Yes, we did it!
The first “humanitarian aid package” sent through the Opakeco Platform arrived at its recipient.
Sekou Tamba, a 34-year-old agricultural labourer from Mali, is the first recipient of a solar-powered water purification system. It’s as small as a coffee machine, but it has the amazing ability to cleanse water!
Photos of Sekou proudly holding the purification system, quickly go viral and adoption of our platform goes mainstream. Charities, donators and suppliers apply en-masse to use our platform where they first go through a very thorough vetting process.
We did it, our Opakeco-rating is a benchmark for accountability and transparency within the charity-sector. As I walk towards my desk and pick up my freshly prepared —
Beep. Beep. Beep.
With an euphoric feeling I open my eyes, slightly frustrated after realizing that the sound is coming from the alarm I had set the night before. I pick up my iPhone and press the power button, it is 07.15 AM. Immediately I realize have several meetings planned today that can make this dream a reality.
In a split-second my frustration is replaced by a boost of energy. Can’t wait to get to the office today to make some tangible progress in realizing this dream!
Consensus is key in decision making
As we move closer to our launch date, I feel I need to further emphasize what we stand for and why we made certain choices.
For instance our governance system, where contributors hold the power over funds and steer the foundation with their votes, is a clear example of our faith in a participating community. As a well thought-out trade-off versus possible bad actors, We believe the humanitarian cause we stand for will not be a target for a malicious 51% take-over.
On the other hand we clearly keep the option open for external parties to jump aboard and remove one of the founders or even all of us, if they are not satisfied with the way the foundation is led.
Community consensus is key in decision making, especially when it comes to humanitarian causes. We want to make clear this is very important to us, this is why we have also decided to cut our own percentages in half. Now the founders only have 12,5% of the tokens, these will be distributed gradually over a period of 5 years.
Even though I personally did not receive a lot of negative feedback about the percentages, we as a team feel the only focus should be our goal: Bringing accountability and transparency to humanitarian causes.
By halving our percentages, we hope to prove our interests are truly aligned with the goal of the foundation.
Side note: I can honestly say this decision was made unanimously and without hesitation. And that I am very proud to be with a team of people who believe that what they are doing has the potential to change the world for the better and is willing to work for the greater good.
Opportunities on the horizon
As I put down another meeting in my agenda, I notice a personal assistant may be necessary soon. I already had to reschedule several meetings because one meeting took almost twice as long.
Now that our message is spreading, new opportunities are presenting themselves. Investors, charities and well-doers are contacting us and asking how we can create mutually beneficial partnerships.
We are positively overwhelmed with all the private and public entities that have taken an interest in our foundation and want to support us in one way or another.
We are working as hard as we can to bring these partnerships to fruition before the ICO. We will keep you updated as we progress.
Niko van Meurs
We are continuously growing and looking for new ways to expand our (advisory) team to cover an even wider array of expertises.
As CTO of a codesports platform, a platform where software engineers compete with one another based on code. Niko has ample experience in managing tech startups. Furthermore, Niko has taken on a variety of roles in development teams in the past, ranging from UX design to DevOps.
As an advisor, Niko will help to streamline design processes and help out the development team whenever necessary.
ICO Launch date: 01–09–2017
As we move closer to our ICO date, I would like to ask you to audit our contracts and give us feedback on the project.
We expect all the contracts on our GitHub account to be ready for auditing on 17–08–2017.
If you want to learn more about the Opakeco foundation check out the website. And of course anyone is welcome to ask questions via any of our social media channels.
To add to this: you can join our Slack simply by signing up at: https://www.opakeco.org/join-slack.
I hope to talk to you about our project on one or more of our social channels very soon.
Akash Parmesar
Crypthusiast, Philanthropist and Co-Founder of Opakeco
