We were lucky to catch up with Vics Vibes recently and have shared our conversation below.

Vics, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career.

I would love to implement more AR/VR tech into the education system, specifically in areas where the exposure to opportunity is limited. Augmented reality technology transforms the education system from a fact memorization competition, to a world of truly experiencing concepts, history and technology in a way that simply has never been made available. Traditionally we have been limited by the knowledge base of the teacher or the quality and quantity of the reading material available. With the implementation is Augmented and Virtual Realities, experiences, worlds, and digital assets can be curated to teach and expose concepts in such an enjoyable and immersive way, that I simply have to agree with CEO of Apple Tim Cook. “We will soon look back on a life without augmented reality just like we look back at life without a smartphone, or without the internet.”

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am Vics Vibes the Founder of Digitally Hustlin and I am from the Southside of Atlanta. I am impacting and serving the Creator Economy and Web 3 spaces. I have been enamored by tech dating back from as long as I can remember. I began Photoshopping myself into photos with my celebrity crushes way back in 2007/2008, before there was even a Youtube to learn, and I was only an underclassmen in highschool. From there, I turned to buying, repairing and reselling iPhones. That was the entreprenuerial bug that shifted my perspective of time vs money forever.

However, with my parents wanting a path that visually had runway, they encouraged me to look into receiving a degree that would heighten my understanding of the tech industry, as they too could see my keen ability to understand and implement softwares at a very young age. So as I graduated high school as the prom king and quarterback of the varsity football team, I went on to pursuit a degree in Electrical Engineering. Now as a student that attended 2 universities on my journey to receiving my degree, my experiences amongst the 2 schools were completely juxtaposed. I began my career at an HBCU in Savannah State, and ended up transferring to Kennesaw State. I vividly remember conversing with my mother about me walking away from my full-ride athletic scholarship to pursuit a degree that could better prepare me for my future.

Why on earth would I leave my scholarship and dream of playing Quarterback at the Division-I level? Because it was so unfortunate coming to class on lab day and due to the lack of physical resources on hand, over 30 students would have to gather around the professor as he tried to describe a circuit board. I remember standing 3-4 rows deep in the crowd as he pointed to this board, half the size of an iPad and realizing how big of a toll this was taking on my career preparation. I transferred to Kennesaw the next semester, to be handed on my very first day, my very own lab kit with all the tools and gadgets needed to cary out every experiment on my own, for the entire semester. COMPLETELY DIFFERENT EXPERIENCES. It left me with an extreme level of empathy for all students who are struggling to pick a passion, because they simply haven’t been allotted the opportunity of exposure. The saying goes, ‘once the mind expands, it never contracts.’ But I argue that observation is fact creation, and if someone is never exposed to the opportunities in the world, how can they make sound decisions?

I ended up going on to graduate and having a full circle moment in becoming the Lead Engineer at Hartsfield Jackson International, the busiest airport in the world, that happens to be located in College Park, which is the hood I grew up in. I thrived in this role tremendously! It gave me the opportunity to use my leadership skills that my parents and the game of football helped developed, as well as my intelligence, in rooms where my level of understanding and articulation wasn’t expected. I completed the highest grossing project at the airport at the time, while also pursing knowledge on the developing Web 3 infrastructure. After reaching a level of understanding and revenue generation from day trading and client work, I transitioned fully into entrepreneurship!

I know serve clients in a variety of different ways, as the needs for digital marketing and web 3 capabilities are endless. One of the clients I am currently working with that I am the most excited about, is a corporation onboarding tens of thousands of people into the Metaverse. I am serving as the Senior Developer on this project, curating a content package meeting specs to their liking. Such a wonderful experience knowing your IP is inflicting change on world! I am currently documenting the public process of adding customized augmented reality experiences to our service packaging, with a pending certification by the end of Q4!

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

My side hustle became such a pivotal part of my Digital Marketing career, that I went on to create Digitally Hustlin, a media company serving the creator economy by providing perspective and skills to help entrepreneurs & creators navigate the digital age we live in.

I began creating digital assets in 2007, photoshopping myself into photos with my celebrity crushes. This led me to into video production, where I would take my Dad’s camcorder to the basketball court and record me and my friends playing basketball & then edit clips for YouTube. Again, this was far before ‘content creators’ even had a title. So these foundational skills, grew into passions. Oddly enough, I would go on pursuit different lanes and only using my digital marketing skills as something to support whatever I was doing at the time. Fast forward to me retiring from the field of Engineering and betting completely on myself.

I saw an opportunity where the skillets I had acquired over the past few years, were primed and ready for me to combine them and monetize. So I began publicly teaching people about the different finacial markets, the core concepts of day trading, and how to build a personal brand around it as well. I went on to create 3 courses, grew over 20,000 instagram followers & taught tens of thousands of people the skills I had been developing. However, because I was running my platform within the umbrella of a network marketing company, I knew my time would be limited. Building a brand on rented land wasn’t something I knew would keep me fulfilled, so I ultimately decided to go completely independent, providing even more value and effort to my community than ever before!

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I believe what helps me build a reputation within my market, is my versatility, while remaining a high level of effectiveness at all times. See in private, I spend a lot of time on development. Like a lot… I consistently consume high level thinking content, even if it’s at subconscious level, I’m tuned in. I believe because of the reps I do in private, it allows me to show up a bit more prepared than others expected to be in my similar position. By trick is, I collapse time. I don’t typically pick things up, and do it once a day for a few weeks. I like to apply, asses, adjust and reapply multiple times, over and over until I feel I’ve reached a level I’m comfortable with, with the given scenario.

With this mentality, no matter what changes or updates happen, or are coming in the market, my colleagues know I have a very strong ability to consume, comprehend and articulate the information for the entire community to grow.

Contact Info:

• Website: Under Construction
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/vics.vibes?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vics-vibes-955b9a69
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCV2HxS7rPgV3SG-AFduXsmg
• Other: Course: Learn.VicsVibes.com