Opening Words (Day 1) - Bangkok 2024

[Music] all right hello everyone good morning and welcome to the funding the commons conference uh this is a special conference where we have joined hands with Earth Commons and this is going to be like two action-packed days of public goods magical moments and these are amazing people in this room right now with you so these are some giga brains Beth has curated this incred lineup of speakers so you're going to have a lot of fun the next two days uh I'm your host Aron Phillips and together we're going to explore this beautiful world of public goods funding Spotlight environmental stewardship and regenerative agriculture uh some housekeeping details will be shared a little bit soon by our next speaker but to introduce the next speaker for our first event the first opening speaker we have the CEO of funding the commons he has been driving the the growth of FTC for the past 18 months he's a three times founder with more than 10 years of experience and he's just a super inspiring human being from the last month I've been spending time with him so please help me welcome with a loud Round of Applause David [Applause] Casey all right all right thank you everybody and welcome to the 11th funding the commons yeah and the second Earth Commons so today we have a combined conference uh between our two sister Brands and first I wanted to say thank you to all the sponsors that made this possible um protocol Labs which we'll talk about in a bit and stellar and near and everyone else who contributed uh in in all ways so uh first a little bit of orientation you are currently in the main stage of the 22nd floor of Gorn Tower um we'll have actually a a partner conference uh thrown by another protocol Labs organization uh the filecoin foundation a couple floors down which I'll Orient you in a minute um the cafeteria that many of you have visited already um has lots of delicious Ty food for you and beyond that there are two Workshop stages the forest stage and the ocean stage which will be uh more interactive peer-to-peer uh discussions and unconference style programming um you can scan the QR code right there for more information updated schedule information about speakers um we also have lots of Swag and merchandise for you at the entrance um so please take it home with you and uh we are part of the protocol Labs lab week um as I mentioned there's a sister conference happening um literally a couple floors down and you just walk around the stairs and that is um also part of a series of events that protocol Labs is hosting and protocol Labs is actually um the organization that funding the commons and Earth Commons were born out of um over the last few years so a little bit of context about funding the commons um we are building an incubation ecosystem for public goods funding infrastructure and Technology uh we're working with researchers Builders funders and blockchain protocols and Foundations uh to create an ecosystem where uh researchers share uh new research Builders prototype it and funders uh fuel it and we've had over the last uh month uh a builder residency in changmai and an online hackathon that climaxed yesterday um just down the road at uh cam Commercial Bank uh offices and we had uh Builders from around the world uh share tons of projects and and you'll hear directly from the builders uh tomorrow actually some of the winning projects we'll be presenting right here so uh what are we up to uh conferences and events as you can see here build a residencies so we did our second one in changai last month and our first one in Berlin last year uh we completed our second hack hackathon yesterday and the judges are busy selecting the final projects right now and over the last few months we've started to Pilot real world's uh impact projects testing um blockchain technology usually last mile uh kind of infrastructure in the global South um in all sorts of contexts and we'll we'll talk about that in a bit as well but um to give a spoiler we've um run a pilot in Uganda and we're currently doing one in this uh area between uh Thailand and Myanmar so a little context about Earth Commons Earth Commons also came out of uh labs and uh filecoin green it was formerly called the sustainable blockchain Summit um is anyone in the room like a veteran of sustainable blockchain Summit conferences from yeah a couple people all right yeah so SBS was started uh back a couple years ago as part of protocol Labs um at the Nexus of uh blockchain technology and sustainability really bringing um the climate finance and Tech Community together uh with the blockchain industry and exploring how um blockchains can become more sustainable as they transition from proof of work to proof of stake and how the um kind of other Industries like climate finance and and carbon credits um can use distributed ledgers to become uh more efficient so I'll give you a little recap of 2024 um we started in Berkeley in April and ran a dual conference just like this one funding the commons and Earth Commons um in partnership with the uh UC Berkeley uh RDI it's um uh kind of uh institution within the university focused on the um intersection of artificial intelligence and blockchain um we ran our next Conference of the year in Tokyo um together with our partners Dao Tokyo uh dii Tokyo and plurality Tokyo and hosted a number of uh officials from the public sector and uh from the United Nations we actually hosted that one in the UN University um we hosted a philanthropist dinner in Zurich um with a number of folks from the climate Finance sector as well as um from Banking and from government uh as I mentioned we just ran our uh first virtual hackathon of this year and then finished in person here in Bangkok yesterday um and then we ran a couple of popups or in other words like tracks within other conferences um so we ran one in Edge City California um Edge Esmeralda and another one uh in Edge cimento uh Argentina thank you uh Teresa and Anna for yeah for running that one and covering uh the whole the whole planet for us um we just finished our second uh open source Builder residency in changai and we also ran uh an unconference style event called a design Jam yesterday um thank you Beth and Nicole and the Deep work team for running that one um we had 100 people uh kind of jamming on different real world problems and how to apply um emerging Technology Solutions um a little bit more about the residency that we just ran in changai we have a few of the builders here and each of them were uh creating open- Source projects um usually public goods funding as well as real world impact projects um ranging from Identity uh Last Mile payments um and other kinds of uh infrastructure for the unbanked and for those that are not uh normally included in the existing Financial system um yeah you have some photos here we actually had uh vitalic come in for a couple hours and speak with our builders that was a highlight really um enjoy enjoyed going back and forth and um giving and receiving ideas and we had a number of peer-to-peer workshops where um Builders were really offering knowledge and teaching each other um and it's really beautiful to see when you have a group willing to share um their time and knowledge with each other um such that the real kind of uh Innovation comes from the ground and isn't like something that we um kind of like come in and teach or train and and really um just leverage the collective intelligence um the hackathon we just finished yesterday as well and as I mentioned you'll be hearing from the finalists uh on this very stage tomorrow um we had a number of amazing sponsors and partners we ran it on the Dora hacks platform and we also had support from only dust who you'll also be hearing from um during this conference uh yeah we had over builds over half of them came in yesterday so something I'm learning with hackathons is a lot of people build at the last minute and submit at the last minute so we suddenly have a lot more projects to evaluate which is great it's kind of like getting like a um like a load of Christmas presents dumped on your front door at the last minute um and yeah I mentioned the design Jam already uh with yeah um with our partners APAC da who you'll hear from shortly and deep work oops Yeah so we had uh around 100 people um really beautiful collaborations emerged and we had a few of the finalists present uh on stage yesterday and you'll hear from them again as well okay so other than uh events conferences hack residencies dinners um what else are we up to so this is some of the new stuff that uh we haven't spoken about publicly before um we are in the midst of running four Pilots right now um the first one was earlier this year with a platform called The Artisan funds and that is a crowdfunding quadratic funding platform to support uh digital creators and artists And We R quadratic funding campaign uh with Artisan specifically to support uh Refugee creators so we got submissions across uh Ukraine Syrian and Palestinian refugees amongst uh many others and uh that's ongoing actually you can contribute directly to that rounds to the creators on Artisan funds um we completed our first uh real world's uh public goods funding uh crypto Grant to an organization called refun knite which you'll actually hear from uh later today we'll be hosting a panel uh with refu knite and the Stellar foundation and koala another of our pilot uh partners and we funded a music studio uh built and operated by uh an international group of refugees in Uganda and we've actually started to receive the first uh music videos hopefully we'll get one on on uh stage later um and the next pilot is ongoing right now um here in Thailand and Myanmar and that is uh more to be shared soon we'll we'll talk about that a little bit later on stage today um and the final pilot is being uh prepared for early 2025 in partnership with cell and uh Opera minay so Opera is a browser that you guys might all be familiar with and uh mini pay is their new mobile wallet that's spreading across Africa and that one will also be in partnership with refu knite um other than Pilots we have launched something together with drips called the Builder basic income and that is essentially a uh streaming basic income that uh we are co-funding together with drips and anyone else who wants to contribute money directly into the smart contract and that supports a uh monthly stipend for open- Source public goods Builders from our community and those are essentially uh handpicked alumni from our previous residencies and uh finally we are incubating um a decentralized crowdfunding platform called akashik um which you'll hear about more uh if you follow us um online and that will uh be in Partners in partnership with kickstarters new crowdfunding protocol which will be launching uh early next year stay tuned and that platform will enable uh Refugee creators um to share their stories with the world and directly receive uh donations from all around the world and yeah these are the partners of our Pilots really um grateful to have found Kindred Spirits in the web 3 space to work with um to prototype and Pioneer um blockchainbased public goods funding applications in the global South um another initiative that we've launched this year um our media team Kim and Teresa Daniela um is called the open conversations and these are kind of uh informal Frank open uh dialogues with some of our speakers and um other folks in the public goods funding space you can find them on our YouTube and there really interesting kind of deep dives into um the people behind the public goods funding movement and their stories um so what's next in 2025 um we are planning our first funding the common retroactive public goods funding distribution yeah and yeah thank you octant for helping to um give us the the juice to be able to give back to our community so that will be um soon stay tuned and and uh keep that in mind as as you build projects uh in 2025 uh none of our conferences are confirmed yet but we will uh tell you what we are thinking about and where we're looking at um organizing conferences um San Francisco is likely one of the cities that will run uh a conference next year uh Zurich Switzerland's um possibly Japan Osaka around the global Expo um and actually uh we wanted to let our community um discuss and determine uh where to throw a conference next year so um in light of that we are launching the funding the commons Dow so this will be a community-driven organization um with a independent budget that's separate from uh the funding the commment that you know and we want to uh give our Community the uh autonomy to discuss and determine and organize uh with our support uh at least one funding the commons next year so stay tuned for that and if you are interested in um building and operating and participating in Dows uh please come talk to me as we intend for this to be a community-driven effort that we will support but we will not lead so uh a few of the ways that you can get involved um easiest thing to do uh connect with us on social media we have a newsletter and we are always open to uh financial and non-financial support donations sponsorship um volunteering at our conferences and events uh if you know venues that would like to host uh an event a residency a hackathon etc um speakers researchers presenting new material um please contact us so I wanted to thank uh the many organizations that supported this event and made it possible and uh here's me David so you can always reach out to me by email or by Twitter and uh most importantly I wanted to thank our local Partners Nicole from APAC da yeah give Nicole a round of applause [Applause] and kid from Rise and CX Ventures who is uh generous to host us today in their [Applause] offices so thank you again um I hope you all enjoy the conference and uh now we'll hear from Nicole thank you okay um good morning everyone so adika so thank you very much for coming today and it means a lot to us um you know this time to be able to host you all uh in Bangkok um but I think it's also like the Hub of Southeast Asia and we very excited that this time Devcon has picked southeast Asia as the next destination and we are very very honored to be able to host funding the commons uh for the very first time in Southeast Asia as well well um I'm from Vietnam actually but um I have spent quite a bit of time in Thailand and I consider myself uh like a thae in my previous life I think because basically everything here is very familiar a lot of my friends are here and I think with funding the comments uh it actually gives us a lot of opportunities to even meet more friends and also to get to know more of them you know within the context of being able to create a bigger impact together um I'm actually also very new to uh public goods I actually started this um very uh steep learn learning curve uh from this March uh actually back in December I met David in Taiwan and I honestly think that you know with southeast Asia we have done so many things you know with the collectivism um spirituality so we believe that we all are part of a bigger Society part of a bigger group we've always done a lot of things with social impacts but we haven't been able to you know be equipped with a lot of tools as well as finding opportunities to be able to make a bigger impact and I think with funding the commons uh this is also one of the areas and foundations that I think we can we can actually be able to access more opportunities and resources so with me uh APAC da we run a web three Builders community in Southeast Asia uh we have roughly 3,000 members now uh and still counting um and this time we are also hosting quite a few events hopefully to be able to connect the builders in Southeast Asia with other parts of the world so this is just one of the initiatives that we are running um but hopefully after this I will be able to maybe connect with every single one of you here and see how we would be able to help more Builders not just in web 3 but also in public goods um also in Social impacts to be able to make a bigger um I think impact of what they are doing and basically have more resources and more likeminded people to support them so again thank you so much for coming and it means a lot to us that you are here today and hopefully we will be able to do something more in the future uh thank you once [Applause] again awesome thank you so much Nicole and you know thank you guys for having us here in Southeast Asia I kind of relate with Nicole also when she said it feels like in the past life I was a th cuz even I kind of feel that like when I was in changai last month like I felt like I've been here before you know somehow like so and my name's Arun too so I think that fits in it's a th name so maybe we we we love Thailand so uh next up we have the co-founder of Rise which is a corporate Innovation Powerhouse that aims to drive 1% of GDP and reduce 1% of carbon emissions for the entire southeast Asia really ambitious goals which I love and he's also the generous host of all of us here this beautiful venue so let's please welcome kid pararon thank you so is uh like good morning everybody and a very warm welcome to our home here uh at rid and CX winter so I also would like to uh say grat you for like funding the commons Earth common the David Kim uh Anna and everybody including Nicole yeah to supporting this I mean like this this is uh kind of like the great opportunity right because he's aligned with our goal at rise and CX to help Drive 1% of GDP for the entire southeast Asia a little bit about rise we are uh like the consulting firm uh specialized in deep Tech uh and uh uh new S curve yeah we serving around 500 like largest corporate across southeast Asia yeah then uh to help them uh building kind of like the the new es to improve the quality of life and also kind of like the the the people in the region while CX Venture is a deep Tech fund yeah based in San Valley yeah and and why Silicon Valley yeah because we we want to bridge C Innovation across the globe from us and Europe uh back to Southeast Asia yeah so that's kind of like why why we here and I uh and because of that right I just want to kind of like share kind of like the few uh slides um sharing about um why we do what we do kind of like um today right so I mean the slide is not uh like moving probably yeah with but yeah just as a background like uh I think uh What uh funding the commons and also Earth common trying to do is super interesting yeah because if you looking back uh for our region like date back around 40 years ago right uh you guys know that um 108 countries worldwide right are still in the middle income trap including Thailand including many countries yeah in Southeast Asia and that's a little bit a shame right because uh like in the past 40 years only a few uh like count countries probably like less than onethird be able to shift themselves from lwi income to Middle income and to develop countries right so that that's kind of like I think that's and and how how we be able to do that I think like the um I think uh one of the things that we discover after we've been working with in this region for seven years I think we discover uh kind of like uh uh three things that going to change uh this forever yeah I call tree eye right so the first eye yeah that I like to to leave it everybody today is investment yeah which mean if you're looking back 40 years ago uh take example for Thailand right why we uh have such a beautiful countries but why we have a good road and uh like the many uh great car manufacturing here because like the the country like Japan right Al also invest heavily in our country building manufactory so that's why we are one of the we call Thailand as a the Detroit of Southeast Asia we produce many car and now right taking money from China right and then now we are number one EV exporter in the region the electric vehicle so in investment is helping the country many country be able to shift from low income to Med income but unfortunately we cannot grow even Beyond right what we need yeah report from World Bank also mentioned that we need a second thing yeah which is called infusion so we canot leap ahead yeah and uh and just uh after you get investment uh you get the factory it doesn't mean that you can produce EV uh from Thai car brand right that's that's that's cannot happen yeah so because and that's why I think many of you are here today many of you uh are Builders who are innovator who have like web tree blockchain kind of like those kind of like the the the tech right that you that you guys uh be able to build so we need to learn from you and I think like the funding come on and also Earth come on is a great platform right yeah that bring everybody together because we need this kind of like infusion we need this kind of like exchange like collaboration that uh be able to drive uh and let the local people here in Southeast Asia learn a lot more yeah in order for them to be able to create their own Innovation yeah so that's uh coming up to the third uh part right so after you have investment after you infuse Innovation from other countries learn from the other not just trying to disrupt anyone from from the start but learn from the other first right adopt the technology and then be able to learn and then be able to innovate yourself after that you'll be able to create your own like innovation so I think so that's that's kind of like things that I like to leave with all you all today that now everybody is here so I hope yeah we'll be able to use this platform like uh funing the commons and also Earth common as a common platform for everybody to join hand and everybody going to not not anyone going to win alone but we be able to win together and everybody rise together let's do that together in this two days and Beyond thank [Applause] you thank you so much kid that was awesome and like thank you for all the work you've been doing so far and we really hope that goal becomes a reality uh next up we have someone is a very familiar face you guys must have seen Beth all around here she's the program director of FTC she brings like 10 years of experience inexperience design and we you can see that today I'm sure like once you see the speakers in the lineup uh they're from AI digital identity real world impact from a southeast Asia context they're from the public goods funding stack so incredible speakers and Beth is really passionate about strategic collaboration plus Dynamic design plus applied research for ethical humans and their systems so it's a very lot packed in that one sentence but there's a lot to unpack there even I spent a lot of time reading that sentence you know so let's let's give a huge round of applause to Beth and let's hear from be so yeah thank you guys so much for coming today um I know that there's a lot of um different things going on uh you know around Devcon and just in Thailand in general right now so it's really special to share the space with y'all um I am so excited about um this program that I created with Nicole and um other folks in our community to uh really try to get a holistic view of um placing Earth Commons which is our um kind of branch that looks at ecological risk and environmental impact together with um Financial inclusion and uh focusing on um real world issues and unpacking that as a concept because you know all of our work should be uh geared toward Building Solutions that are resonant and useful in the real world so um I think the group of speakers today really um provides a lot of depth and Nuance um to each of these topics as well as the other tracks around um digital infrastructure as a public good and um the public goods funding stack that is all very familiar to those of us in the niche space around um digital public goods and web 3 but I hope that this program also extends beyond that um we have some really awesome folks uh locally In tha land like those that we are about to hear from um so yeah really looking forward to sharing um these perspectives with y'all and um also seeing who's here throughout the day and meeting you and want to say again a huge thanks to Nicole for um yeah we've been collaborating on this since uh February I think we were having our first talks about what it was going to look like um planning the design Jam together and thinking about this super far away time in November that somehow is now happening so thank you all for sharing with [Applause] me all right thank you so much Beth and thank you for curating all of these awesome experiences for us and thank you