This report comes after a quickened end in the EIR engagement, thus some projects are still in development, a few will continue on with funding and support, and others I am trying to handoff or connect with the appropriate channels for continued support/completion.
- Ecosystem Report - Growth and Transparency Team
This is the primary project we began our fellowship with, we have successfully run this research and design sprint over the past 8 weeks, and used the first couple of weeks to promote, review applications, and build the team.
- Team is led by EIRs: Daniel and Amber
- Team Mentor: Heidi Rataj (UCSD Design Lab Associate Director, Sprint/story/design thinking)
- Team Mentor: Yuri Victor (Cofounder Vox Media, Senior Editor The Atlantic)
- Team of University Students: Julia Pepper (NYU), Julia Cheng (UCSC), Max Perel-Slater (Emory), Stephen Golzari (UCSD)
The project is currently finalizing the copy, data, and design of the report as we have researched and gathered input from the ecosystem leaders and community. Our Survey had 109 participants from the community pointing to opportunities for growth and giving a voice to some of the challenges we face as a COMMUNITY/Ecosystem. We conducted expert interviews and did primary and secondary research. A large part of this project was also about the student’s experiences - as this has always been about learning and creating together.
A few takeaways from the team as we. near our closing out:
“I’ve learned a lot on the technical side (about blockchain & NEAR specifically) as well as interpersonal skills (communication & how to work as a team).
Working on the GT Report allowed me to be a part of the conversation on what kind of future we should build towards. I was introduced to the concept of Web 3 and am learning how the new technology of blockchain can solve many inequality issues around the world. For example, when refugees can no longer access their fiat, cryptocurrency can serve as a safety net. Or when music artists lose most of their profits to record labels, NFTs can give musicians full ownership of their work.
Daniel & Amber have been instrumental in the development of this Report by effectively onboarding the team and creating an environment where we can work together. They have brought in many mentors and experts to support us in different domains of expertise. Furthermore, both model healthy communication and listening skills that have added a lot of value to our weekly meetings.” Julia Cheng, UCSC
“I’ve learned a lot about how NEAR ecosystem functions, what are the elements of it, and how sharding design helps us solve the scalability problem. I have also learned how to use the public NEAR database to build graphs on top of it. I have learned how the DAO ecosystem on NEAR works: Sputnik smart contracts that let us do voting, create/collect NFTs, etc.; Astro as a middleware and UI on top of the smart contracts; and DAOcubator as an entity that helps the community to grow their own DAOs” Stephen Golzari, UCSD
“Daniel and Amber have expertly led the Growth and Transparency Report team. They recruited an eclectic group of students to work on the Growth and Transparency Report – from individuals new to web3 to experienced DAO members and DeFi educators. Having a group with diverse interests and backgrounds has empowered us to break out of the crypto echo chamber and create a report that pragmatically examines the NEAR ecosystem in an easily digestible format. Amber and Daniel provided the team with carefully curated resources (both through connections to ecosystem experts and valuable articles/videos) and encouraged productive group discussions on tough issues. Further, they have promoted storytelling as a central consideration when developing the G&T report.
As a graduate student in a dual Master of Public Health and Master of Development Practice (with a concentration in economics) program at Emory University, my personal journey as a team member of the G&T Report has been incredibly intellectually edifying. I have been able to use skills and methods from both of my academic disciplines while working on the report. On the public health side, I have assisted in the development and implementation of both quantitative and qualitative research tools to better understand the NEAR ecosystem through engagement from end users and blockchain insiders. On the economics and development practice side, I have led the research and writing of the decentralized finance section of the report. This has included examining key ecosystem developments (such as liquid staking, the rainbow bridge, Aurora +, and USN), identifying featured protocols (e.g. burrow, bastion, meta pool, and REF finance), and analyzing market conditions and trends.”
Max Peter-Slater, Emory
We have many documents which have created value and upon completion of the report, we will share a write-up about the program and our process including these assets.
**The report will be ready for review by a NEAR team member by June 20th. The project has submitted a request for additional funding due to the impact of the economic events as of recent.
- NEARSPACE
Has been supported by Amber and Daniel, without supplemental funding, recently the “Near Promotion Army” led by Flying Rhino included Nearspace in a grant proposal. Weekly check-ins with NearWeek occurred throughout our fellowship as the Nearspace was a collaboration we took lead on continuing.
We started NEARSPACE: Open Innovation for Ecosystem Challenges was started as a way to strengthen and optimize the ecosystem by identifying challenges and collectively addressing them through a mastermind-style conversation. We have hosted spaces, created recaps with resources for each session, and we have a telegram group that has continued to grow and support one another.
Metrics
10-11k Profile Visits
49-63K Tweet Impressions
53 Mentions
123 New followers in April, 77 New Followers in May
If this project continues with funding a new co-host will join me.
- Decent Grants Lab
A working group developed a hybrid model curating learning resources, funding, peer accountability, decentralizing milestone accountability/reporting reviews, and optimizing for community integration. The Document was Prepared by Amber Brandner, Erin Lamb and Kodah P, with Daniel Haboush and submitted by Amber (me) to Sherif with NEAR Edu per his request to share with Oliver and Josh.
EIRs have come together to help define processes and methodologies to scale grant issuance & management in a way that does not resource heavy and is fairly automated. Our first vector of solutions is directed toward grants under 50K.
From our understanding, in the beginning, NEAR faced the problem of attracting builders. This led to the creation of fast grants that could be approved quickly and were under a sum of 50k.
With the current success of NEAR, attracting would-be builders is becoming less of an issue. Other challenges such as filtering the noise, holding projects accountable, and helping them find the support services required have arisen. These challenges are putting increasing strain on NF employees and systems.
Solution
To solve this we propose creating a decentralized grant committee made up of NEAR EIRs and other interested, committed, and vetted members. Our mandate would be to approve/issue micro-grants along with well-defined criteria and accountability processes that help this grant program scale. We would be empowered by the NF by creating a pilot Decentralized Grants Lab to serve this purpose.
We have segmented the grant process into 5 phases, from which we will address this problem.
- The above is part of a proposal that was offered to the GRANTS team at NEAR. A version of this concept is offered as a research and design lab rather than a deployment vehicle if an alternative direction is requested by NEAR.
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Entrepreneur Track Education, Shreyes (Brant Cooper + Patricia Stitson connection made)
Via the development of an entrepreneurship course, we have been in contact with Shreyas. A proposal to spearhead and project manage that project is underway. The original grant submitted by NYT bestseller on Entrepreneurship Brant Cooper is standing still to my knowledge. -
Support to grant applicants…
There have been a number of ways Daniel and I have supported quality founders and projects in their attempts to create with NEAR. Below are just a few:
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Lips an LGBTQ platform has submitted a grant application. Annie Brown as a founder is capable and skilled, bringing a community of over 10k active users to the current platform. This project would also address the need to look at DEI. Application Submitted May 31st.
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Joyfully- Status as of 5/22 - Applied for ES Fast Grant, with working product and community, currently in technical review. Again I LOVE projects that address DEI. Joyfully is building a very user-friendly interface to bring mental health conversations into everyday life, with plans to use Web3 (integrating with NEAR wallet for now, but later NFTs and tokenomics) to build community and incentivization models. Among the target audience is underrepresented communities, who historically engage with mental health-related services and financial education far less than they should.
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OurVerse - This project has an amazing team of SolarPunk/Regen leaders. We have had multiple rounds of feedback and questions, and edits to meet the needs of NF but have yet to secure this team with the proper support to engage NEAR. I have been in contact and following up with Shashi in NF specifically.
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Meet with Wallet - This project has again a strong team, which we vetted, and supported in grant application. I am in conversation with Nicky NF to try to understand why this project has received a no, and what next steps can be taken.
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Questing Systems - We supported Vid in applying, this was then redirected to Aurora Grants and thus far, after reaching out to connection made with Shashi, I have not heard any new developments.
-Landian - I spent a few weeks in Colombia to do due diligence on a metaverse building on top of NEAR. After weeks of discussion and proposal formation, attempts to enageg NF in conversation with founder, the company itself changed approaches. They are now in touch with Illya directly securing the development support they may require.
I also have made many introductions for sponsorship of events including Crypto Tulum, Xpo Crypto in Medellin, Weaving the Regenerative Web hosted by Dream DAO founder Gary Sheng.
Events:
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Participated in Mastermind - Impact Metrics hosted by Global Unity
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Organized and Moderated event Web3: Breaking it Down Outcome:
TLDR: digital event intro to web3 hosted by Singularity Group, Near represented x2 panelist (amber and daniel) and curated conversation on web3 basic education.
- 5 Speakers from 3 countries
- 55+ attendees stayed for the one-hour session.
- 12 Post-event survey Responses- with Wallet Activations
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Attending Consensus in June and speaking at NEAR HackerHouse on DEI and HOW we Create in web3.
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Invited to Emerge, participating June 24-26 in Austin, Texas.
Final Thoughts: How we treat each other on all levels, in all instances, matters and it is literally forming the culture. The consideration and kindness we offer another is Culture. The way we choose to communicate Directly or indirectly is Culture.