On June 17, Nasdaq’s Opening Bell heralded a Metaverse moment for women. Cathy Hackl and the team at Journey rang the opening bell for the exchange in a ceremonial celebration of the metaverse.

A Metaverse Moment

Known as the godmother of the metaverse, Cathy Hackl heads the Futures Intelligence Group, a consulting firm that has worked in metaverse-related fields for nearly a decade. Her firm helps brands journey into the metaverse and guides them in designing products, and recently sold the firm to Journey. Nasdaq’s opening bell moment came about with a collaboration between Journey, a consultancy firm that specializes in the physical and virtual world, and Core, a metaverse platform that has recently been in the news for bringing interactivity to NFT projects.

The metaverse moment for women was further cemented by Journey’s collaboration with Manticore Games that helped it create a virtual Nasdaq experience within Core. Before the Nasdaq opening bell, Hackl shared her thoughts while the stock exchange played animations from Core. Nasdaq’s Twitter handle had announced about the bell ringing with a post saying, “The future has arrived at NasdaqExchange.”

There was loud cheering and thunderous applause as the countdown reached zero and the women Hackl had gathered for the moment took photographs before stepping out onto Times Square. Amongst the dignitaries present were Dina Fierro, Vice President, Global Digital Innovation and Strategy at NARS Cosmet; Sasha Wallinger, Head of Metaverse and Web3 Strategy at Journey; Faith Popcorn, Futurist and CEO of BrainReserve; and Alana D. Visconti, Director of Social Media at Nasdaq.

Cathy Hackl and The Chief Metaverse Officer

Hackl’s LinkedIn bio says that she is the Chief Metaverse Officer and cofounder at Journey. She, along with her team, have handheld top companies like Clinique, P&G, and Asprey x Bugatti navigate the twists and curves of the metaverse. The company has helped global brands in their foray into the metaverse across platforms like Roblox, Fortnite Creative, Decentraland, the Sandbox, Rec Room, VR Chat, and Horizon amongst others.

Back in 2020, she wrote a feature for Forbes, where she confidently penned that a new era will herald all good things metaverse, she asserted that it “will unleash amazing creativity and open up new frontiers and horizons for brands and businesses.” She asked the readers whether they were getting ready for this new horizon. Hackl later compared the digital and the physical worlds, saying that the metaverse in a manner of speaking is where “our digital lifestyles are catching up with our physical lives.”

Before Nasdaq’s opening bell, she talked about the significance of the moment. “I’m just thrilled to be here. Today, as hundreds or thousands of people start to descend on New York for NFT NYC, I can’t help but feel a creativity Renaissance is upon us and what we build matters more than ever. As the cofounder of Journey, I am not the typical face that you see when you think of technology. So that’s why it’s important for everyone to know that this future is for all of us. Let’s seek not to define the metaverse, but let’s build it and create it together.” She went on to discuss the opening of her metaverse studio, saying, “We are a group of passionate game developers, futurists, technologists and strategists who have come together to help brands navigate the metaverse. I want to say to you in the metaverse, we are all world builders and this is our time to build and now.”

She stated that the bell ringing was done both in the physical world and the metaverse ahead of the NFT NYC event.

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