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We often talk about taking a leap of faith and chasing our passions. But only a few of us can actually do it with conviction.

I had the opportunity to interact with one such person. Robert Cartwright is the CEO of Wondra, with a deep expertise in building teams and managing innovation-oriented operations across the globe.

We discussed his journey, existing limitations of the metaverse, potential solutions, and Wondra's role in shaping its future. Enjoy!

Welcome, Robert. Let's begin with your origin story and why you quit a successful corporate career to join Web3.

Hey, it's my pleasure.

I worked in the corporate world for over 11 years. First at Accenture, then at Deloitte, and finally at IBM. It was a great learning experience.

But despite leading many cutting-edge projects as IBM's Sr. Innovation Director, the excessive bureaucracy and slowish progress felt rather stifling. I wanted to do more, faster.

So, I acted on my entrepreneurial calling and became Wondra's CEO. Now, I'm directly building a better and more user-centric world using blockchain, AI, and other innovative technologies.

AI and the metaverse are the next frontiers of tech innovation. Working towards this paradigm's evolution is challenging but worth all the effort. It speaks to who I am.

You say the metaverse is the next frontier of tech innovation, but it has largely failed to deliver on its promises so far. Please share your views on that.

Those who fade the metaverse miss a crucial point. It's a holistic, integrated realm that is bound to evolve slowly until we reach an inflection point. That's a feature, not a bug.

Now, what happened in 2021–22 was pure FOMO and short-term speculation. Both institutions and degens were aping into the 'next big thing,' and metaverse was one of them. Plus, the digital-first realm seemed like a captivating respite in a pandemic-ridden world of extreme isolation.

But the foundation wasn't solid. Blind profit-seeking by certain players led to an unreliable and fleeting user base that went from metaverse to NFTs to AI and whatnot in no time.

So ultimately, there was a lot of supply but not enough real, long-term demand. The underlying tech stack also wasn't mature enough to effectively leverage parallel innovations like AI.

Right. So what's the solution? How can we get people to actually inhabit and use the metaverse, not just speculate?

There are no shortcuts to building a functional metaverse. The solution begins with this realization and mindset shift. It requires focused innovation.

The metaverse isn't a 'number go higher' game. It's a culmination of various ongoing innovations. From blockchains and cryptographic primitives like zkProofs or MPC to AR/VR, AI, ML, etc., building a truly alternative digital realm is about tapping into every possible (and potential) resource.

Unlike in traditional game worlds where users and their avatars ultimately remained disconnected, we can now have 'digital twins' that walk, talk, think, and behave like us. That's what we're building at Wondra.

Implementing Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) and other deep learning methods allows us to effectively create AI-agents that replicate the users' personalities, preferences, and choices.

This way we can generate real metaverse-native demand and circular economies as 'digital beings'—i.e., autonomous AI-agents linked to users via SBTs—inhabit, socialize, and actually 'live' in the metaverse. It's unprecedented.

That's an interesting synergy. Tell us a bit more about what to expect in Wondra's AI-powered metaverse.

The endgame is letting users do everything in the metaverse as they would in the physical world. Plus, a lot more.

But initially, you can interact with Wonki, our integrated AI assistant, and teach it about yourself. You'll earn $WII tokens in the process—we're all for fair incentivization from Day 0.

We're exploring a new form of online presence that goes way beyond PFPs and half-baked representations of the users' physical and emotional being. And in doing so, we're prioritizing consent, privacy, ownership, and autonomy from the get-go.

Once the demand side is ready, there'll be a steady influx on the supply side, powered by RWAs and other ongoing advancements. From financial securities and tokenized art to courses, collaborations, and social projects, you can have it all. That'll be the inflection point metaverse needs to onboard and retain the next one billion users.

Awesome! Before we wrap, what's your best advice for newcomers entering Web3 in 2024? Which areas should they explore besides metaverse and AI?

Prioritize fundamentals over froth. We're coming out of a long winter and into the next summer. There'll be a lot of noise during this phase, so you must learn to identify signals over empty hype.

RWAs, DePIN, gaming, and privacy-preserving tech like ZKs are some of the key areas of innovation right now. Learn the basics here. But above all, do your research and due diligence. Don't blindly follow others or ape into 'hot narratives' just because everyone else is doing it.

Last but not least, don't overcomplicate things. Have fun exploring new ideas and opportunities. It's about building the future—expect the unexpected.