Andrea Abrams | Phygicode CEO & Founder (Moderator)
Andrea Abrams is the founder and CEO of PHYGICODE, a consortium and lab executing phygital engagement solutions and data-driven ecosystems of products and experiences for the retail industry. She is a retail industry veteran and global executive, and a technology and blockchain investor, participating in pre-seed rounds of notable startups for physical and digital commerce. She is a board advisor and incubator mentor to prominent tech startups. She was featured in the Top100 Women of the Future book for her work in web3 infrastructure and in Vogue Game Changers 2022. She is a Threedium XR Award Winner, Women in Tech Top 100 Speakers, and the 2024 co-host and curator of Web3 Hub’s Phygital Wednesday in Davos (WEF), among others. Her work with legacy retail and fashion on-chain collaborations has been featured by CNN, Vogue and WWD.
The evolution of fan engagement in sports is moving to more personalized, immersive and interactive experiences. Licensed merchandise has always gone beyond simply retail revenue by creating a strong emotional connection between fans and their favorite teams or players and driving fan engagement. Today, the gaming industry is deepening fan-sport connections, ensuring that community engagement continues long after the season ends. The future of gaming, where players have ownership of their digital assets and experiences and can participate in game economies, is not just about making money, but also about rewarding players for their contributions and social interactions as fans and participants. Connecting the physical and digital products and experiences around these communities provides a transformative economic paradigm for the retail industry and a customer relationship not possible with traditional social media. As the gaming industry evolves and embraces artificial intelligence and machine learning in building next-gen products, gametech will be ideally positioned to provide new ways of incentivizing behavior in multiplayer formats and creating applications that take player loyalty and monetization to the next level. Immersive fan engagement adds layers of excitement and involvement, drawing fans closer to their teams irrespective of their physical location.