EN | Includ3d Accelerator Keynote with Lucy Mills | Binance Main Stage | MERGE Madrid 2025

Thank you. Um, it's wonderful to be here. Thank you for Chili for the invitation as well. Um, as a former footballer and a former captain, I'm way more used to rallying the troops and I see some kind of sleepy faces after the lunch, uh, wine and beers, but yeah, thanks for staying with us this afternoon. Um, so I'm delighted to present to you the included accelerator.

It's an initiative from Chile's group, the web 3 ecosystem for sports and entertainment. We've just heard from the founder before. Um, and so at Chile's there are over 70 major professional sports teams utilizing its infrastructure. Uh, and so, um, we thought, okay, this is fantastic. Um but with the included accelerator we sought to engage areas of the global sports ecosystem that are less active in web 3.

So think community sport, women's sport, uh social enterprises, social entrep entrepreneurs um that you know this type of organization are you know less active in web 3 but have uh huge interest and and volume and and engagement and and impact. So we set about designing the included accelerator as an education and mentorship initiative that would introduce blockchain technology in the language of this type of organization that often sees sport as a public good as a human right. So in order to make the content for this learning experience to get wider engagement from across the sports industry, we took inspiration from an area of web 3 that is um the kind of regenerative area that um where there's a lot of um exciting examples of using blockchain technologies um to power and support initiatives doing good in society. and for the planet. Um, of course, we took inspiration you like international organizations, United Nations, governments and so on.

They're already using blockchain to support financial inclusion, social inclusion and so on. So we took a lot of uh case studies and inspiration and we looked at okay ways that these types of uh use cases could be applied within the sports industry. So I'm going to talk a little bit more about the content of the accelerator um and um and then some of the early insights and findings. We launched it in 2024 last year. We've been running for about a year and a half.

Um and so two elements the education and then the mentorship. So the education was free, open- source um uh available for those working in different areas of the sports industry and then a mentorship component as well which for select number of organizations and innovators who have gone through that educational experience and then are starting to think seriously about building in web 3. So on the educational uh content we designed uh and and are actively delivering the first of its kind certification on blockchain sport and social impact. It's certified by Chile. The content is incredible.

Um so it it dives into uh themes like uh funding mechanisms, crypto philanthropy, uh community governance, participation, decision- making. Um it has loads of great examples from across development and and international organizations from across sports. uh and we have uh experts and contributors from different organizations you know McLaren racing to save the children to the United Nations and and then in parallel we have this uh the more bespoke oneto-one uh mentorship we call it the blockchain boot camp but this is for select number of organizations that have gone through the learning they're getting inspired they're thinking about what that this might mean for their own sports organization, federation, NGO, uh, association, startup, and then we pair them with blockchain experts and we've done one-on-one uh, advising sessions. It might be looking at their strategy, their road map, making recommendations and so on. This is a really nice funnel and entry point into the Chile's ecosystem.

So, we're starting with education. We then um continue with mentorship and then that is a springboard into other opportunities within the Chile ecosystem. When we launched with the first cohort, this was the Englishspeaking cohort, we intentionally reached out to um representatives from the organizations we were looking for, right? So, as I say, federations and and and clubs and community clubs and um all different types of organizations, women's rights organizations, uh universities. Um we had 321 professionals working in these diverse organizations from over 46 countries across six continents.

Uh a lot of interest, a lot of engagement. Um and then from these uh 321 uh participants in the in the education, we then selected and identified six organizations to receive uh one-on-one mentorship. And there's some great um outcomes that have come out of that. So um one of them is a is a sports federation that we recommended for um uh to to transition into a uh participatory DAO uh mechanism. Another one is a startup that is tokenizing athletes uh female and male footballers of same value.

They went on to receive funding from Chile's Labs. Uh we've had uh a couple of organizations then go on to embed uh web 3 within their digital transformation strategy. Uh we inspired the international Olympic committee, the IOC to um start incorporating and and investing in blockchain and other emerging technologies via their innovation hub. Um so a lot of really good early uh successes. the the main insights that we have from that first cohort and we I'll tell you a little bit later about the the later cohorts that we're doing.

It's it's really three things. So first of all, we see a lot of great practices and uses of blockchain technology uh across the the broader development, humanitarian, international organizations. this kind of social impact sector that's that's um focusing on financial inclusion and and and social inclusion. We feel like there are really good use cases and things within that area that that are relevant to the sports industry. Um but we're quite um it's quite nent.

Uh secondly, the the the specific examples of either organizations we've incubated through the the mentorship or uh case studies that we featured on the certification. It's really three main things. So it's um it's governance. So um the infrastructure underpinning uh communities, memberships, um collective organizations, right? Sport is about people about bringing bringing people together.

there's a a lot of relevance there. Uh the second is um on uh alternative uh ways to access capital uh and to coordinate funding decisions. So really in this this funding space uh and then um yeah getting funding to where it's needed the most. I mean, some of these organizations, they're delivering sports programs in areas that are, you know, incredibly difficult to to to get funding to where to where it's needed. And similar to that with uh we also see a lot of need and interest and application within um frictionless and and simpler payments.

Thirdly though, um this is an audience that is still quite new to this this space. So um there are still a lot of questions and concerns and um just we get a lot of questions throughout the the whole uh process that we are continuously trying to you look for answers respond to. Um so what's next? We following on from a successful cohort in English, we then took the cohort and we created a Spanish version that we're currently rolling out. We have uh professionals from the diver sports ecosystem from 15 countries uh 15 Spanish speaking countries, so Spain and then across Latin America.

So that language inclusion is really enabling us to to spread further. We've also just in the process as well of launching a Brazil focused accelerator initiative. So again when we have a regional focus we bring in regional experts. So we have the head of innovation from Sa Paulo Football Club who's going to be contributing the Brazil one in in in the Spanish audience. We've got um like the the CMO of the Argentine Football Association and and and innovators from Colombia and and and other places as well.

And then with these increasing cohorts, we're also uh on the lookout for organizations that are really thinking about okay, what's the next step? and uh continuing with the one-to-one mentorship support and continuing with connecting them to other opportunities within the Chile's ecosystem. Finally, uh if you're interested in what we're doing at the included accelerator, I do uh encourage you to get your phones out to sign up or just to get in contact with us. uh and I'll leave with my final words which is really okay what is our vision for uh you know what is it that we want and if we get the opportunity to speak to an audience here um from the crypto space from the web 3 space um you know what is it that we really want and I think um first I think it's it's twofold for me it's um there's so much um meaningful work and the importance of sport in our lives in society um in the world, you know, we have uh mega events and and tournaments and recent, you know, the the summer of women's sport that we've just had now. So, there are these moments in sport that really bring people together and um and have an important role in our lives.

So, if we can gear the the the technologies um to drive and to further support and enable those things, it's um surely a good thing. Um and secondly of course we we we have access we have exposure to many organizations entrepreneurs who are doing incredible things um in sport with sport through sport um and so if that is interesting for you please do come and find us um find the team at Chili's and let's have a conversation um thank you very [Applause]