Our main goal at DNN is to address fake and sensationalized news by holding everyone in the news dissemination process accountable. In order to cultivate accountability, we’re leveraging on blockchain technology and digital currencies to ensure transparency and incentivize active participation in the media landscape. In addition, we’re also counting on a team of professional and academic advisors for their infinite industry knowledge and insightful ideas.
As we continue to work towards our goals, we’re eager to share their wisdom with you. Join us every Thursday for an in-depth Q&A with one of our talented DNN advisors, and get to know some of the visionaries behind the DNN platform.
This week, we’re chatting with Rebecca Rachmany, CEO at Gangly Sister LLC, a new media company with the mission of transforming how girls are portrayed in the media.
Q: How did you first come across the Decentralized News Network? What were your initial thoughts on the project and how have they changed since coming on board the DNN team?
A: I was researching a book on identity, and I was introduced to the DNN team through one of their partners. It turns out nothing they said on identity was relevant to the author, but I read the whitepaper and sent feedback, because I’ve been interested in decentralized government and the next evolution of democracy, and because I have some journalism experience.
As an industry, we are dealing with the issue of governance, specifically self-governance and self-regulation. We want to implement fairer and wiser voting systems, for example. But as soon as you think about the issue of decision-making, whether that’s on the individual or group level, you realize that the fundamental ingredient for decision making is facts. How can we ever create wiser decisions if we can’t even agree on what’s factual? The current political system has polarized people to the point that they are unable to discern opinion from fact. It’s impossible to make an appropriate decision without facts. From this perspective, what DNN is trying to do is fundamental to democracy and the future of humanity as a whole. The founders of today’s democracies recognize the importance of the press and protect it in a number of ways. And yet, if you look at the history of journalism, it’s always been distorted in one way or another. What the DNN team is attempting to do is create a verifiable system where everyone can stop arguing about the facts and start leveraging them for the betterment of themselves, their communities, and the world as a whole.
Q: What is your specific area of influence on the DNN project?
A: One of my main roles is to listen to Samit rant about how bonkers the ICO market is so he can let off a little steam. Dondrey usually listens in and laughs a lot during those sessions, because the market truly is bonkers. But seriously, I think most of what I do with them is consider hard problems, not on the algorithmic side, but in a variety of other areas. Because I’m a communications expert, usually the guys consult with me when they are having trouble conveying a message. If you’ve ever spoken to these guys, you know that they are extremely articulate. So, actually, when they are having trouble conveying a message it usually turns out that there is some underlying logic that isn’t working. We’ve discussed everything from tokenomics to how to include first-hand news accounts reliably, through what it is that constitutes “news.”
Q: When and how did you originally begin learning about blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies? What elements of DNN’s project, from a blockchain/crypto perspective, are most exciting to you?
A: I only started looking at blockchain seriously about a year ago, despite the fact that I know a lot about database technology. Or maybe because I know a lot about database technology. “How exciting could a new database be?” I asked myself.
What most excites me from a crypto perspective is the idea that we can create ecosystems of value without traditional monetary expression. I like the idea that we can reward people in new ways and we can reward people for positive contributions. Today, media rewards are flipped on their heads. You get more money and more credit when you create sensationalist and fake news. News has become a slave to advertising. I’m excited that cryptocurrency creates a parallel reward system. Some people believe that tokens will become a kind of bartering system. It’s fascinating to think that different communities can create their own assets that have some kind of value in the world. It might not add up to monetary value as we know it today, but it’s obvious that we value the truth, and having a kind of a truth-token that measures someone’s reliability is extremely interesting. I wrote a guest blog for R-Block about how reputation is our most important professional asset. Our reputation determines everything in our personal and professional lives. Imagine a world when I can prove my truthfulness over time through a kind of a scoring system. Would that be something I could leverage professionally? How about personally? “Look at my truth score, honey. If I say I didn’t eat that last slice of cake, the statistics show that has an 89.2 percent chance of being true!”
Q: Considering both the media and tech industries consist of predominantly male orientated workforces, why is it important to challenge the stereotypical portrayal of women in media? More specifically, how will progress in this realm impact gender norms in society more broadly?
A: It’s important to challenge every stereotype. As humans, we don’t fit into some kind of neat and clean category. But I want to address your second question about gender norms. Look, we are talking about the truth here, so forgive me if I don’t mince words. You use the term “gender norms.” There is nothing normal about how women are treated in our society. Women are portrayed as objects to be displayed, acquired, utilized, or violated. That’s not something you will ever hear me call a “norm.” The euphemism you used, that’s a perfect example of how our vocabulary hides the truth. You want me to talk about the horrifying discrimination against half the human race and you say “impact gender norms.” We can’t tell the truth when we are being nice. I hope that by having straight, truthful news, we’ll be able to just have straight, truthful conversations in all areas of our lives. I hope we will eliminate the press biases where some acts are called mass murder and some are called terrorism, based on the ethnicity of the person committing the crime. As a society, we need to stop a lot of the political correctness and just call a spade a spade.
Q: Encouraging more women to join the entrepreneurial space is another area of advocacy that you’re passionate about. Tell us about your experience in this area. Is there a specific project, other than Gangly Sister, that you are proud of spearheading?
A: Gangly Sister is all about planting seeds with children, about having them create a dream and a goal for themselves. If you don’t know there is such a thing as a software engineer, you can’t dream of being one when you grow up. If your image of business people is one of greedy rich men, you won’t set the goal of becoming an entrepreneur. Gangly Sister portrays technology and entrepreneurship as the fastest means to change the world, because it is. The goal is to set up kids with the idea that it’s worthwhile to become an engineer or inventor, so no matter what the obstacles are they will be able to become contributors to our future.
As far as the second question, I would like to point out someone else’s accomplishment. I just came back from speaking at the Blockchain Economic Forum in Singapore. Now, if you’ve spent any time in Blockchain, you know that there are extremely few women in the field; even fewer than in the general technology landscape. Yet, the organizers at BEF had women on every single panel. Several panels had two women. They had women CEOs pitching on stage. I have never, in my entire 30 years in technology, seen anyone do such an outstanding job of representing women at a technology conference. It’s so noteworthy that I had to mention it. Going back to my first point with Gangly Sister, this almost certaintly did not happen by accident. The people organizing BEF didn’t just arbitrarily somehow end up with these women on the panels. Someone set a goal that seemed unachievable, and they accomplished it. I don’t know who that someone was, but I can almost guarantee that it didn’t “just happen.”
Q: What do you believe is the best benefit of blockchain technology? How do you believe it’s changing the world? How do you see DNN fitting into this change?
A: Blockchain technology has the potential to do a lot of good, in particular when it comes to humans being able to form more flexible forms of community and collaborative decision-making. DNN is one of many organizations forming a community with its own self-governance, self-regulation, and self-compensation model. Every one of these new models is a form of expression of that specific community, and each one of these new forms of self-expression provides a module in the society we are building on top of the blockchain.
Q: Offering insight and guidance, advisors are a crucial component to the success of any blockchain startup. In fact, mentors play an important role in the self development of human beings. With that being said, who is your role model, and or mentor, and why?
A: Whether you call them mentors, colleagues, masterminds, or advisors, the absolute number one most important thing for your success, in any area, is the people you surround yourself with. The attitudes, habits, expectations and norms of those people will determine your trajectory more than anything else. That’s the first, last, and middle thing to know about success. Your goals change over time, and the areas where you need mentoring change over time. The mentor who has made the most difference to me over the last year is a man name Jason Sisneros. He’s created and sold numerous companies and he’s my role model for several reasons. For one thing, he has success in multiple areas in life. He has a healthy body, a great marriage, well-adjusted children, tremendous joy and energy, and on top of that, business success. To me, someone who is successful has a balance. They don’t have to have it all, but they have to have more than one area where they are successful to be a role model in my eyes.
Secondly, Jason spends almost all of his time paying it forward. Some of that is time is paid, but only on a success basis. He doesn’t take “consulting fees.” He only takes success fees. That’s another admirable quality. Most of the time, though, he spends volunteering and donating his money to causes he cares about. He took his business experience in growing companies and is now working with organizations such as Feed a Billion, City Gala, and other who are doing amazing work to improve our world. The man is Generosity Walking. Finally, in very rapid sessions, Jason has personally given me guidance that shifted the trajectory of my business more than once in the last year. There are very few people who have made such dramatic shifts for me and my life in conversations of half an hour or less. Jason is just that guy. He has been there, done it.
Q: What is your favourite book and why?
A: I don’t have a favorite but I’ve noticed that everyone in the industry is talking about this oldie called Animal Farm by George Orwell. Maybe if I re-read it, I’ll be able to figure out why.
About DNN
DNN (Decentralized News Network) is a news curation platform powered by the Ethereum blockchain. It’s our goal to encourage the dissemination of factual, unbiased political news by incentivizing accountability at all levels of the news consumption process. We’re news for the people, by the people.
Our DNN token presale is currently live. Contact presale@dnn.media to participate.
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