The Crypto Camels Club (CCC) is a Bahrain-based female-owned collection of 10,000 unique Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). The club was founded by entrepreneur and CEO Nasreen Faqihi, alongside her co-founders Saudi Cloud Computing Expert Danah Alsobayel and venture capitalists Bahraini Hasan Haider and Saudi Ibrahim Al Hejailan.

We had a conversation with Nasreen Faqihi about everything from what it is like to start a business as a woman, to the future of NFTs in the region and CCC’s roadmap.

Faqihi has 15+ years of experience in strategy, marketing, communications, and events. She also contributed to different volunteer work over the years, covering women’s empowerment and has sat on the boards of Not For Profits organizations.

She also worked for more than a decade as the Head of Sponsorships and Events at the Bahrain Economic Development Board, and headed the local chapter of the Young Arab Leaders, where she focused on developing youth empowerment projects.

Most people attribute NFTs to art. How is Crypto Camels Club going beyond art to create a community?

The Crypto Camels Club is not your typical NFT project. It is unique because the NFT represents the creativity of a female artist and represents a token to allow access to an exclusive community of regional influencers and decision-makers. While we plan to host special dinners, meetups, and exclusive social, cultural and business events, we plan to give back to the MENA world using this community to impact our natural world.

The bottom line is that our NFT functions as an art and a membership subscription.

How can this project express the region’s cultural identity in the metaverse?

We focused on camels because we wanted to localize the NFT to our region and reflect our rich heritage and culture. We also incorporated local attire, headgear, among many other things from different countries to localize the NFTs and make them unique.

Camels are inspiring due to their resilience and strength, and are considered iconic to our region from centuries ago.

Can you tell us more about Crypto Camels Club’s roadmap over the coming period?

We are making steady, decisive steps towards our goals, and with each step, we will be unlocking a whole world of benefits for our members, from social gatherings to sessions on market trends, both fun and educational for our members to enjoy whilst helping our communities achieve more.

20% – Launch a CC-members only Discord group to connect, network and exchange ideas and deals related to the MENA tech ecosystem

25% – We release the Confined Camels, 10 camel tokens held back from the sale are airdropped to random CC holders.

30% – CC launches exclusive Meetups and Dinners for our members across the MENA region.

40% – Member-exclusive CC Merch Store gets unlocked, featuring Limited Edition tees, hoodies, and other goodies.

50% – We start working on a crypto-based charity platform for the MENA region for our members, aimed at developing projects and helping those in need in the region through the power of our members.

60% – CC launches its Member Exclusive Trips and Excursions.

80%- A series of regional events for CC holders are unlocked with excellent world speakers

90% – CC will host exclusive events alongside F1 and other exciting races and global events across the region.

100% – We launch a series of pop-up lounges exclusive to CC members across multiple cities in the MENA region

NFTs are quickly becoming a form of investment globally. Do you have any tips for new investors to make smarter decisions when investing?

I think the best rule of thumb, as with any investment, is to always conduct a thorough due diligence exercise, and by that, I mean understand what the objective of the NFT project is, who are the founders, are the founders sharing their names and identities – as that adds a lot to the credibility of the project and acts as a reassurance that this is not a rug pull NFT.

Cryptocurrency is illegal in some countries like Egypt. What is your outlook on the future of this space in the region?

While cryptocurrency is not regulated in some countries, an increasing number of countries in the region have controlled it. We have seen this sector grow and expand and I firmly believe that the other countries will soon follow and that it is just a matter of time.

CCC is a women-led community. What is your mission, and how will you use this community to push it forward?

One of the pillars of CCC is to push forward the women empowerment agenda, and we started it with the team itself to motivate other women in the region and globally. We have noticed that women in technology in the MENA region and across the world are a minority compared to men, and we want to contribute to changing that and inspire others.

We will also be allocating resources to educate women in this field and develop programs for women in the region to upskill themselves to find more sustainable means of livelihood to support their families.

Can you tell us more about what goes into creating an NFT project? How does rarity factor in?

Understanding your audience is the first thing you need to consider when creating an NFT. Are you targeting a specific audience, region, or group? The second element is looking at gaps in the market and potential opportunities for your kind of art or project. Providing a unique concept will give you an advantage over others.

There are several layers for the NFT art, and you can be very creative with that. Every crypto camel has been designed to be unique. Diversity is key!

Of course, it is important to first find the right team who believes in the project and then set up a website, smart contract and then communicate your mission to your audience.

What is the ideal community you are creating?

A community of diverse people looking to connect with other like-minded people who want to become part of a virtual and offline group that engages with the MENA community. The concept of our NFT project is more focused on community building because we want to have a long-term impact and long-term utility for our NFT holders.

Can you tell us more about the offline events and charity projects you want to create?

As we will be attracting a diverse group of members, we will have to cater to various interests; hence, we will arrange social gatherings across different countries and cultural and business ones. We want our members to enjoy and benefit from being part of this network. Depending on the milestones we achieve in our roadmap, we will be unlocking specific activations, and the one that I am most passionate about is the charity and development projects.

We want our charity projects to have a long term impact on those in need; hence we are not limiting our projects to donations; instead, we will also consider training as a development project as we feel that it will have a lasting impact. We are also planning to work with orphanages in different countries and donate to them and help them develop a strategy to fund themselves more sustainably, so our support will be both financial and consultancy in a way.

I am personally a big fan of youth and women empowerment projects, and I have felt its effect on people first-hand through my previous experiences at work and my volunteer work.

Another thing we are looking at is holding events to showcase ‘emerging’ artists from our region to allow them to showcase their art as we understand that there is always that challenge when they are at the beginning of their journey. At the moment, we are speaking to a few different charity organizations, and we will be announcing our collaborations later on.