch of augmented
00:18:29
reality projects and that came and went.
00:18:31
And then VR came in, full gamified VR.
00:18:34
And we did a bunch of those things as well.
00:18:36
So following the technology along is not the best bet.
00:18:41
I would probably say.
00:18:43
In our case, it was different because our, our problem that we
00:18:46
want to solve was creating a new education system.
00:18:50
That was the problem we wanted to solve.
00:18:51
So it didn't matter if it was 360 video, which we, we still
00:18:55
deploy, or if it was AR, which we still deploy, or if it was
00:18:58
just 3d on the web, which we still deploy.
00:19:01
I didn't fall in love with the technology, although I do love
00:19:03
the technology, I fell in love with the problem.
00:19:06
And I think the too few startups, they get, they get
00:19:09
caught up in their technology they don't really step outside.
00:19:13
And there's a book called the startup Startup Handbook, I
00:19:15
think it's called, by Steve Blank.
00:19:17
And the book, if you read nothing else in the book, if you
00:19:20
open the cover, it says,"Get out of the office and talk to your
00:19:23
customers." And so this is the best advice I could ever give to
00:19:28
anybody is like, you have a technology that you built, go
00:19:31
see if somebody's one willing to buy it from you and use their
00:19:35
money to fund yourself.
00:19:37
People don't, they talk about VC capital all the time.
00:19:39
They talk about investors, getting investors, getting
00:19:40
investors.
00:19:41
And yes, when you're starting new technology, sometimes you
00:19:44
need that, that kickstart.
00:19:45
But if you can't sell to somebody right from the
00:19:48
beginning, if you can't get a customer.
00:19:50
Then what are you doing?
00:19:52
I mean, what are you building it for?
00:19:53
Lot of companies that start and then they build all this
00:19:56
technology and they build features and they build more
00:19:58
features and they build more features and they build more
00:20:00
features and they never sell it.
00:20:02
And then ask the customers, do you like this features?
00:20:04
Do you really want it?
00:20:05
Do you need it?
00:20:06
And are you willing to pay for it?
00:20:09
Customer's willingness to pay should be your number one
00:20:12
decision on whether to pursue your technology moving forward.
00:20:16
Oh, that was chapter one in the book, by the way.
00:20:18
The first page was sit down and talk to your customers.
00:20:21
The second was ask them if they're willing to pay.
00:20:23
Nathan C: A technology can take us on a journey, but is it
00:20:27
actually solving a problem at the end of that journey?
00:20:30
You may not know.
00:20:31
But if, if you're always holding on to that, that guide rope of,
00:20:36
you know, we're solving the problem and taking a step
00:20:39
forward eventually, or as you said, it might just be about
00:20:43
making all of the technologies easier to use in a place where
00:20:48
you would want a set of tools as easy as Canva.
00:20:51
Alan Smithson: OpenAI, for example, they didn't start off
00:20:53
with, how do we solve a problem?
00:20:55
The problem was, we want to build AGI.
00:20:56
That was their vision.
00:20:57
We want to build AGI.
00:20:58
They went out and saw that and as they go, they introduced
00:21:00
ChatGPT and now they're introducing, you know, video
00:21:02
models and image models and all these things.
00:21:04
So they set out with a different vision.
00:21:07
But, you know, Sam Altman also was the CEO of Y Combinator.
00:21:13
He had already seen thousands of startups that were successful
00:21:17
and not he already had a future vision of what may be possible.
00:21:20
That is an outlier.
00:21:22
Most startups don't start with a vision that big.
00:21:24
Like our vision is we're going to build a new education system.
00:21:26
It's ridiculous vision, ridiculous.
00:21:28
It's over the top, but step by step day by day.
00:21:31
I mean, we've been working at it for eight years.
00:21:33
We just you know, got all of the mentors lined up or not all of
00:21:36
them, but the first 75 mentors lined up, we're getting the
00:21:38
funding and financing sorted out right now.
00:21:41
So we didn't, we said we're going to do education, but we
00:21:45
didn't start it until now, 8 years later.
00:21:49
It didn't matter because the technologies that we wanted to
00:21:52
deploy, AI didn't even exist until two years ago.
00:21:54
Like
00:21:55
Nathan C: Yep,
00:21:56
Alan Smithson: consumer friendly point,
00:21:57
Nathan C: 18 months, yeah,
00:21:58
Alan Smithson: You know, it existed in natural language
00:22:01
processing and OCR and all these other things.
00:22:03
But as far as a consumer based AI, it just didn't exist.
00:22:08
So a lot of the things that we envisioned, we envisioned an AI
00:22:11
personal coach, we envisioned a virtual world that everybody
00:22:14
could go in like a campus.
00:22:16
And these things just weren't possible when we thought them
00:22:19
up.
00:22:19
So we just wrote them down and we worked on building towards
00:22:22
that eventual goal.
00:22:24
Even today, like we start seeing new technologies come up and
00:22:27
we're just adding them to our tech stack.
00:22:29
So we're using technology to address the big problem of
00:22:33
education and learning.
00:22:34
And we're going to open source all of our learnings to
00:22:37
education systems around the world.
00:22:39
So whatever we build, we will open source and make available
00:22:42
to anybody who wants to use it around the world.
00:22:46
Nathan C: Amazing.
00:22:46
That's so important, especially when you're thinking about the
00:22:50
breadth of sophistication and you know access to different
00:22:55
technologies around the world, being able to sort of pick and
00:22:58
choose"Arduino your way into people's worlds," I think is
00:23:02
going to be really important.
00:23:04
Alan Smithson: This was one of our key tenets for the whole
00:23:06
idea behind Unlimited Awesome.
00:23:08
On the planet, there's one race, the human race.
00:23:10
What if color, race, sex, economic status, and more
00:23:14
importantly, geography, were no longer factors in getting a
00:23:17
quality education and participating in global
00:23:20
innovation and entrepreneurship, right?
00:23:22
But what if that wasn't a problem?
00:23:24
Nathan C: So one of the things that we talk about on The Glow
00:23:25
Up, right, is How, what people are looking to glow up, right?
00:23:29
And a glow up is a notable transformation in how something
00:23:33
looks, appears, acts, right?
00:23:35
It's a, it's a leveling up, if you will.
00:23:38
So what, what's the glow up or what is the next stage you're
00:23:41
looking to grow into in the next six months or a year
00:23:45
Alan Smithson: Well, that's actually perfect.
00:23:47
So all of the things we've been doing have been around building
00:23:50
the technology stack behind this and learning and not just
00:23:53
building the technology stack, but testing it, right?
00:23:55
We tested with MasterCard and Siemens and Microsoft and Wipro
00:23:58
and all these big companies.
00:23:59
We've been testing our theories.
00:24:01
And then, you know, you make adjustments.
00:24:03
So we've been doing all that.
00:24:04
So all those tests have been done.
00:24:05
Now it's about building the tech stack specifically for Unlimited
00:24:09
Awesome.
00:24:09
So we built a general purpose creation platform called
00:24:12
MetaVRse that can serve the needs of 3D creation around the
00:24:15
world.
00:24:15
So we've been building all of these things for years and years
00:24:17
and years.
00:24:18
And now it's how do we then use all these technologies, AI, XR,
00:24:23
blockchain, all of these other technologies together to build a
00:24:27
really robust educational framework.
00:24:29
And it's going to be a gamified thing.
00:24:31
So you'll go into the castle and you'll learn all these things.
00:24:33
So it's a gamified learning.
00:24:34
So that's the next phase of this.
00:24:36
Phase two for us is, creating MetaVRse as a standalone
00:24:40
platform where anybody can create anything 3D and using all
00:24:43
AI tools to conjure a world and deliver it, to all devices.
00:24:47
That's, you know, part of it.
00:24:49
The second part is how do we build this game that encourages,
00:24:53
participation from all over the world.
00:24:54
And so the next phase is onboarding as many users into
00:24:58
the creation platform and as many students into Unlimited
00:25:01
Awesome as possible.
00:25:02
So starting in January next year, we're going to be hitting
00:25:04
the ground running.
00:25:05
We're also writing a book right now called"2030, Five Decades of
00:25:09
Transformation in Only Five Years." So in the last 50 years.
00:25:13
We've invented more technologies than all of previous human
00:25:17
history.
00:25:17
So we will build more new technologies in the next five
00:25:20
years than all of previous human history.
00:25:22
So the, the time to build things is getting shrunk and shrunk and
00:25:26
shrunk.
00:25:26
So more and more technology.
00:25:27
That's why I do a daily tech news show and not a weekly one.
00:25:30
Because things are coming out so fast.
00:25:32
You wouldn't believe it,
00:25:34
Nathan C: I suppose if you're approaching the world from a
00:25:37
learning, always growing resiliency mindset that's the
00:25:43
more you can be in your center, be in your vision, be whole as a
00:25:47
human you may need those skills and that balance to be able to
00:25:51
keep up and run this marathon.
00:25:53
Alan Smithson: We're teaching two things that I think are
00:25:55
missing missing components.
00:25:56
Empathy.
00:25:57
Empathy.
00:25:58
And love.
00:25:59
I saw you do this earlier.
00:26:01
And empathy and love are important things in an age of,
00:26:05
of exponential growth of everything.
00:26:07
So I think we, we used to have religion to teach empathy and
00:26:11
love and it's kind of got bastardized by money.
00:26:13
And then, schools have said, no, that's, that's the job of your
00:26:17
parents and parents are busy, you know, trying to make ends
00:26:19
meet.
00:26:20
And so Unlimited Awesome will try to instill empathy and love
00:26:24
into the platform as well.
00:26:27
Nathan C: Yeah, you know, for me, the idea that any one
00:26:30
institution is going to meet all of my needs as a human I've kind
00:26:34
of given up on and have doubled down into I'm going to be human
00:26:40
in every institution that I'm a part of, so that I can make sure
00:26:45
when we're talking people to people that those things are,
00:26:48
that that empathy, respect, trust, love are all a part of
00:26:51
it,
00:26:52
Alan Smithson: I grew up with the, the whole, you know, love,
00:26:56
unity, respect, positivity.
00:26:58
So it really does matter and it helps.
00:27:00
And we need more of that in an age.
00:27:02
of AI, where algorithms will do most of the meaningful work for
00:27:06
us.
00:27:07
Maybe what it means to be human is to just be together and help
00:27:11
each other.
00:27:12
And I think we need more us, not I.
00:27:16
Nathan C: One of the things that we do at the Glow Up is we
00:27:19
feature a community spotlight.
00:27:22
Or a, basically a community sponsor every episode
00:27:26
highlighting a group, non profit, community organization,
00:27:29
innovative project that needs or could use a little extra
00:27:33
attention and spotlight.
00:27:35
Is there any group or community org that you think that you'd
00:27:41
like to suggest as a future community spotlight?
00:27:44
Alan Smithson: Well, I'm going to have to point out my, my
00:27:47
wife, Julie, my business partner and wife, Julie is the founder
00:27:50
at XR Women.
00:27:51
And XR Women is a global collective of women in spatial
00:27:54
computing.
00:27:55
They're the, one of the largest groups.
00:27:56
They meet every single Wednesday in virtual spaces.
00:27:59
They've done 175 meetings over the last two years or three
00:28:03
years.
00:28:04
If you want to join, you can just go to xrwomen.
00:28:06
com.
00:28:07
You can join them in a virtual space and it's a really, really
00:28:10
great.
00:28:10
So they learn every week, they've got a guest speaker and
00:28:14
the speakers talk anything from blockchain to XR to you know,
00:28:19
these technologies from art to science.
00:28:21
It's all in between.
00:28:22
And so I'm really grateful for that group of people because
00:28:25
there's some beautiful humans on there as well.
00:28:27
So that, that's the group I would
00:28:29
Nathan C: Welcome to the ARC Amazing.
00:28:31
I have I've developed many of my strong opinions about the best
00:28:37
way to meet online through joining these XR Women events.
00:28:41
Last question is just how can people follow up and learn more?
00:28:45
Who are you looking to connect with and how can they find you?
00:28:48
Alan Smithson: I have a number of different investments, so we
00:28:51
have MetaVRse and Unlimited Awesome, but we also have an
00:28:53
investment in a film about the EDM culture explosion,
00:28:58
electronic dance music.
00:28:59
So we filmed a documentary back in the day, and we'll be
00:29:02
bringing that, it's called The Drop.
00:29:03
And we also have a company called Emulator, which is a
00:29:05
touch DJ system.
00:29:07
So the easiest thing to follow me is at alansmithson.com, just
00:29:12
my first name, last name, dot com.
00:29:14
And you can follow, there's My Life's Purpose, and there's
00:29:17
Julie and I on Dragon's Den.
00:29:18
We were featured on Dragon's Den a decade ago.
00:29:21
And then so, yeah, there's all of the things that we do, Daily
00:29:24
Tech News.
00:29:25
All the different companies, everything is there and you can
00:29:28
reach out to me.
00:29:29
You can hire me to speak as well.
00:29:30
I do public speaking.
00:29:32
Yeah, so everything's there on alansmithson.
00:29:34
com.
00:29:36
Nathan C: Alan I I love how you and Julie lead with values in a
00:29:44
world where there is so much tech, where there is so much
00:29:47
focus on, like, winning, or being a unicorn, or whatever the
00:29:53
trillion dollar version of a unicorn is about to.
00:29:56
be, It's heartening to see people with such big visions to
00:29:59
make an impact who are leading from the human side before the
00:30:04
technology side.
00:30:05
Thank you it's something that I long to see more of in the
00:30:08
space, and I think it's a really great example for the folks that
00:30:11
we're trying to reach here with The Glow Up, so
00:30:13
Alan Smithson: Nathan, sharing our story and for being the
00:30:17
wonderful human that you are, I appreciate you.
00:30:19
Thank you.
00:30:20
Nathan C: Amazing.
00:30:21
Many things to come.
00:30:22
Thank you so much, Alan.
00:30:23
Alan Smithson: All right.
00:30:23
Have a great day.
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