Stacy Quackenbush Podcast Transcript
Stacy Quackenbush joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, home of the Digital Executive Podcast.
[00:00:12] Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Stacy Quackenbush. Stacy Quackenbush is a leader in Web3 and deeply passionate about crafting robust systems that propel brand growth, amplify revenue streams, and foster unwavering community devotion. Her journey has been defined by orchestrating cross functional teams, guiding them seamlessly through every phase, from ideation to budgeting, production, promotion, And ultimately, the execution of impactful business scaling endeavors.
Stacy focuses on big picture strategic orientation and detailed creative problem solving and has a proven ability to manage complex web3 projects effectively. In 2020 at Vision Rave, She and her team built a decentralized global platform on blockchain with low latency, high quality content distribution, monetization, and streaming.
They also developed a program for tokenizing tickets and directly incentivizing fans using innovative NFT and merchandise implementation.
Well, good afternoon, Stacey. Welcome to the show.
[00:01:11] Stacy Quackenbush: Thanks so much, Brian. Happy to be here.
[00:01:13] Brian Thomas: Awesome. Love doing this. Emily’s heard it a million times. My audience has heard it, but I love literally jumping out of bed every single day that I have a podcast. I’ve had two today.
You’re number three and this is just so amazing. So, thank you again. And Stacey, we’re just going to jump right into the questions here. You’ve got quite the career in technology in strategy as an advisor, you’re an entrepreneur, senior executive. Now you’re the CEO of Third Academy. Could you share with our audience the secret to your career growth and what inspires you?
[00:01:45] Stacy Quackenbush: Yeah, really great questions. I think obstacles are always the thing that propelled my career. And I know it sounds really unusual. I studied both computer science and fine art. When COVID hit, I was building entertainment complexes, these massive 50, 000 square foot or larger complexes with AI, VR, AR, and 360 Projection Mapped Geodesic Domes.
And that was really the moment where I was propelled into Web3. I took my tech teams, we pivoted, we started doing virtual events. We started streaming content on chain, tokenizing tickets and doing in world minting of souvenirs for fans. And that was the moment that changed my life, but it also defined it.
The idea that obstacles are the key to the next big adventure professionally, and I’m inspired by moving the needle in and in life.
[00:02:34] Brian Thomas: Thank you for sharing that. You’re right. You’ve got to have something more than just as an example, it might be not the greatest analogy, but, variety, right?
Challenges are the spice of life. And I love hearing the fact that through some of these challenges and obstacles, you’re actually able to overcome and build something better for the world. So, thank you. Stacy, you’re an industry expert in the Web3 space. This is what I love the best. I love emerging tech.
Our platform is also duplicated out on blockchain. Tell us a bit about your move into Third Academy and why you took this direction into the learning education space.
[00:03:06] Stacy Quackenbush: Yeah, really good question. The biggest reason is that 1. 6 trillion is owed by the students in the United States to the federal government.
This is extraordinary. There needs to be a change in education. There needs to be easier access democratize access to education and professional opportunity and this and I think that you talked about what makes you want to get out of bed every day. I can’t think of a better reason to get out of bed every day. Additionally, over 300 million dollars last year was given out in venture capital dollars and 1. 6 percent went to women. If you were a woman or minority, it was even less than that.
I attribute that to lack of access to not only education, but to professional networking communities. And we’re really here to level the playing field and to change all that in our short span of existence we’ve already had over 2000 scholars come through our doors, the majority from the content in Africa and India, and we’ve seen it change people’s lives.
People go from lacking a college degree to gaining tech education to gaining a tech education remote job that pays significantly better than they would make locally.
[00:04:24] Brian Thomas: Thank you for sharing that. And I really love the fact that we are helping others learn about this space. And it’s not really that new as web three and blockchain, but we’re actually getting people excited about it.
So I appreciate the fact that you’re promoting this, helping others and giving people really that hand up to do something bigger in their lives, Stacy, tell us a bit about Third Academy’s, blockchain based education system. You’re touting social capabilities, NFT credentialing, and other Web3 education opportunities.
[00:04:54] Stacy Quackenbush: It is really a social education ecosystem. You have the ability to not only get educated and find the type of education that matches your specific preferences, everything from blog posts to traditional courses and workshops. Additionally, you can get credentials in these courses and those credentials would live in your wallet as a soul bound NFT.
Recruiters would be able to see exactly what you answered to qualify for those credentials and how you tested through the process. This would then in turn qualify you to get recruited instantly in our auto matching system. That is really new and recruiters are loving this idea because it really gives them security when they’re hiring somebody.
This old method of paper PDFs and arbitrary calls to random people to verify people’s skills is no longer adequate in a swiftly moving technological time. We need to know with certainty, with accuracy, the types of skills people have. Additionally, we provide metaverse campuses. Metaverse campuses allow you to not only meet with your instructors from anywhere in the world, but to find mentors, Co-founders, partners and even job opportunities in real time.
Our metaverse campuses aren’t just for studying, learning and networking, they’re also for co working. We really believe that this is a global society and a time where global reach is very important. Our team is completely remote. We’re in 5 countries, 4 continents and the metaverse really helps us every day.
[00:06:35] Brian Thomas: Thank you. That’s awesome. And I love how you’re leveraging the metaverse to do this because we all know this, right? Sometimes some of us go to law school. Some of us go to medical school or whatever education that we get into to help guide us in our careers or take that career path. But the metaverse makes things so fun.
And when you’re having fun. Learning is fun and you actually learn something. So, I love that. And I appreciate you sharing. Just love jumping into the space of the metaverse. Like we can go on for hours. But anyway, thank you. And Stacy, last question of the evening here. You’re obviously leveraging some of those new and emerging technologies in your tech stack.
Is there anything you might be able to share with us today? Obviously around that blockchain space.
[00:07:14] Stacy Quackenbush: I think blockchain is going to be incredibly important. I do think it is the future of work that we are going to see credentialing across industry go on chain. It’s easy, it’s accurate, and you actually know in detail how someone prevailed in their testing.
Additionally, I think that AI is going to be very significant in not only the education space, but the metaverse space. The ability to use that technology to help us learn how people learn, to help us guide contributors of educational content and how they structure and frame the content so that it best educates their target audience. Additionally, things like real time translation of courses that are live in the metaverse. I can’t underscore the importance of that. You could have people around the world in the same room, getting educated at the same time getting unique translation and being able to communicate via this translation service in real time is extraordinary.
These are the kinds of things that break down walls, break down barriers and create greater access to education, to technology, and to a better future.
[00:08:24] Brian Thomas: Awesome. Thank you for highlighting that stuff. Some absolute several gems that we’re going to pull out of this from the podcast, and I can’t wait to get it out to our audience.
Stacy, it was such a pleasure having you on this evening, and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
[00:08:39] Stacy Quackenbush: Thank you so much, Brian. It was lovely to be here.
[00:08:42] Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Stacy Quackenbush Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
