Women Rise: Representing women in NFTs and Blockchain

For over a year now, many NFT projects attempted to revolutionize the metaverse, or rather create it. Few did and now stand in a position to represent NFTs, be the face of it; namely CryptoPunks, Bored Ape Yacht Club and Beeple’s Everyday: the First 5000 days.

While this is worth applauding, not many projects provide value to the real world. There are few exceptions, like Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin donating $1 billion to help India fight Covid-19, but this isn’t exactly NFT’s.

It’s important that what changes the metaverse, lends a hand in changing the real world, for the better. And this is where we are introduced to Women Rise.

Women Rise is an NFT project that represents women, stands for a cause and improves the lives of people beyond the internet.

Women Rise

The ART

Women Rise is a collection of 10,000 randomly generated NFTs created by the widely acclaimed artist Mahile Abidi. The collection is centered around representing women by breaking the bounds of race, color and prejudices.

The collection represents women from various backgrounds, including but not limited to women in science, art, technology and activism. Along with that, the collection aims to represent women in NFTs and blockchain, which for the most part has been male-dominated. The project hopes to encourage the participation of women in the space, narrowing the gender gap & promoting equal representation.

Every NFT in the collection is a combination of randomly generated traits. There are in total 453 traits, all of which are hand-drawn. A certain combination of traits makes an NFT rarer than the other, therefore more collectable. In all the diversity, there’s one attribute that all of them share; every NFT is aesthetically pleasing.

The Creator

Part of the reason why the collection is so popular and influential is the creator behind it.

Mahila Abidi is a globally acclaimed visual artist and the creator of Women Rise. She is also a published author and her works shed light on advocacy of social justice including women’s rights, gender equality, girls’ education, and fighting for the marginalized communities.

Mahila has been representing women by sharing their stories for over 9 years. Working with international organisations such as UN, Global Goals, Malala Fund, Adobe, Google and many more. That’s not all, many media platforms have displayed her work namely The New York Times, Good Morning America, BBC & TRT. Additionally, in November last year, Malila launched her second book; Rise. A book that celebrates the story of 100 extraordinary women across the world.

Going on a slight tangent, what better way to empower women than to support them. The project director of Women Rise, Aski, has over 7 years of experience in business consulting. He is married to Mahila and is one of her biggest supporters.

The Roadmap

As of now, the entire collection of Women Rise is sold out, but available on the secondary market. But to understand the vision behind the project, it’s important to take a look at the roadmap they followed.

To begin with, the project hosted a pre-launch event, a virtual event spanning 3 days. In this event, talented NFT artists were invited to talk about NFTs and art. The underlying motive of this event, apart from launching the project, was to amplify the voices of artists by encouraging the community to understand their vision.

After the sale of one-tenth of the collection, 15 early supporters received special Women Rise NFTs through an airdrop. This was to appreciate people who’ve been supporting the project since its inception.

Further, 2.5 percent of the primary sales were donated to the Malala Fund. Malala fund is an internationally recognised non-profit organisation that advocates for girls’ education. It was founded by Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani activist who is also represented in an NFT from the collection.

To carry the influence of the art beyond the internet, after the sale of half of the collection, 100 Women Rise collectors won a physical print of their NFTs. These prints could be hung on walls and displayed to friends and family.

The roadmap further mentioned the launch of the Rising Women & Activists Club. Select collectors will be invited to join the clubs that’ll meet virtually and in person. The clubs have different targets; the former one promoting women in art, science and culture and the latter is responsible for bringing attention to societal issues. On an ongoing basis, 5% of the royalties are pledged to support these causes.

Additionally, after completion of ¾ of the sales, 7.5% of primary sales will be donated to organisations supporting gender equality, girls’ education and mental health in marginalised societies.

On 90% of the sales, the project planned a launch of a merchandise store. A collector will receive a 20% royalty on the sale of any item that had their NFT art.

Finally, after the primary sale of the entire collection and as promised in the roadmap, Mahila will exclusively create 10 NFTs and airdrop them to 10 lucky supporters who pre-own at least 5 Women Rise NFTs. And in the end, an event will be held to celebrate the success of the project.

The Launch

The collection was launched on 25 Nov 2021, and at the moment it’s entirely sold out. The date for the launch was thoughtfully chosen. A tweet from the official handle says it as follows “Why did we pick 25th Nov as our launch date! ??

It is the International Day of Elimination of violence against women! And it is also the beginning of the 16 days of activism ☀️ On our launch day, we wanted to bring attention to this global movement to end violence against women”

Conclusion

The Women’s Rise collection has been a huge success. Currently trading on Opensea, the collection has a floor price of 0.5 ETH and more than 5.7K unique owners. You can purchase one for yourself. Wondering how to own one? Read our article that’ll guide you on how to purchase an NFT.