The metaverse is emerging at a fast pace just as digital technology and the internet advance to spread the commercialization of 3D virtual reality experience, and Africa is getting into the heat of it as it unfolds with the opening of the first African metaverse selling virtual pieces of real estate called Ubuntuland.

The big news in the technology space this past week is the story of Africa’s telecommunication giant, MTN, snagging up a 12×12 village (144 plots of real estate) of virtual land in Ubuntuland, a virtual world created by Africarare that marries creativity, cryptocurrency, and commerce.

Still in development and soon to be opened to the general public for purchase, the virtual land operating within the metaverse will have 204,642 plots of land available, made up of different village sizes in various community hubs. Landholders will in turn customize their 3D land spaces, just as is available in the real world, into hosting shops, producing resources, renting virtual services, and developing games or other applications. Designated spaces will serve the community for work, play, and wellness purposes, including state-of-the-art meeting rooms, online therapy rooms (with optional anonymity), concert stages, film festival spaces, meditation lounges, and other dynamic interactive environments.

The most exciting thing for artists is that this African metaverse affords creatives a centralized and direct space to market their works in the virtual community’s art galleries and make profits using the cryptocurrency, $UBUNTU token, which is anchored to the Ethereum blockchain and available later this year. Already, two art galleries have been listed to open in Africarare’s Ubuntuland where exhibitions of African art will be staged with artworks being sold as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The Mila gallery (Swahili for ‘tradition’), already open, will host curated collections by some of Africa’s foremost artists, while the Inuka gallery (Swahili for ‘rise’) will feature works by emerging African artists from later in 2022.

Additionally incorporated into this metaverse is the Central Hub land area reserved for custom-made experiences ranging from art to education. Here, virtual galleries, film festivals, live performances, stand-up comedy, video content channels, safaris and more will hold sway. This means an African art gallery, like Aworanka, will be accessible as a 3D virtual experience for Ubutuland residents and visitors to view and buy the artworks just as they would at a physical, real-world exhibition.

Users (landowners and guests) of this novel African metaverse, just like any virtual reality space, will be represented with an avatar, a 3D graphical representation of the user or the user’s character or persona. For this, Africarare has commissioned renowned South African artist Norman Catherine to develop a unique collection of avatars for the metaverse. Stylized as the Normunda tribe, the avatars are based on the artist’s signature lexicon that has sold at record prices in galleries around the world.