Andra Georgescu explains Distrikt

[Music] excited to be here let me just circle back to the title of our keynote and what it's all about which is district and it's a short but very dynamic history it actually started off as a demo application called linked up created by the dfinity foundation to show how easy it was to develop a mass-market product on top of the internet computer so it was envisioned as a decentralized version of linkedin as you could probably tell from the name the decision to take over the development of linked up happened early this year at dokea capital i'm part of the team there but the project itself branched out in it into its own standalone thing when our ceo decided to fund it and we created a dedicated team to develop it further so we're currently in the process of setting up a non-for-profit foundation in switzerland that would uh maintain and uh make sure that the platform is sustainable and we've grown our team to 11 people and it's still growing um it's divided between bucharest and belgrade so our amazing development team is located in belgrade spearheaded by our cto vidor and our operational product design and marketing are here in bucharest so in only two months we've redesigned the platform added many features and functionalities that we consider crucial for our users and we're currently developing the mobile apps and the web app in parallel at an accelerated pace we've also rebranded the project from linked up to district and i'm pretty confident that at the speed that we're moving right now we can begin onboarding users as soon as this summer our vision for district is a very community centric type of social media network we're looking forward to seeing groups emerge in the form of districts that would be created around common values passion professions and see them grow merge with each other and interact on this platform as communities and groups naturally tend to do so i define district as a decentralized and professional social media network that empowers users to own and control their identity and data and i'm calling it a professional uh social media network because we have a very well-defined part of the platform that's dedicated to users showcasing their professional careers and highlighting you know certain projects that they've worked on milestones that they're proud to have achieved and but also it has another component which is very medium-like in the sense that it's uh focused on presenting medium to long-form written content so us being very big on user data privacy and security we wouldn't like our users to go to a third-party app in order to read an article so we've incorporated this into our platform so users can consume this type of content without leaving this ecosystem this is only possible because district is built on the dfinity internet computer so it's going to be the first 100 blockchain based social media network this means that all the engagements and uploads and exchanges that take place on district will be broadcast on chain this can it's really an ambitious endeavor for us and it's made possible by the internet computer's capabilities that allow us to scale dynamically and consume only the resources that we need as we grow the platform um another aspect that i really want to touch upon is the need for a platform like district right now timing is a very important factor in the success of any startup so the district i think right now benefits of pro from great timing right social media networks have grown big enough and powerful enough that we can't keep brushing aside the issues that they're faced with and when we're talking about these issues we're talking from about everything from cambridge analytica to countless privacy issues to platforming censorship data links that we've seen only in the past week with facebook and linkedin so i believe that the current system enables these things to happen because we're so overly focused on the illusion of consent in the sense that while it's very uh well to require consent when dealing with the user's data and it's very important it somehow tran it's been transformed into this legal instrument that shifts liability from the company making billions out of user users data to the users themselves so data brokerage industries are like what a 200 billion dollar industry right and there's no liability and responsibility and users are in danger and often experience data leaks that put them in danger and i believe that it's it's never been a better time for a platform like district to exist and for us to offer users an alternative to the status quo and what they're used to so uh wait we have some questions uh how do we monetize our platform if we block all platforms so the question of monetization is actually pretty interesting because um district will be managed and maintained by a non-for-profit foundation so it doesn't operate as a classical startup in the sense that it needs to monetize i don't know the users the data itself or maybe do advertising in order to survive it will find different means of sustaining its activity and once it's out there it's going to leave autonomous in a different sense that we're used to so monetization in the classical sense won't really happen on district um right so we're open to uh any other questions if you guys have more um so yeah i was talking about how i think the timing is really great i think the public is ready to get an alternative to the social media networks that they've been used to they they've become used to and uh i believe that we can't ignore these issues that happen in centralized proprietary system design as gatekeepers to the internet especially when they impact our society on such a level so uh oh somebody's asking if there's going to be a token yes we are currently developing our token economics um we don't have a lot of details to release right now about how the token will work but we have some firm opinions about how the fundraiser will happen in the sense that we want it to be a public event so no private pre-sales or any other deals that are not available to everyone we consider that accessibility is a very important factor and we want to make sure we offer a fair distribution that includes our community members our users it's something that's very important for us so more details about how the token uh will actually work within the district ecosystem will be released soon but uh about the fundraiser we're very definite about this this aspect so um yeah we're we're talking about these issues with the current uh platforms but i also think it's worth mentioning the deep platforming of the platform itself so like we've seen with parlor like we've seen with other startups that rely on apis to connect with facebook or linkedin or twitter in order for them to have a sustainable business model and then when these platforms deny access their entire startup collapses their entire platform is rendered useless that's also a big issue that we're very fortunate to have the the opportunity to bypass entirely because of dfinity's internet computer and the technology that we're building district on so yeah i don't believe that i mean despite all these issues i don't believe that shutting down social media networks like we've seen with parlor is the is the right solution for for this type of problems uh mostly because social spaces like these are needed are useful and often create an environment that nurtures a positive relationship and unprecedented levels of connection and coordination and if this pandemic has shown us anything i think it's the importance of having these means of communication and digital expression so we need we need these spaces we just don't need to pay for them with our data sorry i'm just browsing through your questions how do we plan to attract active linkedin users especially those who do not know much about dapps that's an interesting question and i think that's something that the entire blockchain ecosystem is actively working towards i mean people are getting educated more and more about how blockchains work why dabs are really valuable and events like these type of events like the european blockchain convention are proven to be very useful in that sense okay so not sure uh what you mean about uh this how will creators on district create on-chain revenues but if you're talking about creators in the sense of people that generate users that generate original content on district that's a very interesting topic that we're actually currently debating because like i told you we're thinking about our token economics and we do believe that creators should be rewarded for the hard work that goes into creating that type of content and we're taking that into consideration when creating uh our token economics for sure um yeah so our our main vision is to empower our users to connect and collaborate and share with each other while preserving total ownership and control over their data on a platform that they can govern themselves so we want to include our users uh in the government of the platform and uh include them in the decision making process regarding the direction in which we want to develop this ecosystem so this is why we we say that district is the embodiment of the best of both worlds you know that's the title of this keynote also because we see it as um as a place where you get a great user experience the type that we associate with centralized systems with centralized platforms and that until now we believe could only be possible in a centralized platform and you also get the benefits of blockchain technology all wrapped into one so let's see more of your questions okay so yeah this is uh maybe a short explanation of our title and why we believe that district will offer a seamless user experience and not not ask users to compromise anything for that um yeah so maybe i should talk more about dfinity and how the internet computer will allow platforms like district to be a part of an ecosystem in which they can thrive as truly decentralized systems directly on the internet computer and free from dependence on proprietary systems so thing that really excites me as a as a builder in the split in this space is the fact that district won't be faced with platform risk which is uh especially important in the context of autonomous software right okay so when will you be able to see the product so we've been um we've been developing in a pretty accelerated pace right now and uh we're actually developing the mobile apps the mobile app and the mobile apps at the same time and this is why i'm pretty confident that we can start onboarding users as soon as this summer not sure if july or or august but we'll announce it in due time but you won't have to wait much longer we've actually only started uh working a couple of months ago and we've made amazing progress um so more about the team i see somebody asked about the team uh i think i already covered that not sure what more details uh you'd like but our website would be launching next week and you're gonna see a more detailed presentation of our team then yes we are actually using an existing blockchain network it's called the internet computer uh created by the dfinity foundation and uh it removes a huge layer of complexity that currently lies between builders and um the users that we want to serve so that was a huge value proposition for us when developing district will there be an air drop for early adopters um we haven't really figured that out but uh it's good to know that you you want one uh we don't have a website yet we're gonna be launching it uh next week uh we've been a bit late on uh the website and the papers front uh but that was mostly because we've been so overly focused on building the product we thought and i believe right at least so rightly so that the product is a priority right now we would like to deliver fast and explain a bit later yes we do have a telegram group but you can find us on twitter and you'll see all the details there so yeah i'm guessing this turned into a q a session pretty fast fast i'm happy you guys have so many questions um we don't have i see somebody asked about us having any partnerships in the works um not right now we'd like to launch the product and once it's out there gather some feedback and then i think we will be better positioned to create some truly strategic partnerships oh somebody asked if it's a similar to steemit it is a bit in the sense that it's also focused on written content so not necessarily centered on videos like uh tick tocks or something like that so maybe uh when it comes to the user experience the fact that you can read you know long-form articles you could compare it to estimate so what are the working languages for the platform that we are considering so far of course we've started we are working on the mvp right now so creating an overly complex system doesn't really platform doesn't really make make sense if you want to deliver fast but we have uh already incorporated the possibility of introducing multiple languages for district users so if you guys have any requests feel free to to tell us and we'll definitely take it into consideration we're very open to working with our users and and them letting us know what they want in order for us to build it we've created this form that we've put out there and asked you people what is their current experience with different social media platforms what they would like to see from district and the answers that we got were really insightful and we're very grateful that they took the time to to do the survey it's so this is just a heads up that if you guys want to get in contact and tell us what you'd like to see on district we're really open to that conversation so this project has been i see somebody asked how long has the project been in development it's been in development uh since the beginning of february this year and we're launching in the summer this is why i'm so excited about our progress i think we're moving pretty fast so yeah i see some people are offering to translate very happy to start the conversation regarding that so yes we are hi daniel i see you're back on hello andrew yeah this turned into some sort of an ask me anything session right a bit that's not necessarily a bad thing no no of course i'd rather the opposite i really like when people you know start asking questions because that means that there's some sort of interest