ABOUT RELAY FOR UKRAINE

Relay for Ukraine follows the ideas of a Relay For Life in the Metaverse. You might ask if help and awareness can work in the Meta, can work with Avatars? So best to show you right now that it can work. It takes you less than four minutes.

Now you may ask why Second Life? Maybe you heard a lot of negative about this world. In 2009 I gave a class at the University of Malta to students in the art and education department.

We created a virtual gallery and we had an exhibition at St. James Cavalier, which is the premier location for art events next to the parliament. Keep in mind the educational video is nearly 15 years old. Avatars at this time have been prim-made, now they are mesh-made, they are looking totally different.

After the hype of Second Life faded in 2010 criticism took place, but the reasons behind are mostly based on a lack of understanding SL. SL, the shortcut of Second Life, has become a technology like Mastercard or Visa. You can create things, present your creations and you can sell them. You can become rich in whatever you create in the Metaverse. You can also sell paintings or tickets. A very successful show, that was always sold out, was Paradise Lost. I was one of the actors in 2015 …

Now, almost 10 years later, we know of bitcoins and Altcoins. SL has virtual real money since 2004 and has a bank licence via its subsidiary Tilia. It is called the Linden Dollar and it is convertible. See it this way: Mastercard and Visa are not bad or good. It is a payment technology. Now both have stopped working in Russia. Second Life is “under the radar” and works globally. Opensimulator is just internet, so the only way to cut it off would be to shut down the internet.

Technology [skip it if you are not a tech pro]

SL is based on an engine that was originally developed by Berkeley University and has spread as a technology to the Meta itself. These Metaworlds use Opensimulator and the code is opensource. You may have heard of game engines like Unity or Godot. SL is in a way the front-end (the user interface) made by Linden Lab, the owner of SL. To say it straight: the technology belongs to us all. It is set on open licence by Berkley. But not the payment technology, that is sole on Linden Lab.

Relay for Ukraine is in the Meta and works in Linden Dollar in SL and in the Metaverse [outside SL] with Paypal and Gloebit [an Altcoin]. Both Metaverse platforms [SL and opensim] have the same Avatars style. Relay for Ukraine works in both types of worlds and also on the web via Paypal, bitcoin and Altcoin. If anyone is interested to bring it to other Meta worlds like SineSpace, contact me.

DONATIONS?

What shall happen in case things went beyond the level of awareness? When money is collected? This will be discussed in the Meta. I run a non-profit NGO through which the Relay For Ukraine Fundraiser will be channelled. This allows for legal donation in a state supervised program. The operating NGO is for education – [also in schools, see one project we called Primexplorer], scientific research and for financing events mainly in the fields of art, teaching and education, including training the trainers.

I have reached out to the Ukrainian University in Munich to discuss setting up a program for the arts, which one of the primary goals for the Relay For Ukraine fundraiser is to support them, to give a lecture there for artists and interested people coming as refugees from Ukraine so to open a door for them to express artistically what they want to express. It is said, that to deal with trauma, to work things out is the best way, so that is my idea for small money.

I found an entry by the University of Ukraine on facebook stating: “UVU students created a project of pedagogical and psychological support for children and adults who were forced to leave their homes in Ukraine and arrived in Munich.”

There is more to come …

I want Relay For Ukraine to be successful, raising a high amount in Linden Dollars and other currencies that are used in the Metaverse. In 2020 the Relay for Life raised over $400,000USD SL for the Cancer Relay. You have seen the video right?

Relay For Ukraine also sets a high goal to offer Grants to students who wish to take the Masterclass at the Ukrainian University. They will spread the word of quality in the Metaverse as my students did in 2009 which you can see by scrolling in the catalogue I in 3D that was printed. Also, the publication KATATONENKUNST might be of interest.

If you miss the usual ways, to collect money for food and shelter, then you may just check out other ways to donate. The European Union is given billions of Euro to support the refugees so they will survive. The Relay for Ukraine focuses on a different setting: one for the mind by using the Metaverse as a global way to meet, work and to express oneself in an artistic way.

[Reiner Schneeberger]