Retrospective 2022: what a great year for MetaProvide!

In 2022 we achieved many goals and objectives to help those we always dreamed of supporting. This success is thanks to years of working on ideas and projects, focused on making a difference in the lives of providers and explorers.

To understand more about us, our story and mission, check out the video below. Dive into the sea of experiences that is MetaProvide.

Everything we lived in 2022

Our story began in 2018, but this year we worked hard to create many innovations and opportunities. What emerged in 2022 were several remarkable moments that we are extremely grateful for, from a new investment to the creation of new products and projects.

So let's remember together everything we experienced during this incredible year!

New Investment

At the beginning of our story, our work was completely voluntary. We were all here because we believed in the organisation, its purpose, and the possibility of our efforts.

At the end of 2021, we had our first investment from one amazing MetaProvide Economic Association member, Viktor Tron, enabling us to kick-start our growth.

In early 2022, the time had come to illustrate all our effort and success to him with the development of Adminly and our big goals for the future.

Our Chairman and Board Member, Bjorn Magalhães, along with our Product Development Manager, João Raposo, and one of our Product Research Managers, Danna Dias, traveled to Hungary to personally present our progress and future steps.

Thanks to the generosity of our great friend, Viktor Tron, we've come even closer to achieving our goals, as you may already know.

New positions and hires

A Business Manager, Software Developer, Marketing Manager, more VAs...with new advances, new needs appeared for new areas of development and, consequently, new people joined our team.

Our Human Relations Manager, Marcela Munõz, did an incredible job recruiting just the right people for the many jobs. In addition to having the necessary skills, our new members believed in our evolving mission, emulating our purpose and values. Ultimately, working for MetaProvide means going well beyond a simple job: we are all here to do something big, innovate, and make a difference in the world.

As we reach the end of this year, we already have more than 15 people on our team...and counting! Each one of them makes an real difference in the development and delivery of our projects. We are very grateful to have the incredible team that we have built thus far.

Rebranding

All change is welcome, and with our brand, it's no different. This year was the first time that we actually introduced MetaProvide, and our projects, to the world. We are developing a digital presence on social networks, with our blog and website, as well as physical presence at Hackathons and presentations to potential investors.

With that in mind, our Branding and Marketing Manager, Giuliana Bueno, worked on a new brand that is more modern and techy, without losing our Humanisation. Questionnaires and various meetings with both the Product team and the entire organisation informed this rebranding process.

Today you can check out our new brand on all our channels and here's a tip: stay tuned as we've got a lot planned for 2023!

MetaGathering

We are a 100% remote organisation. Although we were born in Sweden, our freelancers are spread across Europe, from Denmark to Portugal. Of course, the advantages of being remote are countless, but we also miss daily human contact and personal exchanges.

That's we held our MetaGathering 2.0 in Portugal this year! Through lots of logistical planning, we were finally able to meet in person. For some, this gathering was a reunion, but we all had the opportunity to make new connections, especially considering our growing team.

During an immersive week, with many workshops and meetings, we further developed the relationships within our team. We enjoyed this opportunity to get to know each other and spend time together through visits to MetaLand, dinners, and external activities.

Our MetaGathering was only possible with the collaboration of everyone. But we give special thanks to our Human Relations Manager, Marcela, and Financial and Legal Manager, Hakan, for organising the nitty-gritty details that brought us together.

After a fun-filled week of learning and team building, we returned to our virtual offices, ready to further develop our projects and achieve our goals!

Adminly Launch

Finally, the big day arrived! Our Adminly platform was launched after a lot of research and development.

We came to help others help more. In other words, we are here to support providers so they can focus more on what they were born to do: help and care for those in need.

Our entire Product team was responsible for developing the project through diverse research, hours of meetings, and leveraging Agile and Kanban methods. With the help of the Operations and Tech team, today we have the beginnings of our main product with exciting plans for future developments.

For all their hard work, we offer thanks to our entire Product team:

Our Product Leader, João Raposo, deserves recognition for making everything run according to the roadmap and organising a multitude of information and tasks. We are grateful for our Product Research Managers, Danna Dias and Tiago Lamelas, who defined the product with the team and implemented Agile and Kanban methods.

We also want to thank our VAs, Kristen Neumann, Giovanna Vernacci, and Ayeska Afonso. In addition to developing the project and testing out services, VAs enabled providers to focus on what they are good at by directly assisting with their many admin needs. Providers received support from Giusy Esposito, our Providers Community Manager, who acts as a liaison with Adminly, understanding their needs and connecting them with further resources.

Our UI/X Design Manager, Filipa Pinheiro, and the Product Marketing Manager, João Campos, have made invaluable contributions, ensuring that we deliver the best digital experience to our providers.

Last, and of course not least, we thank Magnus Walbeck, System Administrator and Developer, who together with Igor Oliveira, Junior System Administrator, made our entire platform possible.

Now we're ready to leverage Adminly for well-being providers to help more people.

Insidely Development

MetaProvide's mission is to help people. Through a lot of research and the lived experiences of our founders, we recognised that not only providers need support. Explorers also need help and many are struggling in a world without the means to connect with providers.

Therefore, MetaProvide decided to create Insidely, formerly MetaFriend, to help people who are looking for support, totally free.

At the MetaGathering, we define what Insidely would be and what everyone expected from this project. Together, we explored diverse solutions and chose a meaningful name for this new project, symbolising its purpose.

After many ideas, insights, conversations, and more research, we came up with a new name and concept. We look forward to developing Insidely, focusing on a unique and life-changing experience for our platform users.

With the idea of launching in 2023, we already have big plans for next year and we look forward to sharing more news with you.

Creating the Swarm Nextcloud Plugin

Many say that nothing is impossible. Some say you can do anything you put your mind to. We decided to challenge the Tech world this year, and we went far beyond what was expected of us, and far beyond what many thought was possible.

MetaProvide created and recently released the Swarm Nextcloud Plugin. In a nutshell, we made Nextcloud compatible with Swarm, bringing you decentralised file storage connected to the blockchain.

We've always used Nextcloud as an Open Source tool for work and we're close partners of Swarm due to our relationship with Viktor Tron....so why not connect both? As a gift to Viktor, we challenged ourselves to deliver something that went far beyond what was imagined and it's been a success.

This achievement was only possible, thanks to our Tech team. With our developers Ron Trevor, Magnus, and Henry Bergström, we delivered something much better than expected. Ultimately, we demonstrated that we can help people through technology, bringing more freedom to the world.

Our first Hackathon

Finally, one of our final achievements in 2022 was perhaps the most special as well. That's because it was the first time that we took the name of MetaProvide to a physical event, which was an enlightening journey.

For more context: since the arrival of our new Fundraising Manager, Iva Prazen, we are applying for numerous EU programs to receive investments and continue with our purpose.

With support from our Business Manager, Carlos Alba, in relation to contacts and constructing our image, we could finally present our business externally. The time had come to apply for programs aligned with our values and mission, as well as search for new horizons.

So, for the first time, we were invited to an event: the Urban Tech Hackathon in Lithuania. We pitched our project, demonstrating why we deserved to be there, along with other businesses as incredible as ours.

It was a unique and enriching experience for us all. With open arms, we learned how to improve and keep improving, thanks to the knowledge gained from this event.

And what are our plans for 2023?

After a year of many ups and downs, marked with significant milestones for us as individuals and an organisation, we will now take a breath. Rest is now necessary for us to come back even stronger and more confident in 2023, which will be a turning point for our organisation and projects.

That's because we have new projects under development, new ideas emerging, more funds invested, potential supporters getting to know us...

2023 will be a long, illuminating period and we are eager for whatever awaits us on the other side. With many objectives and goals on the table, we are preparing for next year to be better than the last. And we hope to count on you as we continue forward.

We hope you've enjoyed this new edition of our blog! More than ever, we're ready to share with you about us, our story, team, and everything we're working on to try to improve our world.

In case you've got any questions, ideas or suggestions, get in touch with us via email. Our Marketing and Branding Manager, giuliana.bueno@metaprovide.org, would love to hear from you!

If you'd like to discuss potential partnerships, donations or investments with MetaProvide, please contact our fundraiser at: fundraising@metaprovide.org

See you at the next edition!