Introduction

I want to write this in earnest. I see great potential with emerging, non-tech communities using their ENS to build their unique, sovereign identities on-chain. I've come from a music background, and I see how much impact at the infrastructural level that ENS has had on musicians throughout their on-chain journey. I saw too, just how much excitement people all over the world have about their ENS domain name at Devcon, where over 2000 people used their ENS to claim a special card that allowed them to trade POAPs with each other with a simple tap.

Courtesy of ENS' collaboration with IYK and the people behind POAP (Proof of Attendance Protocol).

I was personally inspired after my journey to Bogotá, meeting dozens if not hundreds of people from the world all thanks to my own ENS Domain Name (estmcmxci.eth). Being involved with the DAO's community, I thought about what more I could do to help drive the current momentum it has built online. That's why I thought up of another, community based bottom-up initiative which will be (tentatively) called ENS DAO Global. We've registered a name already (ensdaoglobal.eth) and have started distributed subdomains based on the users locality.

This initiative actually began earlier this year, when I suggested to Stewards the importance of translating non-technical documentation to other languages. The ENS DAO Translation Initiative has since been sunsetted, but in the mean time we managed to:

• Translate Learn Docs to 4 different languages

• Build a small, but close knit community of 22 people from 10 or more different countries

• Hosted various bi-weekly calls focusing on building rapport and a "shared language"

I want to share about what our small community is currently working on, and what the purpose of this initiative is now. Once again, we are tentatively calling this the ENS DAO Global initiative because we are open to suggestion of alternative name which could make more sense for the community at large. We also want to seek feedback from DAO-elected Stewards on this and gain their support by delivering on our proposal.

Context

The ENS DAO is a unique protocol in that its user base has a wider variety of participants from different socioeconomic backgrounds. Thus far, in DeFi and Web3, the end user has been the builder, the investor, and the speculator. The ENS Protocol represents an opportunity for Web3 to impact the real world.

We need a focused initiative to prime different ecosystems to use ENS for small business initiatives.

Sometimes too, the Stewards could be helped with a buffer and additional assistance from dedicated contributors like myself in order to organize and coordinate successful events such as the ENS DAO Happy Hour in Bogotá.

These events (or smaller ones like it) could and should be organized locally, all over the world, by trusted individuals and contributors. The initiative, (tentatively titled ENS DAO Global) intends to identify and empower community liaisons to help facilitate cultural exchange through coordination of ENS DAO backed IRL events.

The goal for community outreach is to bring on highly competent, emotionally intelligent partners into our ecosystem with the aim to explain why their communities should engage with and become a part of the ENS DAO’s global ecosystem.

While more focused on public outreach and community engagement, the intention will be to host workshops on how to better implement your ENS' full potential. As they say: "Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today". The events can host workshops in different languages across different localities that focus on demonstrating ENS use-cases.

Overview

Mission

1. Create globally shared perceptions of ENS Labs (formally TNL), ENS and the DAO

2. Cultural alignment between the Working Groups and the Communities they serve

3. Onboard developers from around the world onto ENS' ecosystem

To do this, we can empower trusted community members who will hold an ensdaoglobal.eth subdomain; which sends a signal to participants in our ecosystem of their intention and role throughout the space. We can call the holders of these subdomains Ambassadors.

ENS Global Ambassadors

Global Ambassadors are curated through participation, and focus on inviting those who focus on building high fidelity trust with individuals from across the world. Ambassadors should be empowered to lead localized initiatives, backed by the DAO, in a manner that best reflects ENS Labs, ENS and the DAO’s vision.

To plan this, we have hosted weekly meetings since at least August; the ENS DAO Global Weekly Spaces are meant to provide a dedicated time for ENS Community.

This could also be a time where either a Steward or another elected representative of the ENS DAO will co-host a call to listen and learn about all aspects of the ENS Global Community. Discussions during this period are meant to help make more sense of our diverse, global community and to help establish more alignment amongst the ENS Labs, ENS and the DAO.

So far I've hosted these weekly on Wednesday’s, since August 2022. We have curated a small, dedicated team from Brazil, Colombia, France, India, Kenya and Russia. We intend to provide a dedicated time for the Global community to connect with the core team and exchange ideas to facilitate the proliferation of the ENS protocol within their local regions.

Current Proposals

Currently, we have two active proposals that we are sharing below:

1. colombia.ensdaoglobal.eth

2. uruguay.ensdaoglobal.eth

Please note, these are not final proposals. We are opening this up for community review and all are welcome to give feedback. However, I want to share that I've discussed the scope of the proposal with some of our community members already.

Our plan as follows:

On October 19th, 2022, ENS Global hosted a call with our team and discussed IRL localization events with 7147.eth and MonoBandido.eth; we wish to organize local, community-led events in Colombia with the intent of onboarding the region onto ENS. Localized efforts like this are necessary to help educate and onboard the next umpteen million individuals onto Web3.

We wish to use the funds gathered from this grant to fund a series of local meet ups where regional leaders will be empowered to educate and onboard their local communities, beginning with Colombia. Success will lead to scaling the initiative and organizing further events throughout the world.

I would like to highlight some aspects of this proposal that should be taken into consideration:

• A focus on education, especially on educating the local developer community in Bogotá

• Business focused: focusing on identifying self-starters who seek to build their businesses on-chain

• Inviting local speakers to engage with community on ENS and developing ENS

Somethings I think could be improved with this proposal:

• Consider whether or not its important or relevant to invite speakers

• Are there other communities in Bogotá that are already doing this kind of event?

• Could we see a list of builders who want to participate in the event?

Budget and Funding

I don't believe it's completely necessary to create a budget for each event. I think it is possible to just host local meetups at a coffeeshop, pizza place, etc. Sometimes, however and especially if it is aligned with any greater ecosystem event, a budget is warranted. But in what case?

Perhaps the current proposals don't need a budget and can be rolled back a bit. We can start by encouraging the community to run their events online similarly to how ENS Latino or ENS Queens has, and then Stewards can identify when it would make sense to tap into that community and provide a budget which will be used in a way that is best aligned with the ENS Labs, ENS DAO and overall community vision which is a the proliferation of the ENS Protocol.

My recommendation at the moment is to gather support from our delegates. ENS Grants is the best way to prove whether an idea is best aligned with tokenholders' interests.

Conclusion

The ENS Protocol serves as a user's passport to the decentralized web. An ENS Domain is unique in that it doubles as a Non-Fungible Token. It maps human-readable domains like oakgroup.eth to machine-readable identifiers (cryptocurrency addresses). Unlike most other Non-Fungible Tokens, an ENS Domain has real world utility.

ENS domains are not just domain names, they serve as an online identity on the decentralized net. ENS domains are also used to login to several platforms such as Uniswap and Mirror. They're also used to send and receive cryptocurrency.

Businesses can launch, host and structure digital assets from their ENS domain. Businesses can also issue subdomains to its employees or community members. Endless permutations. In the proximal future, all the world's businesses will transact via their ENS.

ENS is open source, for the community and managed by a not for profit organization. Community participation is key to building a decentralized infrastructure. One free from exploitative and extractive methodologies that dominated industry since the 20th century.

While we know this; most of the world has yet to understand or even become aware of the utility behind the ENS Protocol. I believe it's important to create pathways and opportunities for exchange to spread this meme. It might feel like ENS is a giant network, but it's made up of maybe 100,000 participants over all. To put that into perspective, New York City has just under 9 million people living in it.

tags: ENS DAO