by 0xd6c957f9a6411f35d01baae2658758f277408878 (Rizk)
Should Canessa be added to DAO Council?
Address
0xd6eff8f07caf3443a1178407d3de4129149d6ef6
Reasons for adding
Name: Canessa
Professional Background and Expertise:
I am a High School Special Education Teacher by trade. I spent 10 years teaching teenagers with autism, Down syndrome, emotional behavioral disorders, and my major was psychology/human behaviorism. I am currently employed teaching adults with special needs how to build in tech, including AR/VR, and creating their own UGC experiences.
In May of 2022 I co-founded the Community Building Decentraland Twitter Space, which has been ongoing for 134 weeks without interruption. I also co-founded the Community Building Decentraland Discord.
I began working as the Ambassador Program Coordinator for Decentraland in September of 2023. During this time I created the framework of the Ambassador Program in Notion and interviewed potential candidates. I worked with Ambassadors around the world to approve events, itemize receipts, process payments (converting native currencies into cryptocurrency to be reimbursed), and I was responsible for issuing payments from a multi-signature wallet. I am currently employed by the Decentraland Foundation as the Ambassador Coordinator, and will continue to assist in building the next iteration of the Ambassador program.
In March of 2024 I had the incredible honor to travel to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco to represent Decentraland. GDC is one of the largest gaming conventions in the world, with over 20,000 industry professionals in attendance. For 5 days I spoke with attendees, answering questions about Decentraland and hearing their own feedback based on user experiences.
Cover Letter and my Vision for Decentraland’s Future:
Hi! I’m Canessa, and I’m applying for a position in the DAO council. I bought the mana token in 2018 and became an active builder in 2019. I was a winner in the 2019 Land Creator Contest, and in April 2019 I became a land owner. I have watched this world evolve from being an idea to something we can actually walk in and create.
Looking forward to the future, I believe we need to push both technological advancements of the platform as well as explore the human element found here in Decentraland. What makes people come? What makes people stay? How can Decentraland make our own physical world a better place?
As a virtual, digital world where users own their assets, we are tasked with an identity crisis we are still defining. We have the challenges Web3 games have, but we are not just a game. We have challenges social platforms have, but we are not just a social platform. We have challenges virtual worlds have, but we are not just a virtual world. We are something completely new and novel, therefore, we must strive to find the problems that Decentraland solves. What can Decentraland do differently that traditional internet platforms or in-person interactions cannot?
Evidence
My vision of Decentraland includes:
Reduce barriers for creators to build
Unlock funding for creators
Ambitiously innovate with new experiences
Barriers to Building: While some users have backgrounds in coding/modeling, many do not. The initial selling point of Decentraland is that users can own and operate their own land. If we intend to scale to a larger audience, we need to ensure that anyone who can log in can create here. We must develop tools to make building accessible to users with little to no prior knowledge of creating quality experiences. Too many users have left because building their dream with the existing tools proved to be too difficult. Within this scope, we must continually advocate for a functional client with support for builders, as well as VR and mobile functionality. (I believe the completion of a functional VR app is the only way to set ourselves apart from other virtual worlds)
Funding: Experiences require time and energy to create. I would like to see the process for accessing funds streamlined, transparent, and clearly articulated so that every user knows exactly how to unlock necessary funding. 3 years ago there were fewer virtual worlds to build in, now they are plentiful, with Web2 worlds also looking lucrative to builders. It is my opinion that most creators will continue to build in platforms where they know they will be compensated fairly for their skills; they will leave those they are not.
New Experiences Decentraland needs new and captivating experiences to attract and retain users. We need to use research-based strategies to develop gamified experiences that pull the user back in daily. I strongly suggest we look at the psychology behind gaming rewards, then provide support for builders to integrate them into their experience. We are also in dire need for better story telling here… we need games, experiences and characters people fall in love with.