Uh this session, we have the pleasure to welcome on the stage, Sharanda Hopkins. She is an artist and digital creator at Game DE HQ. And today she will be talking a little bit bit more about growing your skill set with technology.And I really hope to hear more about her interesting background of how she became a full time artist and she's going to cover more about digital transformation of physical products too. So Sharanda, whenever you're ready, feel free to take your lead.

Hm. Thank you. Hello, everyone. Um I'm Sharonda Hopkins. I am an artist from Memphis, Tennessee and I'm the owner of a small business called The Real Touch. Um I've spent the past year um exploring the potentials of virtual reality um to see how can I expand my business with the different ways of um scalability. And so I want to share with you um Just a few things about my journey that I've discovered. Mm. Oh, hi. I'm Shanda Hopkins. Um I'm an artist with a real touch. I've been a full time artist for several years. It's been um my actual main business for the past few years doing custom commission art and also hosting paint and sale parties and selling paint kids. Um during the pandemic, um I became more introverted, not more, you know, not willing to um go out in public as much and host large parties and la uh host um and his tips. So, uh my partner actually bought me a headset for my birthday um as a way for me to still find a way to um express my artistic side, um explore a new medium and also um building the social connection because we have people around us who have a headset and um they got us interested in it.

So for the past year, I've been the Horizon World creating digital experiences, also exploring several different um other virtual reality creation apps such as gravity sketch and shapes. Xr. Most recently, I decided to join game the HQ as a digital creator to fast track um my unity development for my aspiration of creating an A R app for my business. OK. So growing your skills with technology as an artist, um I'm always looking for different ways um of different means of scalability. And so from this past year, these are just some of the things that I've learned. Um And that I've done, I've been exploring the marketing and promoting opportunities virtual reality provides. Um I've been looking to find my niche and to overcome some of the different challenges that comes with trying to um build a business inside the Middle Earth. Um I've been developing new skills to enhance my services, to create, to create a unique product for my business. And I've been discovering how to transform my physical product into a digital experience. So um with exploring the marketing and promoting opportunities, one thing that I was really looking for was what can I do with my current art business and how can I expand it in the middle verse?

Once I saw that it was a place that I could market and promote free. And so one of the main things that we love was that it was a whole new medium for advancement. Um There was a great um a great community that I discovered and there was also um different techniques and skills that I didn't know I had that I discovered. Um But the main pro for me, myself and my partner for my business was um the potential for a greater profit game. Um While the development of VR experiences can be expensive, um the cost of distribution is relatively low as the artist I pay for a lot of supplies. And so, um when I discovered that I can create a VR and still actually make the service and that be in addition to my business, um I was looking to see um what more I can do with it because it was relatively low at the cost. Um There are massive opportunities for networking um within that space. Um You're able to connect with people from all across America and even globally on some apps with different types of talks, info insights that maybe not prevalent in um your local neighborhood.

I know it wasn't prevailing in mind, take Toks and um seminars about entities and different ways of like business growth. It just wasn't um prevailing within my local network of finding these events and stuff. So one thing that I've discovered that level of connections that I've built within um these immersive experiences. Um I've become aware of the strong emotional connections people can have with a particular experience. When someone comes into a virtual immersive world that resonates with their brain and values, it can, can lead to increased loyalty and engagement. Um My particular style of art that I've created within horizon worlds attracts a particular audience and they in turn um are more interested in my physical art and they provide me with private commissions and these lasting impressions I've made with people that um resonate with my art have made me more interested in developing further in the virtual field.

I want the um it, it was surprising things but also very fun was the increased engagement through product demonstrations. Um There were worlds um that small businesses had built, that showcased their brand in a whole new way by creating these experiences that require active participation.

And someone can actually walk through a person's product and they can interact, interact with these products in ways that are impossible through traditional marketing. We OK. Yeah. So um um I discovered that there are several businesses that um help to make these experiences that um made me more interested in building more of mine. So, on the next step I have, this is um a clip from our Women Horizons, Black Future Summit that we hosted sorry in February of this year for Black History Month Women. The Horizons is a large community um Facebook group and also on Horizons um that hosts um summits every other month. And this was um one of the main prevailing themes that I was with in the last one about networking,

why I say that um your net worth. And so um the reason why I say that um and the and the importance of networking is um for me, right, collecting people into your network while also um getting into their network. And why do we want to do that? Well, when a problem arises, right? It can be, it can be distributed amongst that network to find the solution. And so I I I found, right, especially being a woman, right? Because this is something that we can all relate to being a woman, being a woman of color. You know, we go through a particular struggle in life and sometimes it's overwhelming trying to figure out that next step, right? How to make something go from a thought process to an actual thing, right? And so, like, I can't tell you how many times just brainstorming, talk it out with the people around me, with my network. Um I've been able to find solutions to that without having to spend months, weeks, years, even, you know, trying to figure out what the solution to that is. And so that's extremely important because you never know, you never know who's, who's on your side, who's in your corner, who can help you not only get to the next step, but possibly solve a problem that you're, you're, you're having an issue, being able to overcome.

And so that's um that's one of the things that I've learned. And so um another thing is another point um that I've learned is also that two heads or more, two or more heads are better than one. And so that kind of just, you know, um piggybacks off of the importance of, of having a network and um being connected to a bunch of individuals who, um you know, are successful in their industries and in their, in their fields. Um And so,

mm so with finding your niche and overcoming, at least to my next one, which is finding your niche and overcoming smaller challenges. Um For me, once I built the network that I was able to um help develop my skill with and also introduce me to different opportunities. Um I had to find out um where does my business fit in? So I started small Um I started creating small assets, small worlds. Um Just to see um to see if my art connected with anyone. And from there, I started to define my brand into creating the type of art that I like and the people that resonated with me, um They were more in tune to coming back. Um A large thing about um overcoming was post panem stress. Um The scare of the pandemic for me personally had me less willing to go to those host, those networking events, be more physically around people, pushing my art physically. And so um I was able to push past that in VR because um I was able to sell my art remotely. Um But with VR, there are a lot of different um ways that you can scale. So for me, I had to figure out um what type of scalability, what I could find that was scalable for me that worked for my business. And from there, um I had to develop a plan.

Um Once I have to find my brand, I researched different um technologies and apps. Um I had to develop, develop a plan for integrating into my business. Um So by setting goals and objectives, creating timelines and um researching for different resources, especially free and low cost, I was able to get started with um develop me further and developing these two skills to enhance my services. So, before I started um exploring the different apps and stuff I wanted to figure out what I want to do um that I want to create models that I wanna design virtual environments. How did I want people to interact with my products to um enhance my business? Um And once I figured out what I wanted to achieve, I narrowed it down to the options um of what app to use. I searched for different apps and I chose um Horizon Worlds, it was a free app um that had creation apps that was available for me to use to develop these skills. Um That app also offered tutorials that had come to support and it had resources to help you get started. Um We seeking out community support.

I found two women in Horizons, which is um like I said, the online Facebook group that um met up in Horizon World to just help support each other and give each other tips on building creating and just um empowering to create more. I started with simple projects, um small, small bills, small art pieces. And after I saw the report that I gained from it, it encouraged me to explore more scalable applications so I can take the type of art that I create and put it anywhere, put it everywhere because VR is not really accessible to everyone. And so um the past few months and for the rest of 2023 I'm working to transform my physical product into a digital experience via A R when I first came. Um I was surprised that there were businesses so have a few clips. Once I decided the Horizon Worlds will be the main app, I would use to further develop my artistic skills with it being a social app um with the community that I can network with as well as build these skills. I decided to explore more and this was the first world I discovered in the metaverse that was the actual business. Not only could you buy her products, but you can experience her products in a totally unreal way.

And that had me interested in what more I could do with my business. And um and not all the worlds were like, you know, very intricately built to showcase their products. Sometimes they were very simple and direct to the point. And I was intrigued by that as well. This is an example um of Prosperity boutique, which is a, a small business home business that sells um beautiful products and it just showcase. I just saw that there were so many different ways that small businesses were trying to find a foothold in the metaverse to find like what fit their style to this, to showcase their products and what worked for them. And so I decided to come into horizon worlds. Um One of my first few worlds was the paint and Sip studio, that was my IRL business that I um wanted to continue further in the metaverse. So I started um hosting pain and sips in my little world and promoting my paint and so kits until I discovered that my actual 3d creation skills were gaining me a, a better level of income than um my current pain kits selling them online. And so when I first came, um people enjoyed the experience of having a painted. So virtually the same way they probably used to have uh physically or never have been to.

So it was interesting, um It was interesting experience when I first came and people were very responsive, receptive to the painting to my painting certificates. But as I developed more further within horizon worlds with creating and building, I decided that I wanted to dwell more into the virtual side of art, more so than physical. And so that led me to my virtual art development. This is an example of one of my actual painted pieces that once I decided, OK, I want to start trying to do more about merging my art. I used one of these pieces and created a virtual world, um a 3d replica of it, which is a virtual world that people can go and enjoy and experience on a different level. And um it was very, it was very, it was very well received. Um But they also ran into a problem with my regular customers, which was not everyone had access. I decided the horizon worlds will be the. So I know uh everyone didn't have access to a VR headset. And so they had me looking for different ways of um exploring um what I can do more to bridge that gap between um my physical product and my virtual product with people who don't have the access.

And so from there, I've um I want to create a unique service, a unique service with augmented reality. I want to learn unity and blender to create an A R app that can transform my physical product into a virtual experience. So when someone buys a product, they could have a virtual twin, the digital twin, something that's more interactive than just a basic art piece that they bought. And so since that was my goal um and being a self taught artist, I'm always looking for different resources to grow.

And so I was, I found tutorials and I found workshops and that led me to join a unity group um on Facebook um to learn more about more in depth of learning unity to get my goal accomplished. What I didn't know was that it was more intricate uh when that I thought especially with D and C#. So I decided to slow down, take a few weeks back and focus more on developing my actual technical skills with the program. And so I've decided, um and so I decided to join Gamed HQ um with their unity fast track courses to um further develop my skills and talent. And here's the demo. Um of what I've been working on with um a personal tutor, not yet with Game Dev, but this is a personal tutor who first who saw that I was really interested and driven to learn to create an app. And so he helped me demo. Oh, that sound. And so he helped me download my app. So this is my app working um in beta mode. Um It's very basic but it was, this is exactly what I want to provide. This was one of my goals for my business and there was a way to bridge the gap between someone buying a physical piece and then seeing its virtual twin or an even more immersive experience with it. And that's my talk. Um That's what I'm working on.

And so through my journey of being in VR and learning all these different tools and technologies with VR creation and A I and everything that's upcoming. Um I feel like it's important to always look to further develop your skills, especially with the new immersion technology.

So it doesn't take your place but you can, it doesn't have to worry about taking your place, but you can integrate into your business to enhance your business even more. And so I expect to get for VR and now I'm on a journey through A R to see how I can continue. Um So thank you everyone. And that's my talk. Mm