Kind of starting a blog, and have been journaling about MaidSafe/ SAFE-FS outreach I’ve been doing in various countries over the years. Here are some entries:
Mexico LatAm SAFE-FS Outreach July 2019
It’s been a very tough crypto winter, seeing 85%+ drops, been going through a very hard time & soul searching. I’m not able to afford to stay in Asia anymore for now and looking for new areas to do my freelance work and SAFE-FS when possible. As this is more of a SAFE-FS blog draft than a journal, so I’ll keep it relevant. Got a very affordable ticket to Mexico, recommend anyone to visit. Lots of tourists and business-minded people. Very affordable place, I stayed in hostels for $8 /night for almost 2 months then moved into a longer term apartment for $320 /month. Nice 2nd story apartment, not too big but just enough. Nice view of the little street in Cancun city, which is a crowded place and lots of cars but nice. Been posting online for groups to find people who would like to hear about MaidSafe and found a nice one that is crypto related, which is usually the closest you can get.
Anyway, have been trying to learn more Javascript, still learning. And met a nice group of locals and foreigners working on different crypto startups. One is a brainiac that made a way to pay with crypto here locally, with QR codes, and seems to be helping. Developing countries take more to crypto than western ones. Others are working with the local Bitcoin HQ and organize events. Hopefully I can get a chance to speak; decentralized internet projects really appeal to crypto groups.
There was a couple from Colombia that is investing in land and was brainstorming a way to put land onto the blockchain instead of the disorganized system that people use to track land ownership here, with minimal record keeping / integrity / security at times, according to them. It’s exciting to see the decentralized systems start to grow around us, even if they are blockchain-related.
Little logo I made for them, & pic of a QR code for the restaurant.
The last guy was from America and was very privacy focused. Don’t want to be suspicious of that, and just respect everyone’s right to privacy, but at times I genuinely felt like he was worried I was the FBI or IRS and trying to find him and get him to discuss things that he didn’t want to discuss, when I felt like I was just making small talk. Never met anyone like that before but took it all in stride and it definitely comes with the crypto territory. Tried making friends with him and everyone and invited him to join SafeNetForums and MaidSafe groups if he is interested in creating secure, private data systems!
I’ve been thinking recently about good influencers to try to tell about MaidSafe, as I feel that would be a huge boost. I’ve been watching George Gammon lately, as well as Heresy Financial and some channels like that, who I feel are very freedom / capitalism / decentralization of power minded (one of their mottos is END THE FED) so I feel like MaidSafe’s economic, privacy focused, individualistic vision would resonate hugely for them, and their large follower base.
Anyway I’ll post these pictures from the meetup, I was visiting other meetups and trying to get people to sign up for my group but not much luck yet. Will persevere!
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SAFE-FS DR Outreach Aug 2022
The DR is another country like Mexico where English truly isn’t spoken anywhere outside tourist locations, and even more so here. It is a very beautiful country though with a affordable cost of living, probably due to the language barrier keeping most other people out. Nevertheless there is somewhat of a crypto scene here, and we have had a good amount of people join my Meetup page for it (you have to have Bitcoin in the name for people to join, even though I’d rather call it MaidSafe only) before & after I went there, leaving the door open to more in the future.
I rented a small coworking office meeting room for 2 hours for about $20 (1,000 pesos) which was fine but didn’t have anybody show up, and that left me pretty deflated. We only had about 20 or so people in the group at that time, but several RSVP’d so that was still a shame, as I had my whole presentation ready. Later in the week I took a $7 “Caribe Express” bus to the north side of the island, where I was able to meet Gilberto in a Dominican crypto facebook page, and we chatted and he told me about a restaurant owner he knew who wanted to add crypto to her menu. We ended up going there and talking about Bitcoin & MaidSafe, and several of her customers (tourists & locals both) ended up joining in the conversation so it was kind of like an informal meetup.
Since the group I made here has almost quadrupled since last time, I think DR is an option for a future event, and will keep it on my radar here in Latin America.
I’m also planning one in Bogota Colombia, which has grown at a crazy pace, and gets me very excited. I think the airport meeting rooms would be best, but there are a few venues I’m considering. Hopefully its a good turnout, and everyone is welcome to come and learn about MaidSafe & SAFE-FS. Thanks!
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PR SAFE-FS Outreach March 2022 ’
Had a great week of meetup events during a short, focused trip to PR. This week had the most events so this might be a long blog entry. There’s a ton of crypto / blockchain meetups open to everyone in San Juan almost every week, and so many interesting people with different stories. I took the bus from the airport for about $2 and then got to another bunk bed hostel which was about $18 a night; more than double Mexico. Won’t be able to stay here long, but it’s very pretty and very developed, compared to the places I’ve been living forever now. Food and everything is much more expensive here too, practically USA prices, $8 for a plate of food (4x Mexico, etc) but stay focused.
First meetup I went to on this trip was called Crypto Mondays, and it’s about $10 but at a giant bar in a super nice hotel. There were two areas: the bar side for chatting with the large group of about 100 or so attendees, and a different side with chairs for listening to some type of crypto presentation. I asked if they were taking speakers, because I’m always excited to try and speak about MaidSafe, but it seems like their presentations were focused on a type of fundraising effort and were planned weeks ago with a firm schedule.
So I stayed at the other side and just was able to wear my SAFE-FS shirt which helped get conversations going with the nice people around me. The first person I talked to arrived early like me, when not many people had shown up yet, so we talked about his work and crypto experiences. He was a doctor from Texas who started a health channel and investments into crypto. He was genuinely interested in MaidSafe and asked alot about the network architecture and how it can work. I happily explained what I knew but threw in a few caveats about timelines and how it’s not quite ready for him to try out quite yet.
Then I talked to a few hedge fund guys, one was young and “arbitraged coins cross-exchange to generate profit for his investors,” and the other was older and was more of a trad-fi investor who was getting his fund into crypto and looking for new investments. It was interesting listening to them speak to each other; it’s like there’s a whole hedge-fund lingo that they use, which I barely understood.
Some other people I talked to included other general crypto investors, one said he invested in Ethereum when it was pennies and still holds over 50,000 ethereum coins, which I wasn’t sure to believe or not but I guess it’s possible. There was an older engineer man in a red shirt that was interested in hearing about SAFE-FS and MaidSafe, and a few regular guys like me who were just here working on small projects and looking to network.
Some of the best contacts I made were local spanish-speakers, one of which was a NFT artist who is making custom NFT collections with new art generated by AI and customized to each Latin American country’s flag, to celebrate the different countries and cultures individualities. He was great and he ended up coming to my MaidSafe presentation later in the week. Another in this group was a vegan farmer who works with underprivileged youth and solar panels, who ended up actually giving me a ride back to the $8 bunk bed hostel that night because he was great and we just vibed really well.
All in all it was a good networking event, and while I wasn’t able to call ahead and set up an opportunity to present in front of the many people seated on the other side of the bar, I feel like I spread MaidSafe to as many people as I could, and just got ready for the rest of the events this week. But you always wish you could have done more.
The next event I went to was called Deep Work Meetup, and while it was filed under the crypto section, it was more general. Deep Work was explained to me by the founder to mean work that you are truly meant to do in life, that inspires you and allows you to get into a zone where you are hyper-efficient and feel fulfilled. It was a group of only 5 of us so it was very intimate, and I was able to learn about everyone and explain MaidSafe to interested ears.
When I was finished explaining they asked questions which I was able to answer, and I think a few of them might have joined the forums, because I saw at least 2 open the site. One couple was from America & Ukraine, and starting a family, and the other two were younger professionals like me, and all 4 of them worked at the same office together.
When I was finished talking about MaidSafe, the founder of the meetup told me that he thought I “passed the test” and have found my Deep Work in life.
The final meetup I did that week before my $100 ferry ride to DR was the one that I hosted at a coworking space downtown, for only about $40 and two people (out of the many I had talked to) ended up showing up: an older french man from my hostel who was very friendly and the equally nice NFT local artist I met at Crypto Mondays.
We talked, drank some water & sodas from the included fridge, then went upstairs where I presented my Prezi about MaidSafe which I entitled “State of the Internet 2022” as a tip of the hat to the recent State of the Union address given. Here is a full link to it, and I am posting a video below with what I was able to record. The whole meeting was great, lasted about 3 hours, but I wasn’t able to get my phone to record the whole thing, even though I was trying to use 2 phones in case one filled up or had any issues. But after the Prezi, both guys asked great questions and checked out the MaidSafe forums. A Decentralized internet truly is an engaging topic that gets people genuinely interested.
Here’s a link if you want to see the Prezi I presented to them:
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Oh I’ll get that video of the Prezi speech processed and uploaded
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