ETHKL24 | Panel | The Dire Importance of University Blockchain Communities

all right up next we're going to have four representatives from uh University blockchain clubs uh first up there is Wales Lee from college da Joshua from Sunway blockchain Club wean from Apu and uh the moderator will be Mario from monach yeah thank you thanks for having me hello okay Hello nice to meet you guys my name is Mario I'm the president of Mones blockchain club and today on the panel we have three of the biggest blockchain Club in Malaysia and also wals from college da so let's start with a quick introduction can you guys introduce yourself hello hello can you hear me all right so my name is Wales I lead College Dow is the largest student blockchain Club collective in the blockchain ecosystem at the moment so we have about 100 blockchain clubs within our Network what we mostly do is try to do activations at conferences such as FK and then what we do is we try to support the student blockchain clubs connecting with blockchain protocols and making sure that um the entire University blockchain ecosystem is supported in a way that um everyone can kind of benefit in a positive some way yeah hey everyone um I'm Joshua I currently run the Sunway blockchain Club we've got about four hello hey everyone I'm Joshua I currently run the Sunway blockchain club and we have about 400 400 Plus members now we've hosted over 60 plus events and we've got about 80 plus Partners now looking forward to working with yall in the future as well yeah hi all right hi I'm a way so the new uh president of Apu blockchain and cryptocurrency club uh one of the very first uh student blockchain Club to be established in Malaysia and I think uh coming in for me I this is the fourth term of the club so yeah we are quite well established and also a lot of Industry Partners as well so yeah I think mainly generally what we do is also trying to educate especially like your typical student blockchain club we want to make things uh really easy for all of our members to actually understand what web tree and what are all of these jargons in the crypto space or blockchain space uh is so yeah quick question uh Mario you want to introduce yourself okay uh nice to meet you all I'm Mario I'm the president of monest blockchain club and we are the third biggest blockchain Club in Malaysia right now we have like around 200 members and we've been actively working with a lot of like Partners from blockchain Industries as well so quick question why do University need blockchain clubs well I think um you know as a general University right you kind of want to make sure that your students are exposed to as many Frontier Technologies as possible and like outside of fintech outside of AI and outside of other um blockchain outside of other Industries focuses um I feel like blockchain in particular has been something that students have been very interested in um and within the communities of the clubs I've have talked to cuz College Dow has a lot of coverage within North America Europe UK and Southeast Asia as well like a lot of students has been interested in blockchain and they've been interested in exploring it as their career path and being able to provide a platform being able to provide a community with them as a local blockchain Club within the university helps to Foster that kind of like um Community spirit and also helps them get their foot into the door and trying to learn more about the industry and trying to hopefully get a career out of the space yeah I agree with whales we in Sunway University itself we don't actually have anything related to blockchain technology as a course and I feel like you know you missing out on a giant industry right there so as someone who's also working in Industry I'd love to on board students into this into this industry but the best way to do that is you know through education itself so our club itself hosts you know events with industry partners and host workshops tutorials to bring people on to this industry easy like a easy flow into it so I think it's quite important that we be that platform for them to get into this industry yeah I think um I totally agree with Josh as well because coming from my background is actually I'm studying uh fintech and I think uh my course didn't really I mean there is still blockchain courses but it isn't really as in depth and it doesn't really prepare you through the industry as um what is expected by web tree companies so I think um having this platform for all of the students right I think it's really a good place for them to actually um skill ups and also prepare as a part a niche part in fintech as well so yeah so if we build blockchain clubs then you know we kind of prepare our future career if we want to start exploring blockchain right so what makes you want to build this community well I guess it requires a little bit of context cuz um before I co-founded College Dow about 2 years ago I was blockchain Club president at my local University in Singapore called Singapore management University and I think part of the biggest reason why I really wanted to do this blockchain club initiative is more or less just finding people that can Vibe and also kind of grow with and kind of get into the blockchain industry cuz you know when you're a student and you're kind of exploring your career paths it's quite daunting to figure out what you really want to do in your life and when you're in a school when you're in school environment where everyone's mostly just focused on their degree and you're that one you know out of a thousand students that actually focus on trying to build your career early on in your University life it's quite hard to find other people with that same level of passion and interest in Industry because they might not be actually thinking about that early on in their life even though they absolutely should because um a lot of the students that I've met uh whether they're from uh waterl whether they're from Berkeley whether they're from locally in Singapore Sunway monach and Apu as well right like there's a lot of students now that been trying to transition more into um having an early start in the career and being able to have that Community having that core team of people that you can kind of rely on and grow together has been one of the biggest things that motivated me to be a blockchain credent in the first place and then kind of leveling up myself beyond that to now be this like I guess blockchain Club aggregator of sorts by doing College sty and it's more or less being able to support you know your friends along the way and supporting other people that's started out in the industry just like you you know like all of us here are students and there's a whole bunch of students here hacking for the hackathon as well and I think you guys will understand that you know having someone else alongside you being able to grow in the blockchain industry has been one of the biggest things that um got people into the space and even stayed for the long term so that's like one of the biggest reasons why I think um I would really like what I'm doing yeah I think um S I came from a homeschool background I think I started out uh homeschooled like throughout my entire life so I didn't really have the enjoyment of like actually going to school so what really motivates me to actually build this blockchain club right was actually when I entered my first day in uni well not really my first day but it's more like a couple few semesters as I was going in right then I stumbl upon uh this BCC and they just established so I was like okay sign me up to this right and I was actually um really really lucky and really blessed as it was like f uh in the very early days as well of apcc so they actually um taught me a lot of things and eventually um I joined as a committee and then they even grw me further and because of this journey with um some of the people so big shout out to some all the Committees all the EX committees and the past presidents as well they actually uh help me out and because of that right it really like motivates me to actually feel like um I should actually um do my part as well since all of them actually U groom me I should also give back to the community for anyone inside apub BCC right anyone that is part of our members and this really motivates me to actually uh want to get give back and actually transfer impart the knowledge to everyone else inside the uni Club so it's really good to actually uh good experience for me coming into this new term and I hope I can achieve what I wanted to do yeah well when I started the blockchain club I kind of had one main agenda which was to change you know the Next Generation stigma of blockchain and cryptocurrency so when I first started a club with our vice president there actually alsoo back over there we had this little boot set up with just one QR code and we'd go up to everybody who was walking around in the clubs and societies and we'd ask them when you hear the word crypto what is the first thing that comes to your mind and people were like scam money game all these different things you know and you know as someone who works in the industry that's not the kind of answers you want to hear cuz blockchain itself is a beautiful technology that's you know being implemented everywhere whether it's a massive company or a brand new startup so I wanted to kind of you know change this whole wave of this whole generation before they go into the industry with that same mindset and you know they completely ignore the beauty of this industry so having events you know bringing down people from the companies all that to let them be exposed to what blockchain technology really has to offer was one of the main goals that I had for the Sun blockchain Club I think we can all agree that you know blockchain clubs is very important for all those students who want to start their career in web TR industry and blockchain Industry right but you know there is this problem where like universities are not really pushing students to you know learn about this blockchain you know like uh what's your opinion about that right with all these universities that are not really supporting the students to you know start exploring the blockchain technology well I think there's a really good point that you brought across which is like the University Administration and the actual universities um and the professors and the faculties actually trying to support the blockchain industry and especially the student Community there um it was funny to me that you mentioned that cuz like I've gotten a very unique perspective CU you know college Dow is global and we get a lot of we get a lot of feedback from the blockchain leaders within North America and Europe and in UK and then in Singapore and also in in Malaysia as well and like we do see this um Trend where there's a very big divide between the university faculties and the University Administration from the blockchain clubs on the ground um like one example is that I believe um there was a blockchain called alran they they worked together with this university called a nanang techn technological University and they set up this thing called aloh Hub and aloh hub was this like really big multi-million dollar initiative that they worked together with the student Administration but when I was with the student blockchain Club leaders um and I was discussing with them like hey what's going on with the with the entire ecosystem and then the N students were were feeding back to me and they're telling me how like um there's this big initiative happening I asked them hey are you guys actually involved in this as a blockchain club and they say no um that's one of the biggest things that I noticed is that like there's a lot of initiatives that's Happ happening that's very segregated and very um separate from based off the community and the actual Administration itself and um you know I I've seen faculty starting to warm up to the idea of supporting these initiatives but I would say that I kind of understand from the student from the University Administration themselves cuz you know from us as students you know for us as students blockchain is a career path that we're really interested in pursuing and is the one kind of industry that we're that we want to you know pursue in for life but when it comes to the University Administration like this blockchain industry is just one of like 20 or 10 other industries that students are interested in you know a general academic institution is more focused in trying to make sure that the students get past the degree and get past the very basic level of Education they need to achieve so that they can maybe go into big Tech or e-commerce or or um any other kind of like uh major industry or even Consulting so to the UN University Administration it might not be as big of an importance to them but for us it's something that we're going to be banking our entire lives on and so maybe that's where kind of the disconnect comes into play but I do notice that um you know with more and more development development in a blockchain space and with more and more funding coming in for student blockchain Club um uh initiatives and support and also more blockchain clubs being willing to work together with the University Administration and the blockchain clubs itself like it opens up a lot more possibilities for the faculty to be more warm and open to working together with the blockchain industry at large yeah yeah I agree with that and you know the university as a whole is like a big organization that's like you mentioned they have to focus on all these different industries that students need to go into so it does take them you know some time to actually push forward a completely new line for these students whereas for example a a community club like us or you know a society we're dead focused on just that so we can we can go maybe weeks ahead of them in what they need to do so it does take some time but I believe that our societies is what you know motivates them to actually push that further because if they see the demand from what our clubs do then they realize okay then we know students are going down this part we definitely need to start pushing it out a lot more yeah yeah I think um as uh Apu site right for Apu since we are um running it for quite some time now I think our supervisors as well caught uh caught the eye of I mean we actually caught the eye of U our supervisors and actually some of them are actually uh la um inside fintech classes as well so I think as time moves on right I hope I actually do think that they actually might say hey maybe we should actually um bring in more blockchain courses into our um classes as well right so I think um part of our community as well uh I think recent uh just some Alphas dropping some Alphas over here on Apu side uh we actually might be collaborating with APU itself to actually have a mini course inside Apu so yeah H okay so I think some most universities are you know very supportive to let their students explore about this blockchain technology but from administrative side maybe there are some challenges there but U do you think it's more important for the you know the lecturers the universities to take these actions or you know student should take this initiative to build this community you know m like I mentioned I think the students need to show that there is a demand for it when there's a demand then you know Administration takes notice I mean Administration needs to do what's best for all the students in a whole but in order to know what's best for them they need to see what's in demand yeah totally agree with Josh on that so I think for Community for us clubs right our main goal is actually just to know um bring it as much uh to to the students um and get them exposed and I think as more exposure is actually given to them and they actually understand it it might it will definitely uh catch the eye of all of the lecturers you know they see that oh my God this CL these clubs are actually so active inside Union every week every we also got uh events right you'll be like we booking all of the all of the venues and then out the stent Affairs will be going crazy say why is these club like doing all of these uh things every week then yeah I think they were definitely um notice as well so yeah so yeah I think like student initi is very important when it comes to know building these blockchain communities in universities but some students are you know they are still exploring right whether they want to explore blockchain technology or not how can we get like more Initiative for students to actually start this community in their universities because I think there's not a lot of blockchain communities right now and we need more in the ecosystem right yeah so I think um I think with what Joshua mentioned earlier right there's a lot of stigma with the general student community on what the blockchain industry actually represents right like you know all of us are here at this conference because we have something that we are interested in Industry whether we're working here or whether we're interested in kind of exploring and figuring out what's going on in the space but you know from a student from from the student outside looking in right they see all of these news of FTX collapsing you know Luna Terror crash and they get an idea that the entire space is mostly just based off of scams and like um Ponzi schemes and I think it's a little bit hard to break that stigma like right away cuz you do need to have you do need to Insight a cultural change with the student blockchain clubs and within the students in general rather than kind of wait for them to you know maybe one day decide to care about the industry that you care very deeply about but they don't so I think one of the biggest things is more or less having a more systemic push within the perception of blockchain at the industry and maybe that's something that's outside of our control because you know it's something that the blockchain industry in general needs to work towards as a as a collective but within the blockchain clubs um as like a community conduit to for students to learn about blockchain blockchain as a as as a space right it is quite important for them to understand and kind of destigmatize the industry let them understand that like hey blockchain is not really just only about Finance it's not only just about you know Ponzi schemes and scams you know there's a lot of amazing projects here like Manta like ZK sync like um like AA protocol like there's a lot of very interesting use cases that's already being being developed in blockchain and it's more or less an owners of us at colleg at Sunway at Mones at at Apu to tell the students and tell the community that there's a lot more to expect out of Industry rather than just thinking of it as this like a fintech extension with like a blockchain you know a flavor to it yeah I think it's also the job of the other communities to help build in other universities as well I mean Sunway blockchain club actually came up because of Apu and you know monach came up because of Sunway and then there's U itm now there's Taylor you know everybody's starting to come up just because communities are kind of coming together for that one purpose of bringing the blockchain industry to students so I think one heavy focus is that we as you know communities need to help build these next communities as well yeah another way I think in terms of community building right for all of these blockchain clubs as well I would say maybe one th away as I've been helping uh Apu BCC been running under their Community Department right I think in one way is actually to make things very engaging as well right um I think uh we all all know that we as students we don't really we are really sick and tired of all of the lectures inside our Unis so why why should uh students actually like join our club and actually listen to another lecture again so actually our our job as well you know as a student blockchain Community as well I think uh we got to make things fun engaging and at the same time most importantly at actually get them to actually know about all of these Concepts and all of these um terms and jargons that are inside this uh ecosystem so um I think in the future as well um for upcoming uh blockchain clubs that you guys want to establish uh in your local universities um try to uh approach it in a way that um it's actually more fun and engaging as well um compared to your uh uni lectures I would say a very easy Benchmark is the minimum Benchmark will I think it got to be more interesting than your uni lectures yeah and no cahoot games yeah just throw a party let everybody come to the party teach them about blockchain so they get a party plus they get introduced yeah you know yo well so you want to uh explain more about what is college Dow for you know the University students who want to start their blockchain communities like how do you guys support them so for college do we're more focused on trying to support like student blockchain clubs as conduits for the actual student communities so one of the biggest misconceptions that I think a lot of people have is that like people think that college da is trying to you know take over the entire blockchain space and act as this like Collective monolithic unit but what I've actually been emphasizing a lot more on is being able to communicate with the local blockchain leaders within whatever countries and cities that they're in and making sure that we understand the context of how the blockchain club runs what the student communities are specifically interested in because for example right like we have a very close relationship ship with uh with the people from University of Pennsylvania like the upen blockchain folks and one very interesting thing that I've noticed is that blockchain clubs come in a lot of different flavors and and interests so if I were to break it down right there's obviously the blockchain clubs that's more focused on getting introductory um fundamental education out for the student population but I've also noticed that blockchain clubs has evolved to the point where some of them has specialized into like investment analyst roles trying to figure out their their trying to figure figure out their space in like the VC area making sure that they get like deal flows done working with VCS to um to get like investment memos out and that's typically what the University of Pennsylvania students do under their um association called Franklin Dow and then aside from that there's other really strong techn technological universities like University of watero like watero blockchain has been one of the most technical one of the most successful blockchain clubs that exist and that's because they have a very strong pool of like a 100 blockchain Club uh hackers that's hacking at all of these different conferences and they they bring in like tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of dollars in hackathon prizes every single time and there's a lot of different blockchain clubs that do exist Within These specific regions and I think for us at College Dow we want to make sure that we understand the local context that we're working with we want to understand what the students within the campus is actually interested in because like uh for a university like apub BCC right like for a university like Apu like students are more interested in finding a career students are more interested in finding their way into indust industry but then um maybe in a university like n uh nanang Technological University they're more focused on like research or or or in Academia so one of the biggest ways that I think I I like to support the student clubs is trying to figure out what the local context is like you know understanding how uh what they're specifically interested in and then providing some advice for the local blockchain clubs to figure out like okay what kind of demographic are you working with um um what are your students actually interested in and how do you as a blockchain club help to build up that culture not only within your core team but within your your ever growing student Community for them to start getting their foot into the the door for a blockchain you know there's a lot of students that want to become uh Founders themselves some of them are not as ambitious but they want to find their way into getting a career into like nethermind trying to do research being a developer being a investment analyst being a business development Partnerships head of sales whichever so it's more or less just figuring out what the general student Community is interested in and then helping them figure out uh helping the student blockchain clubs figure that out along the way yeah you know when starting this blockchain club right it it brought a lot of like opportunities for those beginners who want to start um their career in blockchain for for me personally like I gained a lot of opportunities when I start this blockchain club and it kind of changed my life and I want to know a little bit personal like how did blockchain clubs change your life when you start building this thing all right so uh I actually came I was maybe just uh backtrack a little bit how I actually started right and how it shaped me to uh where am I today so actually um I started out thinking that actually like the stigma from Josh actually where I actually cuz my whole family is very um traditional and then they always say that bitcoin's a scam and then it's like um cryp don't go into crypto and all those things but I guess I was a bit rebellious that time and then basically I came in and then I joined in inside Apu and then I was like walking through like a like a club um like Club booths and then I stumble upon uh Apu BCC and then I was like hey you know what maybe I should try to see there all my families are like saying that it's a scam and all those things maybe I want to I want to understand why is it a scam right and all those things then yeah and then basically when I join and then basically I just jump down into that rabbit hole and then yeah VOA here I am today Yeah so basically I think along across um my time I I think um it shaped me as also and now um as a person as well so I think um blockchain clubs right um especially all these communities is also not just about knowledge maybe um because I lack a little bit on the schooling experience as I'm coming from a homeschool background it also shap me as a person on who I am today as well yeah so I think um it's really important to actually find a community that is actually willing to actually groom you not just um in terms of knowledge about all these blockchain technology as well but also as a person yeah when I started the Sunway blockchain Club I've kind of had like an expectation for the club that it would be here but after the past one year it kind of went here you know I didn't think it would go as big as it is today and I guess you could say you know I learned a lot of things and I met a lot of Industry leaders I never thought I'd be meeting people like this today but one of the best things that I've actually gotten from starting this club is actually meeting a lot of my committee so I wouldn't actually be here today or where this club would be if it wasn't for you know the whole all the people in the background running the community and actually they all came out here to support so they all over there at the back right now you know so it's really grateful to have all of them over here helping to build this big Club so I'd say one of the best you know personal experiences from this is building the internal community as well you know helping everyone go up together so I think is this to say that starting a blockchain club or rather you know taking over my blockchain club in SMU and kind of having that journey lead into college Dow be um career changing and life changing is a more of an understatement I feel cuz um you know after being in this like University blockchain space for about 2 years now right so um when I first got into Singapore management University University like within my first year I immediately just wanted to find other people I could you know um talk about blockchain with and I couldn't find any so for me I was trying to find a place that I could you know find hang out with other people who was interested in you know similar blockchain topics as I was and then that led me into taking a whim and then applying for presidency under SMU blockchain and surprisingly I got in you know I'm a non-technical person I take a completely different degree outside of you know anything you would expect from the blockchain space and yeah ever since then my my life has more or less been snowballing in the in the best Direction possible and I think this is also in part because blockchain as an industry is a very people Centric industry like there's not a single in there's not a single other industry that I know of where the relationships that you have with other people and the people that you meet has so much Alpha and so much connections along the way that you'll be able to snowball your career into something that would make a lot of sense doing community work you know like something like this you would expect to be something like this is is almost inconceivable in any other industry but in blockchain it it almost seems as if it's second nature you know like building a blockchain club building a community even doing pop-up cities at different countries like it's not something that is very common but it's something that shapes the culture that uh blockchain kind of revolved itself around so I would say that without you know without the blockchain club I wouldn't have got into the industry without the without without you know joining as president I wouldn't have then snowballed into co-founding college Dow and without College Dow I wouldn't have met so many amazing people like like Josh like a like like y Mario and the rest of the you know blockchain Club leaders that have met across the world and ever since then like just being able to be part of this like huge community of people that genuinely seem to care not only for each other but what they're doing within the communities has been um has been nothing short of incredible yeah I definitely do think that like as a very people Centric industry you know um there's a lot of emphasis on making sure that like you're doing what's right you feel for the community and building on top of that and making sure that like you're doing right by your people and acting as an evangelist as a steward as a as a leader for the people that you're you're trying to inspire and the people that you're you're trying to lead within your community is definitely one of the biggest things that I feel has like change my life okay well I guess that's the end of the panel so yeah blockchain Community is very important for you guys who want to explore the career in the blockchain industry so for all universities want to start building your own communities it's a very great opportunity for you guys to take this and you know probably get something that you never expected you get right yeah please reach out to us if you're planning to start your own university community I mean you've got all the people who have experienced it as well yeah if anything if you don't mind me adding right like even if you aren't interested in starting your own Community like it's very important to just be able to reach out and you know hang out with other students that you know of and if you are an industry protocol if you are a company that's looking to get in touch you know it's a lot more important for us to figure out like how is it better that you can understand the university blockchain ecosystem better and trying to figure out how to navigate the space cuz you know a lot of the protocols that I talked to like they find it quite hard to understand you know what are different kind of blockchain clubs and what they do but I definitely do think there's a lot of value in tapping into a very young and very inspired and passionate like student ecosystem yeah okay well I guess that's the end of the panel thank you so much thank you guys for having us [Applause]