Empowering the Future: Educating Youth on Blockchain Technologies From Basics to Books | Elizabeth S

[Music] all right I've been given the go ahead hi thank you for joining me um my name is Elizabeth Sullivan I am an author and a speaker and today I am here because I'm going to get you thinking about Usher or adding a educational component for the Youth and um ushering in the Next Generation hopefully I'm going to inspire you to add that educational component for your project or business so why why do we want to bring in the youth to what we're building I'll tell you why because what you're building they will be using and they need to know how to use it and you need to know how to explain it to them so that's basically where I've been coming in now I want to get a little bit of interaction here I am going to give away a few books like actual physical books so let's talk a little bit uh show of hands how many of you in this audience are parents right now one two keep your hand up two you get a book you get a book all right meet me afterwards and I I'll give you guys a book so I'm going for a little higher percentage than that how many of us in here have been kids once raise your hand yeah there we go okay you are listening awesome so let's go back to the toys that we had when we were children does anybody remember having maybe a play flip phone um a black berry type of phone where the the buttons made noise or perhaps you even remember the pull behind phone with the red and the eyes moved and you could rotary dial it yeah okay oh let's think about a few other toys that we had what about the Dirt Devil vacuum that red and black vacuum that our parents gave us that actually worked worked those a pretty good one uh let's think did anybody ever get one of those Farm barnyard animal like touch and field books do you remember what I'm talking about the little yellow chick was soft you could touch the Lamb's wool there was the pig nose where it was like a rubber Peach type of thing so the whole point of this is why were we given these toys as kids well it was because they were introducing us to components that we would use in our future see where I'm going with this so in a sense those kind of spark our imagination and it's kind of funny what will spark your imagination as a kid if you think back what did you do when you were a child that has inspired or helped you become who you are today I very specifically remember being a book reader an Avid Reader I loved writing I mostly wrote poems don't do that anymore and I always loved reading Next Level books now my dad was an electrical engineer and he was absolutely brilliant in my opinion so I remember looking at his bookshelf and I picked up the seven habits of highly effective people and that book ruined me because ever since then I've been huge into personal development and exploring in-depth things of how what makes people work and how can we oper at better as a human with other humans I'll go a little bit deeper to explain why am I writing children's books now about blockchain technology so a few years ago stuff got real I've been in this space since late 2017 2020 rolled around I think we all got deep into Discord and all the communities but in 2021 I had a very severe asthma attack and then I had to be intubated so like the last thing I remember on a Friday evening was just counting the lights go by out the ambulance window they were transporting me from one hospital to the next the next thing I know I wake up on a Tuesday nothing in between I'm going to admit something to you on a Tuesday night I'm all alone in my hospital room and I turned on the local news and I realized that nobody would have known that I was gone and nobody even knew that I was in there as a matter of fact and that shook me because I feel like we are all individually here to serve a purpose and this little inner voice inside of me laughed literally laughed at me and said of course nobody would have known that you were gone you haven't done anything big enough yet you have not fulfilled your purpose so it took about a year or so to heal and pondered well how do I step in and bring my talents and my gift edness to this space because you guys are brilliant there are so many smart people here we have coders and developers and engineers and I just admire you how can I bring something to the table that would honor what you guys are building well if you've ever had a diagnosis or a near-death experience you'll know that that is enough to inspire you to make a change and that every morning that you wake up is a gift and you just kind of pursue it life in a different level so I figured you know what I know how to write have a lot of experience you know designing so I think I could do the illustrations and I'm going to take on the challenge of educating our youth on the basic concepts of blockchain technology so in this past year I've been on an venture to explain basic blockchain technology Concepts to kids currently I'm on a month-long Adventure so it's going to be one book a month for it's been a few months now I don't remember what book I'm on like eight or nine uh and then I'm going to end in August for vcon of 2024 that's in La so if you're going there hit me up that will be the last book so it's been a really really fun adventure uh let me kind of show you here I kind of started out with the three little pfps that was the very first book that I wrote and it's a little twist on the three little pigs and so if you've ever read The Three Little Pigs uh you kind of know the story line so I thought that was a great intro to introduce nft and web 3 vocabulary now I understand that we have a microphone and can hand it off to people and know if you feel comfortable maybe I'll be able to hear you without it but I am going to give away a book of The Three Little pfps if somebody can help me out with some vocabulary here so each of the books has a little bit of summary in the back Beyond just explaining it through the story you know so if anybody here can tell me what wag me means then they will get this book want to raise your hand or Shout It Out where'd that come from raise your hand yeah we're all going to make it if you stick around I see you I know you're walking away but I'll give you this book all right perfect he's making his rounds yes wag me so they're just simple ways to introduce this whole new vocabulary of verbiage to kids we've gone through the blockchain Odyssey where it follows a little notebook and he goes and he he meets nodes what are noes well we need we need to tell kids what these are because they're very common in our world and they don't know but they're going to be experienced possibly experiencing them uh one of the books was Jane in the blockchain kind of like Jack and the beant stock and that follows wallet safety talks about hot cold wallets keeping your seed prays uh close and safe and private it's been really really fun explaining all these Concepts uh I've been able to do proof of work through Benny The Bee the honey be he was able to solve a bunch of codes and therefore get some honey been able to explain proof of stake been able to explain defi last month for January's book remember we're doing one children's book a month it was nft Visionaries so the whole goal was to explain to people what is the point what's the purpose of nfts so basically in this story four friends get together and they discuss how they can incorporate nfts into either their passions or their projects and what the reader gets to do is by reading the story and listening into their conversation they then learn and start imagining not only what nfts are but the potential for them and the various because that's that can be really hard to explain to people and I figure you know like I said what you guys are doing is so smart and intricate people want to know we're very very early here so we have to figure out how to explain it to the next level so you're thinking okay that's great you've written a book now how do I incorporate this first off like I said explaining it I would maybe challenge either yourself or your team to bring it down a little bit so you might have white pages white papers you might have an elevator pitch but can you explain what you do in your business can you explain your project to a high schooler can you explain it to a junior higher can you explain it to maybe the fifth grade level or how about a 5-year-old if you can hit all those points you're on a roll here so that's the whole goal is to summarize the basis of what we do so that the average person could understand it few other options here so oh all right maybe you can create like digital worksheets or matching games uh we talked about the vocabulary factor I mean the educational component is missing on a a very basic level here so there's a lot of gaps to fill in you can just do simple coloring pages you could have a spokesperson something like that for your business that talks to the kids talks to the youth just brings it down a bit I mean look at this what kid wouldn't like what we're building here like that is cute as heck you can bring one of those on board and that is your way in to speak to those kids physical items toys has anybody here heard of pudgy penguins yeah be friends okay yes I love it in the house okay so pudgy Penguins you can now purchase their stuffed animals in Walmart don't get much more mainstream than Walmart and be friends if you have not checked them out I would definitely do that it's an nft project by Gary vaynerchuk and they are bringing IP to an intense level definitely focusing on the youth and encouraging specific characteristics of let's see they've got trading cards out they have stuffed animals through Macy's there's so many physical items that the youth are absolutely loving and the really fun thing is us as adults who are invested in these projects we're the ones with the money to buy these things for the kids so that's another way in uh I don't know if you've ever thought of maybe creating a kids lab for what you do but maybe some of us here started out through coding camps I've seen them popping up everywhere ages 5 to 8 year olds ages 9 to 12 year- olds you know like coding camps are a real opportunity so maybe think about incorporating a kids lab into your business or organization and that's an awesome way to usher in the youth I'm sure there's also a lot of availability as far as Community grants possibly if you are working for the Youth on that level so I want to ask ourselves right now what is our youth learning today and how are we going to prepare them for tomorrow like how are you going to fill in the Gap and on a personal level um for those of you who are like still determining your calling I would encourage you to be bold and be brave enough to step into this space like you you are all gifted you have greatness inside of you you are amazing and if you just explore that potential and be brave enough to bring the thing to life that you've been dreaming about then I think that wag me we're all going to make it honestly you can do this if I can do this you can definitely do this so honestly I'm super impressed with everything that you guys have been doing here I'm very grateful to be able to speak here at eth Denver uh let's not forget to reach back and help the young ones up and help them thrive in this space if you'd like to create maybe a children's book for your organization my name is Elizabeth Sullivan I could definitely help you out with that but I would also encourage you to look within your community I'm sure that you have plenty of artists and storytellers that would love to help Inspire the Next Generation would love to be on board with a project like that so explore those opportunities within your own Community if that's something that you'd like to build or we can talk maybe you just have a personal story that you want to explain um I can help you learn about how that publishing process goes but it really does start with believing in yourself and being brave enough to step in that was my ultimate thing that I realized through the intensity of what I experienced is you can do amazing things when you actually step into this space like these these don't just happen and they wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been brave enough to step in and it's really cool to be able to fill in a gap that only you can feel but then through your actions to be able to see an actual result from that it's super amazing I hope that all of you get to experience that uh right now my books are available on Barnes & Noble . walmart.com Amazon can check them out Elizabeth Sullivan I think that this is supposed to be like a fireside chat which is fascinating there's no Fireside and I don't know what we're going to chat about but if anybody would like the microphone or like to ask questions feel free I think we have that opportunity um keep it basic because that's what I do I explain the basics to people so got him looking around we have a question up there awesome you're coming down thank you I'm sure he appreciates that our St didn't know you get a microphone did you oh exciting hey um I was wondering what is the most difficult uh cryptocurrency or blockchain concept to explain to children like is there a specific thing that just stands out the most difficult one that I've had to explain so far like the ones the one that children have the hardest time GR grasping that's hard to what hard to grasp or understand for that to grasp oh boy it really it depends on how in depth you want to get each one has been difficult to be honest because I guess proof of steak was the hardest one to explain proof of work honey bees you can kind of find where that would fit in right but proof of stake I had a story in me and then I actually decked it for like 3 months um and I wasn't sure how to bring it to life I ended up going with someone like a horse faer and he shows his horses this magical wall of all the Horseshoes that he had shed over his fairer journey and stuff and so then each one tells a story but basically those were proof of his expertise so that was interesting to explain I think the more that I've done the more in depth that I've been able to explain and I can just answer that honestly like the three little pfps was the first one and that was easy because it was a vocabulary one but actually taking on the challenge of explaining a concept to where somebody can walk away with a good grasp of what it was that has developed better and better over time uh the one that actually I have one coming out tomorrow had I known that I would have been here at eth Denver I would have maybe rearranged the topics but the one coming out tomorrow is called the Bitcoin zoo and I am most proud of that so far because of the care that it took to explain Bitcoin and Mining and decentralization and wallets in in a very very like they just go through the zoo and meet all the animals and the animals are like I do this so that has been the challenge so far I can give you Alpha you like Alpha tonight okay yeah okay Alpha um next month for March's book is going to be about the games of Bull and Bear yep going to go into the bear market and bull run so I guess that's my answer thanks for the question anybody else have a question about publishing writing awesome okay well if you do come talk to me afterwards um I do owe a couple of people some books I'll sign it if you want to if you're interested I do have a few more books so just come talk to me and thank you very much I'll hand it over to the next speaker you guys have a great time in eth Denver