Hello all,
I’d like to put my name forward to apply for the position of Regional Communities DAO council member in the upcoming election. Here is my application:
- Who are you?
I’m Niall from Ireland but currently living in Luxembourg. I’ve been involved in crypto on and off since July 2021 and then completely hooked when I started to delve in to the Near blockchain and the NFT space at the start of 2022. I’m a qualified accountant and have been working in finance in both Luxembourg and Ireland the last 10 years, with managing a hotel in my village in the west of Ireland in between.
Among other things I enjoy reading a range of different topics such as international relations, psychology, design thinking and behavioural finance. I find why humans make the decisions we do, very interesting.
- What is your experience?
I’ve been involved with Near for the past year and a half. My first experience in NFTs was grinding for Mara Gen 0 whitelist in Feb 2022. I fell in love with the coming together of people all over the world doing things in order to obtain a reward. If you want to understand the power of what communities can do, you need to experience a hyped NFT project!
My real life experience I’ve worked in the finance industry for 10+ years in companies such as EY, Accenture and Grant Thornton. I leased a hotel in my village for a year which meant I was in charge of every facet of the business and managing a team of 15 people. That was the most hectic and challenging period of my life. However it was also probably the most rewarding in terms of knowledge gained trying to make the customer experience enjoyable as possible while dealing with a diverse range of stakeholders.
- Any skills?
Qualified chartered accountant. Administration, dealing with stakeholders, languages,
- Goals? How are you involved with NEAR and the overall blockchain ecosystem?
My main goal over the next 6 months while on paternity leave will be to advance my knowledge of Blockchain technology with the objective of either being able to secure full-time employment within Web3, or that I can be involved in setting up cryptocurrency financial services for the Company I currently work for when I return in January 2024. Therefore I will putting every effort to ensure that this can be a success. I also want to improve my French and German language skills
Near was my first experience of moving off a CEX and interacting within a blockchain ecosystem. Since then I’ve been hooked. And of course given the time that I arrived I have also got completely rekt. However I have said to myself that if I was to get annoyed and leave crypto due to that it all would have been a waste. Pushing through the pain I’m now out the other side and have the same enthusiasm for Blockchain tech and Near as I did when I started back in early 2022.
- Where is your home?
I’m from a village in the west of Ireland called Roundstone, famous for its amazing beaches (yes I swear!). My family have a seafood bar and restaurant so I’ve grown up in customer service. Currently I’m living in Luxembourg.
- Which communities do you represent?
I’m the Europe ambassador for Meta Pool. My pfp is a Mara Gen 0 and am part of a number of other NFT communities such as Tinkers, Café Cartel, Neko, SpinFi among others.
- Why are you a good candidate?
I believe that my real world experience as a finance professional in companies such as EY, Accenture and Grant Thornton along with the enthusiasm and drive I’ve demonstrated being involved with any community shows that I have the necessary skills, expertise and vision to be a valuable council member of the Regional Community DAO.
Along with running the hotel in 2018 I also created a facebook group called “Roundstone Idea Group” with the objective of rallying the local community to work together to solve the issues we faced as a community.
In this ‘call to action’ post I identified the issues we faced, the different stakeholders involved, their different strengths and how we would need to utilise the different qualities of those stakeholders to overcome the issues faced by the community:
I believe this demonstrates my passion for communities and how important it is to understand everyone involved in order to solve the problem.
- Why should people vote for you?
I’m passionate about Near protocol and the potential of its tech to become a top 10 Blockchain. It is by far the easiest user experience of any chain I’ve tried. I will bring my professional experience along with working with passion for accessing the potential within communities to add value to the DAO.
- Explain your strategy to develop regional communities.
Here are some aspects I believe the regional DAO should focus on:
- Best practice hub – The regional DAO should be an information hub for all guilds and communities. Designing procedures and processes of best practice on everything on how to set up a local community.
- Local Hub outreach and liaison – Create closer relationships with local hubs to understand their community and working with them to onboard new users.
- Cost reduction – In this bear market we need to be as lean as possible. For example, GPT-4 costs 20$ a month and can translate any text perfectly in 30 seconds. No guild or community should be allocated exorbitant funds for translations.
- In person events – The covid era is gone. We need to create more in-person experiences to entice new users outside of hackathons. Create new ideas around in-person events and show to the world how fun and vibrant Blockchain project communities can be!
- Let us know any expectations regarding your time commitment and compensation.
Thanks to the Luxembourg government I am about to undertake 6 months of paid paternity leave so I would have a significant amount of time to spend on this project. Remuneration in line with industry standards.
- Kindly disclose any potential conflicts of interest, and feel free to be creative!
Currently I am the Ambassador for Europe for Meta Pool along with holder of a number of NFT projects such as Mara, Tinkers, Neko, Café Cartel, and a load more. However as a professional accountant and a member of ACCA (Association of Certified Chartered Accountants) I am understanding of the importance of remaining independent and notifying in advance of any potential conflicts that may arise.