Since the publishing of the Bitcoin whitepaper in 2008, blockchain has matured from an academic idea to a thriving industry that has captured the imagination of tens of millions about what the future might hold. 💭
Blockchain technology is much more than the billions it helps generate and the viral memes Elon Musk helps propagate. Early blockchain experiments in social impact and community building showcase the technology's potential to help build a future that is more resilient, collaborative, and equitable. 💞
But this potential will not be realized without an effective and scalable way to develop civic innovators who can leverage the power of blockchain for good. 🤔
We at Civics Unplugged are launching the Dream DAO to fill this gap. 🚀
The Dream DAO is a web3-native educational and philanthropic institution that will sustainably attract and channel the talent and capital of the blockchain space to develop thousands of Gen Z civic innovators by 2030. Gen Z, after all, are those who will solve the challenges we face today and have to address the ones that are yet to emerge. And they are more than ready to disrupt entrenched power structures that fail the people they claim to serve. 💪
We invite you to join us as we invest in our future leaders to work on humanity's greatest challenges and leverage the power of web3 to build a brighter future for us all. 😊
The story of the Dream DAO starts with Civics Unplugged, a 501(c)(3) social enterprise founded in 2019 that empowers the leaders of Gen Z with the training, funding, and network they need to build a brighter future for humanity.
Twice a year, we run a Fellowship program that trains 500 high school-aged leaders around the world to become civic innovators. Fellowship graduates then join an alumni community that provides lifelong opportunities for specialized training, funding, internship and work opportunities, and mentorship to pursue their civic aspirations. Since November 1st, 2020, we have invested over $100,000 in exceptional Fellowship graduates. And that's just the beginning. By 2030, we will have invested at least $10 million.
In two short years, Fellowship graduates have created and contributed to projects that have already positively impacted hundreds of thousands of people. Their missions range from sex education in Brazil, democracy reform in Florida, climate tech education in NYC, voter access around the US, diversity and inclusion training around the globe, and more.
While we have had success supporting young people who are working to better their communities and the world in valuable ways, we recognize that young people won't be able to build paradigm-shifting projects necessary to effectively address today's global crises without proper training to innovate.
In an increasingly digital world, technology is the cornerstone of innovation. So how can we empower Gen Z to leverage its power for good?
As we have seen time and time again, new technology can unlock radically better possibilities for what the world can look like.
While blockchain and cryptocurrency have received a massive influx of cultural attention over the past year thanks to DeFi, meme coins, and profile picture NFTs, they are revolutionary, world-changing technologies that present hope for a future that is more resilient, collaborative, and equitable.
Let us explain.
BLOCKCHAIN AS A TOOL FOR BUILDING MORE JUST SYSTEMS 🌍
The fact that blockchains are immutable, transparent, and secure gives them the potential to help increase accountability in situations vulnerable to exploitation, create systems more resistant to fraud and censorship, and support those who are poorly served by traditional financial systems.
So far, blockchain social impact projects have helped...
- stamp out illegal fishing and human rights abuses in the Pacific Islands’ tuna industry
- immutably document war crime information, and identify perpetrators of attacks on schools and hospitals
- enable migrant workers to support family members back home by making it easy to pay bills across borders
- and more...
These are just a few early examples of what blockchain can do to support the creation of systems that address real-world human needs.
BLOCKCHAIN AS A TOOL FOR BETTER HUMAN COORDINATION 🤝
In addition to being a tool that enables the building of more just systems, blockchain can be a tool that helps us address the coordination problems that lie at the root of most of humanity's greatest challenges like climate change, global poverty, and erosion of democracy.
As CEO of Gitcoin, Kevin Owocki, likes to say:
Coordination failures are often why we can’t have nice things because they are rampant in many systems around the world.
Blockchain is a game-changer for humanity's ability to tackle coordination failures, because it paves the way for DAOs, which are groups organized around a mission that coordinates through a shared set of rules managed through blockchain technology. DAOs can take the collective power, excitement, and joy of community and supercharge members' capacity to coordinate, make decisions, and stay mission-aligned at scale.
DAOs like Friends with Benefits and Yield Guild Games have demonstrated the power of DAOs to coordinate thousands of mission-aligned contributors around the world with minimal bureaucracy. Klima DAO has shown that you can easily coordinate tens of thousands of people to pool hundreds of millions of dollars for a worthy cause (such as increasing the price of carbon offsets, and thus, the price to pollute).
DAOs can also be extremely efficient at aggregating and deploying large pools of capital. Recently, one art-collecting DAO, PleasrDAO, made headlines for paying $4M to purchase Wu Tang Clan's album. In the coming years, we might just see DAOs purchase professional sports teams.
REALIZING THE POTENTIAL OF WEB3 🔋
Early blockchain social impact projects and the first DAOs that have kept thousands of members engaged hint at the enormous potential of the blockchain space (colloquially called "web3") to change the world.
But it's unclear what the legacy of blockchain, cryptocurrency, DAOs, and the extraordinary wealth they have generated will be by 2030. Will the web3 space be known for having supercharged humanity's ability to address our greatest challenges? Or, will web3 be known for having largely neglected real-world problems and drastically steepened socioeconomic divides during this make-or-break decade?
As 4156 of Nouns DAO called out recently:
"Crypto-natives increasingly have the power and capital to have a positive impact in the real world, but to date, most of the real world ‘signals’ people have seen from us are not so compelling. Crypto-outsiders may not understand the machinations of the cryptoverse, but they do understand the real-world fallout. If crypto imparts us with capital-aggregating superpowers, and we only use these superpowers to buy Rolex watches and lavish trips to Dubai, the outside world will reject [the crypto community and its visions for the future] (and rightly so)."
In order for the web3 space to realize its potential to build a better world, a lot more must be done to cultivate the web3 x social impact ecosystem—so that young civic innovators who seek to leverage web3 get the support and community they need to build a brighter future for humanity.
That's where the Dream DAO comes in.
The Dream DAO is a new, intergenerational, global, and interdisciplinary community that invests in the future of the web3 x social impact ecosystem, by providing diverse Gen Zers around the globe with the training, funding, and community they need to leverage the power of web3 to secure a brighter future for humanity.
The vision is to create a lasting, web3-native educational and philanthropic institution that will sustainably attract and channel the talent and capital of the blockchain space to develop thousands of Gen Z web3 civic innovators by 2030. Gen Z, after all, are who will solve the challenges we face today and have to address the ones that are yet to emerge. And they are more than ready to disrupt entrenched power structures that fail the people they claim to serve.
Our ability to achieve this vision hinges on developing world-class educational experiences, as well as incentive structures that reward people for engaging in those experiences, sharing knowledge, building impactful projects, and finding other ways to produce value for the DAO and the world. We take inspiration from leading internet-native training programs like Lambda School, web3-native educational platforms like Rabbithole and Layer3, and DAOs like our friends at Gitcoin who have made membership a sustainably exciting, communal experience for thousands of people around the world.
By 2030, the Dream DAO will have...
- Directly supported thousands of Gen Z Builders in leveraging and building web3 to accelerate the flourishing of their communities and the world
- Trained hundreds of people to start social impact DAOs that follow the blueprint of the Dream DAO
- Inspired over a million more Gen Zers outside of the DAO to explore and potentially work in the web3 x social impact space
- Helped define a vision for and supercharged the development of the web3 x social impact ecosystem at large
HOW YOU CAN HELP LAUNCH THIS MOVEMENT 🚀
There are ways for everyone to get involved in the launch of the Dream DAO and contribute to the web3 x social impact ecosystem:
You can mint one or more SkywalkerZ NFTs, share this post, endow the DAO, and/or apply to be a member.
Details below!
1. Mint one or more SkywalkerZ NFTs!
We are excited to announce that we just launched an NFT collection alongside the launch of the Dream DAO, called SkywalkerZ:
SkywalkerZ NFTs are more than just cool collectibles that you could put as your profile picture.
Co-designed by CU's Gen Z community, each SkywalkerZ NFT represents a stake in The Dream DAO, whose members will collectively manage a philanthropic fund dedicated to investing directly in the world's most promising Gen Z civic innovators.
Each SkywalkerZ NFT is priced at 0.1 ETH, and all proceeds will be held by the Dream DAO. Ownership of a SkywalkerZ NFT is required to join the Dream DAO as a member.
For every SkywalkerZ NFT purchased, one SkywalkerZ NFT is given to an active member of CU’s existing Gen Z community as an invite to join the Dream DAO. This design choice serves to create a common thread across all members, maintain an intergenerational balance of decision-making power, and directly empowers Gen Zers through the ownership of a valuable asset.
4,060 genesis SkywalkerZ will be issued ever.
There are 300 in the genesis batch of the collection (plus the SkywalkerZ that will be given to the Founding Builders aka 15-20 year old learners in our community).
Current contributors include leaders of Gitcoin, Ethereum Foundation, Yield Guild Games, Friends with Benefits, Coinbase Ventures, X Development, Polygon, and more.
You can mint a SkywalkerZ NFT and learn more about the collection here.
2. Share this post!
Chances are, you know someone who cares about empowering young people to build the future, the intersection of web3 and social impact, or both!
Sharing this post with your followers and friends will go a long way to helping us get the right people onboard in the first Phase of the Dream DAO.
3. Endow the DAO!
We plan to grow a multi-million dollar (or shall we say, thousand ETH 😉) endowment in the coming years, that enables us to invest in and train hundreds of young web3 social entrepreneurs every year.
If you know someone who would like to be a Founding Partner of the Dream DAO, please email us at: dao@civicsunplugged.org
4. Join the DAO (as a Gen Zer)!
We have limited spots available in the DAO for 15-20 year olds interested in learning about and leveraging web3 for social impact.
Fill out this interest form if you fit this description!
THE ROAD AHEAD 🛣
While there will be many iterations of the Dream DAO, we can't wait to get this movement started. We know that we are going to learn so much from the intergenerational and global community that is emerging as we speak, and we can not wait to pave a path forward for the future of philanthropy, social impact, and youth empowerment.
We hope that our journey of building the Dream DAO can serve as a blueprint for future digital-first communities seeking to leverage the power of web3 to coordinate more effectively and address the most urgent impediments to human flourishing.
The future we strive to build is one of abundance, creation, and freedom. A future where every person will have their basic needs met and the freedom to discover, hone, and apply their gifts to work on humanity's greatest challenges. A future where self-sustaining communities are free to experiment and make decisions that best enable the flourishing of human systems within them.
A future that is genuinely empowering for all.
That future is possible.
Will you join us in making it a reality?
Want to learn more about how the Dream DAO will work? We have written Dream DAO: A Deeper Dive, for those interested in learning about and contributing to the DAO's design.
Follow our journey at twitter.com/dreamdao_