[DAO: QmQbUY3] Web3 and Metaverse Journalism Hackathon Sponsorship

Governance
1

by 0x511a22cdd2c4ee8357bb02df2578037ffe8a4d8d (ginoct)

Should the following Tier 4: up to $60,000 USD, 6 months vesting (1 month cliff) grant in the Community category be approved?

Abstract

This proposal is to ask the DAO funding to organize, participate, and list Decentraland as sponsor and co-organizer of a web3 journalism hackathon to be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina in August 2022 in the context of the Media Party, a media and technology conference. The plan includes partnering with ICFJ (International Center for Journalism), hosting talks, and organizing a web3 journalism hackathon with prizes for winners. We would like to invite as speakers and mentors, members from the Decentraland community to talk about the possibilities the metaverse and DAOs as organizational structures could provide to journalists and independent media.

Grant size

20,000 USD

Beneficiary address

0x0b30f5f1A39C4899f312c9466c516EAC43d71A42

Description

A two-day hackathon hosted and sponsored by ICFJ and the Decentraland DAO at Hacks/Hackers’ Media Party in Buenos Aires 2022. The activity will be focused on the possibilities that the Web3 ecosystem (Tools, communities, funding, and incentives) could provide to journalists and independent media projects. Some topics we are planning to address:

  • Metaverse journalism
  • Media DAOs
  • Decentralized tools for journalists
  • Token Funding
  • Token-gated content
  • Token incentives for collaborators

The plan is to invite 5 speakers that will also serve as mentors on the Hackathon, that could talk about all these topics. Potential candidates are:

Why this event?

Hosting a hackathon in the context of the Media Party is natural since Buenos Aires is going through a Crypto Revolution, has a strong community, and is becoming one of the leading crypto capitals in the world. Projects like Proof of Humanity, Kleros, POAP, Decentraland, OpenZeppelin, HardHat, and Muun all have roots in Buenos Aires. Furthermore, Media Party has been the most innovative forum for journalism and technology discussions in LATAM for the last 10 years. Like the web3 movement, Media Party is a community-first event, focused and organized by independent members, and is also a hands-on conference where people come to learn by doing and interacting with others.

Some of the previous and current sponsors of the Media Party have been: Mozilla Foundation, Meta, Google, ICFJ, Open Knowledge Foundation, and Omidyar Network. We believe that listing Decentraland as a sponsor of the event could raise awareness about the project to an audience (Journalists and media people) who talk about the metaverse but never really experienced it.

Why the Decentraland DAO?

Let’s face it, journalists talk a lot about the Metaverse but most of them never experienced it. We would like to put this project right in front of them, with all the complexities and potential that an open-source, community ran project have. It is also interesting since Meta is going to be sponsoring the event and they have a lot of journalist-related projects. We want to show that there is another way of thinking about the internet and how the information flows. And lastly, we believe it would be a nice place to showcase the Community Grants program to content creators and media outlets from all over the world.

Specification

The total cost of this event, including travel expenses (Flights & hotel), production costs, GMF (Goodies, merch, and food), and hackathon winner prizes is estimated at $40k. Since we would be partnering with ICFJ, they will provide $20k and the Decentraland community would provide the other $20k

Budget breakdown

budget-breakdown
budget-breakdown1150Ă—656 32.9 KB

Personnel

Gino Cingolani (Decentraland DAO / Media Party)
Decentraland Governance Squad Product Lead, Media Party Line-up Programmer.

Maggie Farley (ICFJ)
ICFJ Director of Knight Fellowships. Supporting innovative digital journalism. Former Google News Lab; Ex-LA Times, edtech Lucky Grasshopper, AU prof.

Mariano Blejman (Media Party)
Media Party Director and former Knight Fellow Journalist

Roadmap and milestones

The event will be held in late August in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The path to the event will be as follows:

  • Last week of June June: Sending out invitations to speakers
  • Last week of July: Goodies and Merch order
  • 25-27 August: Event
  • Hackathon Prizes Payout: 50% the first week of September - 50% the first week of December (This will be made this way since it’s a 6 months vesting contract.)

Vote on this proposal on the Decentraland DAO

View this proposal on Snapshot

1 Like
2

Feel free to drop any questions or feedback in the comments! (Also, if you know someone who’s doing cool stuff implementing blockchain technologies in media/journalism projects, let us know!)

1 Like
3

I voted “NO” because

  1. This is a Sponsor Grant
  2. I don’t see a benefit for the DCL Community

This is my personal opinion.

Best regards

4

Thanks for your comment and for taking the time for reading the proposal!
I think it is good for Decentraland and particularly, the DAO to start getting involved in events and IRL conversations about the potential of the metaverse, specifically open-source and decentralized projects. Right now that conversation is being managed by big corporations releasing metaverse projects way after Decentraland was launched. I think there is a lot to say from our side and I like the idea that the community and the DAO are the ones driving that conversation. That’s why I felt it could be good to organize a project like this in the context of a conference also sponsored by those corporations and full of journalists and media people.
Regarding the use of the money, the part that the DAO would be contributing would be used to give prizes to hackathon winners, so it would be a way to give a small grant to a bootstrapped project that will use decentralized technologies with a web3 approach. Actually, I was thinking that the DAO could represent one of the votes of the jury choosing winning teams with a poll in the forum.

3 Likes
5

Hey Ginoct!

I love the idea of a grant for an event such as a hackathon that is specific to web3 and metaverses. I’d like to know more around what the brief of the hackathon is, to see how it would truly benefit an attendee/this community through the experience, and not just in the talks from speakers. And then, if and how, there might be direct action from this hackathon, and how you see that also contributing to the future of DCL.

Also will there be an in world DCL component to this event? I think with most proposals that ask for DAO funds, in order for me to truly feel it benefits us within DCL, not just those from outside, is to find a way for us to be involved. Thanks!

6

Hey CKBubbles, thanks for reading the proposal and asking questions!

I’d like to know more around what the brief of the hackathon is, to see how it would truly benefit an attendee/this community through the experience, and not just in the talks from speakers.

The usual process for hackathons at the Media Party goes likes this: Keynotes, workshops and lightning talks (Those are the types of events that are held at the event) spark conversations and discussions, so attendees propose hackathon ideas in a tool called Hackdash (Here’s a filtered search of projects initiated in the Media Party for you to check: Dashboards - HackDash), teams start to form and they have the entire Saturday to work on a prototype or idea. The incentive for web3 and metaverse journalism is that they are going to be competing for prizes, usually when that happens, people tend to propose ideas around that topic. And since we are aiming to have a couple of speakers talking about those topics, that will also incentivize those themes.

And then, if and how, there might be direct action from this hackathon, and how you see that also contributing to the future of DCL.

I see it from different angles:
1 - Project visibility: Not only the hackathon itself but the sponsorship will make the project visible to media and news leaders that come to the Media Party from all over the world and spark good 1:1 conversations (You can see previous speakers from the last two IRL events, 2018 and 2019 here: https://blog.mediaparty.info/featured-guests-media-party-2018-bf9720c0f72c & https://blog.mediaparty.info/featured-speakers-72e1f6e1251a).
2 - It is not 100% guaranteed because you never know what kind of projects are going to came out from the Hackathon but maybe one of them could impact Decentraland in some way.
3 - Decentraland is at the forefront of this idea of metaverse reporting so I feel taking the lead and start showing to the media industry what could be done from the bottoms up and in a decentralized way might lead to good press around the project.

Also will there be an in world DCL component to this event? I think with most proposals that ask for DAO funds, in order for me to truly feel it benefits us within DCL, not just those from outside, is to find a way for us to be involved

At the moment there are no plans to live-broadcast the event so doing an in-world streaming would not be possible, I thought that the community could participate of the election of the winners by a poll on the forum. Also we could have a spot in the event to “onboard” people to the metaverse and one of the hackathon facilitators or even Kevin or someone from the Decentraland Report could be there helping people to experience Decentraland.
Another thing would be to let people to be part of the hackathon and compete for the prizes online, joining hackathon teams from wherever they are.

Hope this answers your questions!
G.

2 Likes
7

In my opinion this proposal is great for the entire community! We need more awareness in IRL events!

8

Thank you for the response @ginoct!

I think you answered a lot of my questions quite succinctly and offered more insight that helps me clearly feel confident to vote on this proposal.

I will challenge ya’ll to try and livestream it in Decentraland, though! I’m sure there are a few locations around that you could partner with in DCL to present the livestream on their land, and who might also help with promo if a partnership is worked out.

Regardless to say, I’m excited for your event, and really love the online component of voting(could do voting in DCL through POAPs on land also) and letting others around the world not IRL join the hackathon too!

I hope this passes, and I look forward to experiencing the event in whatever way I can!

9

Ok, may i was wrong with my vote - changed to a “Yes”

Good luck

10

Thanks for reconsidering! Just 500k more needed to get the proposal passed, please help spread the word if you think this could be a cool initiative!

11

I voted yes, but im not your promoter.

12

If this Grant get passed, it would be nice if you also invite other Twitch Streamers & DCL Community Members to this Event.

My proposition is: @SinfulMeatStick

1 Like
13

yesssss!!! I would like to participate if you are looking for speakers! Voted yes!

3 Likes
14

Web3 and Metaverse Journalism Hackathon Sponsorship

This proposal is now in status: PASSED.

Voting Results:

  • Yes 99% 2,155,606 VP (56 votes)
  • No 1% 36 VP (1 votes)
15

Web3 and Metaverse Journalism Hackathon Sponsorship

This proposal has been ENACTED by a DAO Committee Member (0xfe91c0c482e09600f2d1dbca10fd705bc6de60bc)

Vesting Contract Address: 0xe9e3731e11058c6a4e815d73aaed8437aa89a7c1
View Transaction

16

So how the DCL Community benefited from this?

Just saw the updated but still figure it out