As the world shifts toward a more digitally connected society, evaluations must be made about the role of community in digital spaces. HXOUSE, a Toronto-based think-center, incubator, and accelerator, is facilitating that conversation. The XO affiliated think center has brought together multidisciplinary creatives from all facets to explore the future of digital communities, particularly as it relates to the further integration of Web3.
StockX has partnered with HXOUSE to deliver keynote discussions and events on these very topics at a global scale. The result is a collaborative international tour that takes HXOUSE’s unique blend of cross-disciplinary learning and makes it accessible to new markets. This year, StockX and HXOUSE will host seven events in cities across North America in preparation for another five events internationally in 2023. At each event, StockX and HXOUSE will host cultural voices from each city to break down the creative’s unique points of view and talk about how they’re disrupting their respective industries.
On August 25th, StockX and HXOUSE hosted their sixth panel in San Francisco City. The event featured a panel of multi-disciplinary creatives from the city and an NFT-based competition that brought together digital creatives from SF. The panel was hosted by Cynthia Lee, StockX’s own VP of Sneakers, Apparel & Accessories. The panel featured an engaging conversation between some of San Francisco’s foremost Web3 experts and digital creatives: Peter Hamilton, Erika Tarte, and Jess Chao. Like the panels before this one, the conversation focused on making the Web3 space more palatable and accessible and highlighted the practical ways that the space can be utilized by artists.
StockX x HXOUSE San Francisco Panel Host: Cynthia Lee
The host of StockX and HXOUSE’s San Francisco panel was our very own Cynthia Lee, VP of Sneakers, Apparel & Accessories at StockX. She started her role at StockX during the summer of 2021 as the VP of Apparel & Accessories and this year took over the Sneakers category as well. Her previous experience includes President of Womens at Rakuten, Category Head at eBay, and time spent at Sephora. She’s on the board at BAYCAT, a nonprofit media production organization that seeks to dissolve systems of racial, gender, and economic inequity through diverse storytelling. Additionally, she is the founder of CorgiCon, a twice a year Corgi convention that’s been taking place since 2013. As a part of the panel, Lee found herself taking extra time to reflect on a particular question centered around the advice she would give her younger self. “Speak out. Try things really quickly. Fail fast. Fail forward. That’s what I would have done,” she said.
StockX x HXOUSE San Francisco Panelist: Peter Hamilton
Peter Hamilton is a technology executive and investor in tech startups. His resume includes leadership roles at companies and brands like Roku, Scener, and TUNE. Additionally, Hamilton serves as one of the co-founders of the Seattle NFT Museum, a space that provides a physical home for Non-Fungible Tokens. As a part of the StockX x HXOUSE panel, Hamilton makes it clear that he’d like to see the NFT space become safer, easier to understand, and more inclusive. He placed stress on the practical uses of digital NFT ownership as something that filmmakers and musical artists can use as a platform for more equitable access to their craft. “I believe in a Netflix of the future. That would be a place where an independent film could have 100,000 people that watch it and it makes more money than the biggest blockbuster hit there ever was,” he said.
StockX x HXOUSE San Francisco Panelist: Jess Chao
Jess Chao is all in on NFTs and Web3. He currently serves as the CEO of PinkMustache, an NFT Consulting Company. Prior to his work at PinkMustache, he graduated from Stanford University and taught science to middle school and high school students. Due to his background in education, Chao has taken to trying to be an educator and advocate for NFTs, something he finds integral to its mass-adoption. Chao’s agency, PinkMustache, helps NFT projects and companies at every stage. As a part of the panel, Chao spoke with excitement about how our digital and embodied identities have the opportunities to become one. He spoke to the ways that one can identify with their digital avatar similarly to how we would a traditional image of ourselves. “I think it’s really cool the way that people integrating their digital intenties with their traditional ones” he said.
StockX x HXOUSE San Francisco Panelist: Erika Tarte
Erika Tarte is a San Francisco-based Creative Director at Instagram. In 2011, Tarte graduated with her MFA from Rhode Island School of Design, after which she began working as a design director and eventually creative director. Centered around end-user experiences from product design to user experience design, Tarte’s creative process involves a lot of research and insights around the people she’s designing for. In her current role at Instagram, she’s working on Instagram’s AR Design. For her, the groundbreaking advancements in digital technology are really exciting. “I think that all technologies are, at the end of the day, enabling for any creative process. The more tools that we have to create the economic incentive to try new things and experiment and push boundaries, the better,” she said.
