From the 11th to the 14th of September, NEAR gathered its community again to meet IRL in Lisbon, Portugal. It was the second edition of the NEARCON conference, and the ecosystem, outsiders, l and newcomers got hyped.
Conveniently, the theme of this year’s edition was “building beyond the hype”. But what does that mean, within a sector that relies so much on hype and speculation? From someone with a less technical background that admires the possibilities that the Web3 ecosystem provides, I would say: it is the people that turn the empty hype into a real and purposeful thing.
There is no better way of learning about the newest technological updates than being at a 3-day event filled with talks and presentations. But while all this could be theoretically done online, the key point – for me personally – is to get to know the people who built it and the ones who use these tools.
This is not the first time that the Marma J Foundation travelled to Portugal to educate about Web3 and its possibilities, especially for the social good. But this time they also came to hack! For the Hackathon, they came up with a solution for redeemable NFTs which will not lose their memorable effect. When usually buying a redeemable NFT on Mintbase, you will need to burn the NFT to receive your item/ticket. This is a great flow but does not allow the holder to keep the NFT as a memory of the actual event or item that they bought. With the idea from the Marma J Foundation, you would be able to burn the utility NFT and simultaneously receive a “receipt” of your NFT, which you can keep in your wallet (you can see the hackathon application here.) With the support of Kalakendra DAO, which is now one of the sub-DAOs of the Marma J Foundation DAO, the application has been successfully submitted in the requested 48hrs!
Marma J Foundation’s hacking station at NEARCON
“A human being is only a human being through other human beings.”
Aside from the technical aspect, NEARCON offered the opportunity to finally meet real humans, such as the wizards from NEAR Multicall, see the emotions during conversations, and ideate about the future of Web3 in the real world, and how each one of us can and wants to participate. We spoke about how paganism brought Halloween to life, dreams, traumatized dogs, social fatigue, and blue gummy bears in pink drinks. This is not to say that business talks and pitch decks are not important. But we should not forget the human aspect of all things. Behind every businessperson is a being that feels emotions, and that is not only constantly counting numbers (I believe).
Marma J Foundation Founder, Chloe cruising in Lisbon
During the first night, while cabs have been missed (or stuck in the outskirts of Lisbon) and rain fell heavily from the sky, we got to do the real talk: how alienated one can feel at conferences, in between pitching folks, and questioning the purpose of the tech development if at the same time people are still suffering or starving. So why not use Web3 to create tools, that also serve the greater good? Obviously, this is not a new idea from the Marma J Foundation. Yet it feels good to be able to express all that and to feel that the aim we are working on is the same: supporting humans with the tools of tech. After the conference, days have been over and the hacking has been done, Marma J opened their Hacker House for the creative folks of NEAR. With breakfast, snacks, and sunshine we all got to talk about life, ideas, and what we actually would like to use Web3 for. The inspiration was flowing, use cases have been imagined, ideas have been cooked up and NFT redeemables have been finally handed over.
NFT redeemable handover with muti DAO
What I personally would like to emphasize with this is simply the following: tech is great, but it is crucial to me that it becomes useful and also accessible for the wider public, regardless of their bank accounts. I’m very grateful that I had the chance to meet Chloe and Bianca in the first place over one year ago, and I am looking forward to working towards a future that works with Web3 in a way that everyone can profit from it – on a creative and human level.
The DAO is open to new collaborators and is constantly looking for new ways to use the technology for social good. The latest change is the implementation of sub-DAOs as council members, rather than individuals. The true way forward towards decentralization. Sub-DAOs are for example the Research DAO, the Gaming DAO, Kalakendra DAO as well Multicall and muti. Together we all create a network of individuals that work towards one common goal: using Web3 technology for social good.
If you would like to know more about the activities or would like to take part, join our Discord server for contributors.