# Hub Culture

Hub Culture is an invitation-led social networking service that operates its own digital currency, Ven. It was founded in 2002, and is located in Bermuda.

## History

In November 2002, Hub Culture was founded by Stan Stalnaker. It was named after his book Hub Culture: The Next Wave of Urban Consumers published in the same year.
Hub Culture Services and Hub Culture Pavilions, the United Kingdom operations, were incorporated in 2006 and 2008, respectively.
As of March 2017, Hub Culture claimed to have 25,000 members.
In 2020 Hub Culture launched AQUA, the Active Quarantine User Ally, a HubID-based health and travel service created during the COVID-19 pandemic.
By 2021, the network claimed it had 32,000 accounts.

## Organisation

The Hub Culture group of companies is privately held with offices in Bermuda, Hong Kong, United Kingdom and the United States.

### Ven Currency

Launched in 2007, Ven is a Digital currency used by members of Hub Culture to buy, share and trade knowledge, goods and services. Members can use Ven at any 'Pavilion' or for micropayments online. The value of Ven is determined on the financial markets from a basket of currencies, commodities and carbon futures. It trades against other major currencies at floating exchange rates. Global pricing for Ven is provided by Thomson Reuters.

### Pavilions

Hub Culture operates temporary and permanent coworking project spaces called 'Pavilions'. Temporary locations have included Copenhagen to coincide with COP15, Cancún to coincide with COP16, and Durban for COP17.
Between 2009 and 2020 temporary Pavilions were opened in Davos, Switzerland, during the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting. "Hub Maison" opened in New York City for New York Fashion Week in a fashion oriented collaboration with Sportmax. The New York Pavilion became the first Pavilion to offer contemporary retail fashion selections for sale in digital currency. In May 2010, Hub Culture opened the Cannes Clubhouse, a venue tied to the 63rd Cannes Film Festival in collaboration with Grey Goose. A private island in Croatia and Bali villa project also use Ven as a means of exchange. The 2011 Davos Pavilion presented the first vehicles available for sale in Ven. In 2012, portions of the Davos Pavilion became the first in Europe to be powered by zero-emission energy from the Nissan Leaf using the Leaf-to-Home energy system.
In the summer of 2017, during the 35th America's Cup Hub Culture opened several shipping containers as popup bars at Ariel Sands in Bermuda that the company claimed features integration of artificial intelligence, digital currency, digital identity and blockchain auditing in a retail environment. In 2018, the Innovation Campus appeared in Paris, Cannes and Monaco over six weeks. In 2019 it appeared in Capri, Italy over two weeks. In Bermuda, the project was followed by the Bermuda Innovation Sprint, a two-week event gathering global Fintech leaders for meetings and other activities.

### HubID

In January 2014, Hub Culture announced HubID an open source digital identity system based on MIT Media Lab open source technology that extends data ownership around identity to the individual user.

### Ultra

Launched in 2018, Ultra is a private client Cryptocurrency Exchange using HubID and other Hub Culture technologies to enable the exchange of digital assets, including tokenised assets. The concept for Ultra emerged from the Bermuda Innovation Campus and Beach Club. In addition to trading tokenized assets, Ultra Carbon, a digital carbon token, was the first asset to be presented on the exchange.

### AQUA

Launched in 2020, AQUA, (Active Quarantine User Ally) is COVID-19 pandemic service for travellers managing international health quarantines.