As the Democratic Alliance’s Constituency Head for the Durbanville-Blaauwberg 2, I held a workshop, together with Councillor Fabian Ah-Sing, for 20 young women from Buren High School and Ysterplaat Primary School from Brooklyn, today. The purpose of today was to make the blockchain sector more accessible and inclusive.
The workshop allowed the young women to both artistically express themselves on canvas in terms of their experience as young women and helped to demystify concepts such as the metaverse, web3 integration, blockchain, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Being the 12th day of 16 Days of Activism, the theme focussed on their lived experiences and women’s empowerment.
The workshop was created by NFTy-Art in partnership with Women-in-Tech South Africa and Art Jamming. NFTy-Art will officially be launched by its co-founders, Melissa Slaymaker and Leora Hessen, in early 2023 and among its innovations is its African Art Collective metaverse.
The artwork created by girls today will be uploaded onto the metaverse, giving their work exposure on OpenSea so that they can learn how to potentially profit from their NFT artworks. Essentially, NFTs can be used to protect artists’ copyright and ensure they receive royalties from every sale of their work.
These young ladies are in grades 6,7, 8 and 9. They are at an important point in their academic careers where they will soon have to start choosing their subjects and deciding on their career paths. It is my hope that today not only empowered them as women but also opened their minds to new career paths in tech.
Blockchain is an exciting technology, and the economy around it is already rapidly growing in our province. It is inherently a disruptive technology which will affect every sector in our economy which is why we must ensure that we are being inclusive of diversity and ensuring that no person is left behind as we become an increasingly digitised economy.
The DA is a forward-looking party, and as such will always aim to leverage new technologies which both empower the economy and the individual.