Three months ago I told my 15-year-old son that we were going to dive in headfirst into Metaverse Marketing. His answer: “So lame…the Metaverse has been around forever. What do you think Minecraft and Fortnite are?” 

Me: “Ah! But we’ve figured out an entire list of business applications using this technology and we have assembled a freakin’ amazing team to create customized branded spaces.” Then, my son smiled (gotcha, papito!)

Here’s the inside scoop. In this episode of I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY I talk to Marcos Navas, Founder of Hands On Coding – and now my business partner in the tech realm. We were introduced by one of his relatives, my dear longtime friend Emma Medina who I know from way back when I worked in publishing. THANK YOU, EMMA!

Navas has been an active member of the Ed Tech space for over two decades. As an advocate for raising the voice of students, he is one of the original Flipgrid ambassadors and a Ted Ed Innovative Educator helping spread student Ted Talks via Ted Clubs.

Within the coding and STEM space, Navas is one of the original Raspberry Pi Certified Educators in the U.S. helping enable people of all ages to explore computing. He completed a fellowship with the IDEO Teachers Guild making him one of ten educational experts trained in Design Thinking.

He also founded Ed CampUrban, a free professional development program for urban educators/teachers implemented by teachers, and Latinos in Coding, a nonprofit whose mission is to increase awareness and participation of the Hispanic community in computer sciences to remedy the equity gap of Latinos in STEM.

Listen, this guy is on a serious mission to transform educational environments to give access to and teach underserved children about technology as early as possible.

Navas and I quickly began collaborating because we understood the value we each brought to the table. And I became an investor and partner in his business, experiencing a new, scary, and exciting role. He’s brilliant and I needed tech expertise at URBANDER so it was an easy decision for me. 

Together, we have assembled a talented team of incredible bilingual, multimedia creators to help businesses and organizations connect and communicate with their key stakeholders on a whole new level. Our combined pioneering expertise in building branded and customized 3D, immersive, and graphically rich virtual spaces (Metaverses) will deliver safe, engaging, and interactive experiences for an array of business applications that range from online instruction and virtual offices to dedicated promotional campaigns and LIVE events such as conferences.

Wanna get a VIP tour? Messenger me! We’re currently building URBANDER’s Meta Headquarters and can’t wait to put it to good use.