Meet Your SPOCRA Candidates

Voting Has Officially Started

The period for the first round of voting on the initial founding board members has begun earlier today and will continue until September 28th, epoch 219.

Please refer to this post for more information on the voting process:

SPOCRA Voting Information and Deadlines

Click here for a quick rundown of the process to submit your generated JSON file to the chain as metadata to a transaction.

Address: https://vote.crypto2099.io/how-to/submit-a-metadata-transaction/

The SPOCRA Candidates

There were a total of 28 candidate proposals submitted and active before the deadline passed on September 27th, 2020.

Leading up to the deadline there were more proposals, but some were removed as the SPOs who had submitted determined whether serving on the board was right for them or not.

Check out the official SPOCRA website for the candidates list.

Candidate Proposals - SPOCRA

In alphabetical order by their Discord handles below are the proposals from each of the candidates that are seeking your vote to become a founding member on the initial SPOCRA board:

ADAVZ

Hi everyone, this is JMC and run stake pool ADAVZ along with 2 more people. BS in Computer Mathematics and Master in CS, passionate about blockchain and technologies in general.

Part of open source community and tech consortiums. True Cardano believer, I believe if used in the right way and if truly democratized it can really make a sound not only in the financial world but in many industries, of course in societies! Development experience on different paradigms (currently dusting off my Haskell skills). Also leading some cloud & architecture programs in the US, 12 years of experience in IT. I want to help Cardano community and ecosystem grow! Foundation should have a decent # of rotational roles so diverse backgrounds and people can have a voice without becoming too noisy and sticky.

Go Cardano go!

adosiawolf 🐸

Hey everyone,

My name is Kyle and I’m an entrepreneur, engineer, developer, sales professional and marketer. I run the FROG pools and the Adosia IoT project.

I have a B.S.E, Electrical Engineering, spent time as a field sales engineer in high-tech semiconductors, mentored under a seasoned software architect for a few years, built out / monetized an ad-tech platform, pivoted that into an IoT payload serving platform, and am now aligning for tokenization on Cardano.

Y’all can check my background here:

Kyle Solomon - Chairman, CEO - Adosia | LinkedIn

I’ve been around since pre-ITN, contribute often, have learned much and made many new friends. My participation in the Cardano community has ultimately helped to establish a visibility and rapport within the SPO community needed to ensure we achieve unification in the execution of SPOCRA goals.

I am respectful yet irreverent, and can bring vision, tact and meaningful impact to the SPOCRA initiative.

Vote for Pedro

Ahmed Oladele (ANQA)

Hi, My name is Ahmed Oladele, I am based in Lagos, Nigeria. I run the ANQA pool ticker, I am here to represent the interest of third world countries/small pool operators at large. I have over 10 years programming knowlegde using J2EE/Spring boot applications for the financial sector.

Aryan [KURD]

Hey,

I’m a 29 year-old Kurdish activist and i’m running Kurdopia stake pool. For those who don’t know, Kurds form the largest ethnic group without a nation state of their own. Persecuted by 4 oppressive regimes in the middle east, we know what it is like not to trust the system and to want to change the system.

I’m a civil engineer by profession but converting to investor and I guess now a part time stake pool owner/operator.

I’ve been interested and invested in Cardano since 2017, drawn in by the fact that the foundations are built on peer reviewed academic research and formal methods. I stayed ever since for the vision. I’d like to believe I was the first Kurdish investor in the project, imagining the potential for my community. You see, you might not be aware but there is currently a social, ecological, feminist and grassroot democratic revolution taking place in a region called Rojava (in war-torn Syria). I believe the only element missing is a financial revolution, which Cardano could offer.

This is why I’m trying to spread awareness and build a Kurdish crypto community around the project. If you look on pool.pm, you’ll see most of my delegators are first time delegators, because they are mostly Kurds I brought into the space.

So in conclusion, I’m here for the revolution.

And btw I created a telegram group to support small pools :

Small Stake Pools Community (Introduce & promote your stake pools)

bigpey

Who am I?

Hello, my name is Peyton. I run a stakepool called Bloom and a YouTube channel about Cardano called bigpey. My goals with the channel is to educate the Cardano community about any topic and provide transparency on my opinion and thoughts on the ecosystem whether it ruffles any feathers or not. I created my first stakepool on the third epoch during the ITN and did not run a profitable stakepool for eight months. I know what it’s like to be in this ecosystem with the current parameters. I know what it’s like to operate a business with no profit in sight.

What I can I offer to SPOCRA and the community?

The two things that are most imperative to me is the health of the ecosystem, and the education of the entire community. If everyone is more informed we can make better decisions on where parameters should go and the current things plaguing the ecosystem. What I can offer first and foremost is publicity and a pipeline average delegates and the Cardano community. Second I can make video guides on how to accomplish things for both delegates and stakepool operators. I also regularly talk to hundreds of delegates a week through DM and this provides insight into what delegates desire and also their tendencies. This knowledge is useful because without having the delegates on our side SPOCRA can’t accomplish anything, this also gives me the ability to help other operators market. In my opinion SPOCRA should put the health of the network first, and I believe that stakepool operators are the best for the job as we are the men and women on the ground.

Bluecollar Crypto

What’s up Cardano family . My name is Patrick and I run BlueCollarCrypto stake pool . BLCLR is the ticker . I am a small pool operator from Cape Breton Nova Scotia , Canada . By day I am a tradesman , I am a mechanic and a carpenter . I run my own small construction company . By night I run BLCLR stake pool . I am passionate about change and passionate about what crypto, and most importantly what Cardano brings to the world . I am not here entirely for myself, I am here to represent the marginalized population of people who have no voice . My pool represents anyone of the working class poor . Anyone in the struggle who is just trying to get by. I have 15+years working with Windows . I am learning Linux now on the fly to operate my pool and understand another operating system . I am a very open minded person who enjoys meeting people from all over the world and trying to combine our cultures and customs to become better people, and to learn from one another . I believe collectively we can change the world. I feel like I just wrote an e-harmony Biography. anyways I hope to learn and grow from everyone here . I come from a trade and business background, I am a social activist at heart and believe in decentralization to the core . I think I wrote this in the right spot this time .

Follow me on Twitter- @collar_crypto

Webpage- www.bluecollarcrypto.me

Telegram —

Telegram: Contact @BLCLR

burtonrider08 — [DECNT]

Hey everybody!

I’m Ron, fellow stake pool operator, and just another human being that has recognized the massive potential of Cardano as a platform to lift up the entire human race from where we are at in this world today.

A little about me and my vision:

• My background is in industrial engineering and quality management with 14 years of experience working in various manufacturing organizations both large and small.

▹My main focus is raising performance across the board via driving system level continuous improvement initiatives.

• Focusing on helping to create a competent Cardano SPO base is essential and I’d like to help with that as well as creating infrastructure to establish best practices and standards along with robust training and verification program.

▹ A decentralized Cardano ecosystem to me is bringing in as many competent stake pool operators as we can that are willing to put in the time, money, and effort while being rewarded fairly for their contributions in securing the blockchain network.

Why me:

• My passions and beliefs have drawn me in to the Cardano ecosystem back in 2017. My work experience puts me in a great position to contribute in a way that will benefit all that want to participate in a meaningful way.
• Some skills I have that can help create/ sustain a healthy incentivized ecosystem for SPOs with pools large and small alike:

✓ Leading teams towards a common goal

✓ Driving efforts for system wide participation in best practices

✓ Listening to all parties for valuable input

✓ Collaborating with diverse groups

✓ Starting discussions on necessary topics, even difficult ones

• I’m grateful to be part of such an amazing community and remain committed to a position in helping the Cardano SPO community succeed for the long term ensuring SPOs have a strong voice.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Decent_Reality

Discord Server:

Join the The Cardano Village - SPO Community Discord Server!

Caso [CASSO]

Hi everyone,

I introduce myself briefly,

My name is Jaime Caso, I currently live in the north of Spain, but I move frequently. I am a computer engineer from the University of Granada and the Polytechnic University of Bucharest (1 year).

I have experience in Big Data, specifically in real-time processing.

You can check the rest of my skills and experiences in my LinkedIn profile, feel free to add me!

Jaime Caso Onzain - Ethereum learner at Emurgo Academy - EMURGO India | LinkedIn

I consider myself a person with criteria who know how to assess and act in critical situations, with the proactivity and objectivity that the situation requires. https://twitter.com/SirCasso

In November 2017 I began to follow the Cardano project and began to support the Hispanic community, managing groups, guiding new members, and sharing useful content.

In May 2020 I left my stable job to focus my professional career on blockchain, therefore, I enrolled Emurgo Academy, where I have already passed the first module ‘Blockchain Fundamentals’. Im currently in Ethereum module. Courses line: Fundamentals of Blockchain-> Ethereum -> Hyperledger -> Cardano

In August 2020 I launched my own stake pool [CASSO] with the main objective of learning, but in addition to teaching, therefore I dedicate part of the time sharing my experiences in the Hispanic community.

The Stake Pool Guide: https://docs.pool.casso.io/ I am currently working with cardano-db, of which I hope to launch a short tutorial and a demo soon, english and spanish.

I really want to start implementing real solutions with Cardano and collaborate with all of you, see you around, Goguen is coming, Voltaire is here!

Coconut_Pool [COCO]

I come from a background of activism and business. I built a business around connecting and organizing various activist groups and individuals online and off, at its peak i employed 12 people full time and we helped organized countless meetings and protest.

I am a good candidate for the board because I’ve got experience in organizing and dealing with people of various opinions and objectives and working together to reach common goals. I understand that its a process and that we’re not going to achieve our goals over night, or alone, and that by working together collectively we can organize our individual goals into common collective goals that we can all work to make into real actions that will change or effect future protocol decisions. I’m currently active in the community and I have the time and resources necessary to devote to this position.

CryptoCarl [CCIO]

Hello everyone, my name is Trevor. I’m the owner, my brother & I are operators of CCIO stake pool. In 2017 I found Cardano & built cardano-sl to test. I’ve been a “lurker”, engaging as “CryptoCarl”, hesitant to tie myself to projects which sound great but turn out to be much less. Cardano was different for me, the peer review & academic research gave me greattrust for this project. It quickly became my favorite and still is. I believe Cardano is the 3rd gen blockchain & is set to change our financial system & world over the next 5 years. I’m looking to the future and I’m here for the long haul.

I have held many roles in technology over the last 25 years and founded a Tech company which specialized in IT, datacenter mgmt and DevOps. Working with startups, real estate, financial & manufacturing industries and even maintaining ACH (auto clearing house) applications. We also designed, built & managed firewall, VPN & virtual stacks. Today I work as a Solutions Engineer in object storage, Petabyte scale. My skills range from networks, security, virtualization with a heavy focus on Linux. I have held multiple certifications in Networking, Linux, MS and Virtualization over the last 20 years.

CCIO has a distributed infrastructure, colocation, multiple cloud hosting providers and residential relays so as to not entirely back any 1 of the “Big 5” (ie. 4th industrial revolution). However CCIO stake pool is small, has 0 delegators and is unlikely to mint a single block in 10+ epochs. I consider myself a SMALL stake pool. I want to help small SPO’s. Especially when new features allow us to collaborate.

I believe in real social and economic equality & fredom for all. Small SPO’s need economic equality. I would love to advocate for them in SPOCRA.

SPOCRA Intro:

Discord - A New Way to Chat with Friends & Communities

Linkedin:

Trevor Benson - Customer Solutions Engineer - Scality | LinkedIn

Web: http://chaincrucial.io/

Telegram: @TL_Benson I hope you will consider me for SPOCRA.

Danny [FAY]

Full disclaimer: I do not code — love data & technology nonetheless.

By trade — studied diplomacy, international relations, & economics. Young as I was, totally ready to take on the world. For better or worse, uni had taught me that the world is one hell of a place to change. Surely there is no way I could do it in the first place. Much else alone.

Until, I got a whim of the crypto world & decentralised networks. It has brought that spark of idealism back into my mind. Foolishness in the eyes of many around me. But that hasn’t bothered me much anyways. Played around with a bunch of bitcoins back in 2013 — paid rent with’em instead & whatnot.

Part of me regrets those spendings today, the other one cherishes it. Hadn’t had a feeling of similar promise until I watched CH’s original whiteboard video back in ’17. Since, I guess, we’ve all been hooked.

My goal is therefore simple. Next couple of months will be the most transformative in the era of this network. The gradual transition from the centralised entity to a more decentralised one will not only be stressful but difficult nonetheless.

Many opinions will be voiced from every direction and they will need to be heard in a meaningful way. We need to focus more on effective communication flow and how it is managed to be able to make sense of all the noise.

Not all requests and wishes can and will be met. It will require calm heads and logic to navigate the murky waters that we are guaranteed to hit. No illusions here. There is a lot at stake for each and every one of us. Both, collectively & individually.

I don’t care what size of your pool is, how many delegates you have, how long or not you have been around, or what your background is. What matters is what your intentions are with us. And how we can help each other to advance the vision of Cardano further.

Wish to know more? Chat with me.

I’m around often. Cheerio

Dave_USA01

Fellow SPOs-

I’m Dave with United Stakes of Cardano [USA01] based in Washington, DC, and led by three co-founders who are all incredibly passionate about Cardano and are committed to adding value to the community for many years to come.

Background

I’ve been closely following the Cardano project since late 2017, and in late 2019, I took over organizing the local Cardano Meetups where we educate and engage with the community. My background is in financial services and housing where I’ve focused on strategy/corporate development, M&A, risk management, and regulatory compliance across the public and private sectors. This includes: 1) Led an acquisition of a company at an asset management startup, 2) Worked at a Federal banking agency translating complex banking regulations for the industry, 3) Consulting for financial institutions in risk/compliance, 4) Served on board/committees on regulatory matters with banking agencies, 5) Serves as an Officer on a blockchain governance at an international standards organization.

Interests and Goals

I believe strongly in the individual freedoms and that privacy is a basic human right. USA01 will continue to be a fierce advocate for the Cardano community, small stake pool operators, as well as other ecosystems with similar values. I look forward to building strong coalitions and advisory groups with other stake pool operators and community members via SPOCRA to further the viability of this small business model. USA01 is also highly interested in engaging and educating Federal, state, and local lawmakers and policy advocates on cryptocurrency, and specifically Cardano. I am committed to representing SPOCRA with balanced judgement, focused leadership, and by leveraging the diverse experience of USA01’s stakepool co-founders. Thank you for your vote! Together we will demonstrate our unwavering commitment to this project.

Dave

Telegram:

Dave [USA01]

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Dave_USA01

Drew [VOLT]

Stake Pool Operators, I have been with Cardano since September 2017 in the background and actively engaging on the Cardano Forums and Reddit. I even named my Collie Ada, which means Noble in German which is an easier explanation then naming her after a blockchain technology. But what makes me a prime candidate for SPOCRA? Genuine interested in seeing Cardano succeed and grow. Being a SPOCRA board member is not just to provide a voice for the SPOs, but able to make decisions and understand concepts that will affect the Cardano Ecosystem. SPOs job is to ensure we provide a robust ecosystem for the future of Cardano. While some SPOs want to run their pools and reap the rewards, the primary objective of the pool is to maintain a secure and robust network. That takes a deep understanding of Cardano, commitment, and time. From reading Cardano whitepapers too answering forum and reddit questions to educate and support the Cardano Ecosystem for the past 3 years, I have an understanding. I am more committed then I have ever been in supporting and growing the Cardano ecosystem even if my Pool does not. I will always be part of the SPO community for years to come. I am fortunate enough to work fully remote and in a position, where I can spend a few hours a day supporting the community where needed. While many out their don’t know me I tend to be in the background reading and understanding how the community feels as a whole and not as an individual. But who am I? I am a Cloud Security Engineer with over 7 years in Securing, breaking, and defending networks and applications. I have been in computers since the days they used floppy discs in our computer lab. If I was voted on the board, I would ensure every voice is heard and all SOCRA’s decisions are recorded and transparent.

Vote Drew — [VOLT]

Telegram:

Drew VoltPool [VOLT]

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Volt_Pool

Website: https://voltairera.com/

Frat (WEST)

I run a very small stake pool WEST, currently mostly funded by me. I’ve been an ADA holder since 2017 but did not participate on the ITN due to my money being left on an exchange during the split. That said, I’ve stayed current in the community and bring a lot of business experience to the table. Besides my own business interests I use to work for eBay as their Global Resiliency Solutions Program Manager, and before that for EDS / Hewlett Packard where I was a Regional Operations Manager for the Navy Marine Corps Intranet until hurricane Katerina where I switched rolls into IT Service Continuity Manager for the Navy’s networks in the US and Japan.

I’m certified in Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery, and Project Management. I have experience working with C-level personnel as well as US Senators / Congressmen on occasion. I’m looking to leverage my business experience as well as my love of crypto and Cardano to move our SPO community forward and to help develop the gold standard on how a diverse, decentralized community can interoperate and prosper.

A rising tide lifts all ships, and I believe this community is made valuable by diverse participation.

GeorgeBosancu [FRESH]

Aloha, I am George Bosancu, FRESH stake pool operator. Simple and secure is our motto. I support democracy, transparancy, rational debating and reward on stake for every protocol participant regardless of block production, as use of minimal pledge. Check out my latest article about voting in SPOCRA:

cardanovoting - Fresh Ada Pool

I am interested in measurements, precision, ethics and i am aiming at virtue. I am also one of the founders and the president of Innovation Association — An NGO based in Romania. I am the owner and operator of FRESH Ada pool.

Check my linkedin profile for more details

George Bosancu - Pool Operator - Fresh Ada Pool | LinkedIn

Heimdall [THORP]

Hi, my name is Marcin and I am Gamer since 1982! Born somewhere in the East, raised and socialized in the West, matured in Cyberspace! German — English — Polish

So since I was a kid the plan was to start an own gaming studio. In 1997 I joined a little dev-team in as a coder and game designer. Realizing fast that there are better and smarter people in terms of coding. From this time on I only supported the dev-team in business development and marketing/sales issues. Knowing the “language” of programmers helped me a lot to be the “connector” between devs and publishers.

Then in 2004 I´ve joined a US-based Publisher and started my “career” as a product manager, working from now on some Triple-A games and have a blast in this business until 2013. At this point the industry was flooded by “suits”. It became too much serious, from that point on I worked a lot with start-ups and help them to grow. Thanks to my degree in marketing/communication I support these young companies in business development, public relations and marketing strategies. I came across Cardano three years ago as a friend worked for the Cardano Foundation in Switzerland. Since then I follow the project and are especially keen about creating DApps with our team, which will focus on third/fourth world problems! But we also decided to definitely look to connect the Cardano-World with the Gaming-World. I still have access too a huge business network within the gaming industry. Hey beside all these serious problem-solving projects I guess it is not WRONG to spend some time on Fun, right?

Finally, we decided to run our small stake pool sadly after the ITN. But our coding guy managed very fast to set up a node, which is really running great since epoch 209. I would like to offer you all my energy, experience and business connections to support this community the best way possible! All your base are belong to us

Holger [ADA]

My Name is Holger — Founder of Cardano24, I am 43 years old and have an “extreme” IT-Background. From being the Founder & CEO of Companies till running Datacenter-Locations around the world, doing projects for German Federal Banks till Warner Bros. All this can be found in my CV.

Even if my “TechSkill-Level” is very high, I am sure there are enough other people under us with a decent knowledge-level.

I am not here to be another Tech-Guy — I am here because I believe in the following:

Mankind — I believe in the Unity of all Humans — We just need to learn it!

Freedom — Everyone should be able to share his thoughts freely and express himself like he wants if it does not harm the freedom of others!

There are no Borders — The limit is what you can imagine!

And therefore I want to apply as a candidate for SPOCRA, not only to represent EVERY Cardano-Pool in the Community (no matter which size), I also want to make sure that we do not forget our core principles and do not forget the “WE in WE”. We are UNITY.

We are Cardano!

Leo [000]

My name is Leo, I am IT professional and marketing manager for over 16 years, owner of Investment Stake Pool [000]. I run it with my friends from Switzerland and Czech Republic.

I am involved in Cardano since first public tests pre-ITN. We were amount first 4 pools to register on Shelley network. We are rather small pool.

In my free time I am helping new stake pool operators and delegators in Telegram group. I really want our Cardano ecosystem to grow and prosper.

And I see a lot of same pools or smaller than us that really want to be part of Cardano network. I am not happy with the current network situation but I understand and fully believe it can be improve. We should support each and every person that can bring something good to our ecosystem. Our task is to bring new people with new ideas for the network. To create a fair network. To support talents that can spark new light that will be beacon to others.

I believe in open source, privacy and freedom. I believe in fully decentralized Cardano!

Marco — Crypto2099

If you know me or seen me around, you know I like to use this quote a lot “You don’t know, what you don’t know”. What I do know is that pool operators are the backbone of the cardano public blockchain. We have been task with the responsibility of keeping the network maintained and secured, in exchange we are rewarded with Ada. We all have different reasons for operating a pool and we all have different personal goals but I do feel like we all want Cardano to not only succeed but to be the leader in its space. With all of that said I know we need to unite as pool operators, establish a foundation/organization that shares our thoughts and concerns in all things Cardano.

So I sit here and ask you for the opportunity to help us establish a foundation/ organization that gives us that voice, that lets us make sure the work we do is properly compensated, to establish something that will last for generations to come. I’ve been running my own businesses for over 15 years now. I know what it takes to work with different personalities. I know what it’s like to be a leader and I promise you if I don’t know the answer to a problem or a question, I will research it and find out all I can about it until I know what I need to know to properly represent you. I have the time needed to focus on this opportunity and make sure we build something to not only helps Cardano succeed but to build something that truly helps support every one of you and those who wish to join us.

We are Cardano and I’m Marco Guerrero and I hope I can earn your vote.

NoCentralAuthority [NCA]

Who am I?

To all the Stake Pool Operators, hello my name is Vlad I run No Central Authority Stake Pool. I’m 40 years old and have been a computer software and hardware enthusiast for as long as I can remember. I’m constantly hungry for new knowledge, lived in three different continents, a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner, traveler, and always trying to be an honest person.

On my summer vacations throughout my teenage years, I would assemble computers from scratch. At the age of 15, I was working as a sys-admin in a large internet provider with over 2500 customers. I was also responsible for all server maintenance on hardware and software. At the age of 16, I started my first business. I was the CEO of a city-wide computer game rooms network infrastructure providing internet and game server access to over 400 users. I have also owned 5 different successful businesses throughout my life in different fields.

Later in life I applied for college in Boston MA majoring in marketing and moved to USA. After college I moved to NYC and started working in a real estate firm. I have vast experience with team building, management, new recruits training, sales and marketing. Currently I have my own real estate business in NYC.

What will I Bring to SPOCRA.

I will be committing 20–30 hours week from my time to the SPOCRA initiative and make sure that this concoction of bright minds goes in the right direction. I will inspire drastic action and bring energy and transparency to the process. I will use my vast expertise in many different fields to make sure whoever runs SPOCRA is honest, reliable, competent and modest. I will be the voice of every stake pool operator. I do this purely driven by passion for Cardano and have no other interests!

Thank you for your vote!

Oleh Andreiev [BPRL]

Dear Colleagues operators, I’m Oleg and currently I’m running Black Pearl [BPRL] stake pool (EX Pirate Bay I did a rebranding to prevent confusion between me and original Pirate Bay website). Live in Odessa/Ukraine. Few words about me: I’m working as a JavaScript Team Lead in a big outsourcing company called Lohika. I passed the whole path to this position (From trainee). So I have enough patience to focus on something for a long time.

Check my LinkedIn if you are interested:

Oleh Andreiev - Javascript Team Lead - Lohika | LinkedIn

I don’t want to say that I’ve been invested Cardano since 2017… Unfortunately only since the last spring. But I think I have the same motivation as people which have been here for a long time. I was highly participating in the last Testnet, helping many operators to configure things (many of them are here and can confirm it). Unfortunately I didn’t attract many delegators but I’m still strong and really believe in Cardano and its purpose. Currently I’m working cooperating with adapools.org (already in their contributor list ) on IOS/Android application for adapools, it definitely proves my motivation and brings some value to community.

Oleum

I’m relatively new to SPO though I have held some ADA since 2017 and support the ideals of rigorous science behind the vision that is Cardano. I worked in Science/research/teaching all of my working life and I’m now retired. I am standing for a post on the board as I think there is a place for someone passionate about maximising decentralisation and advocating for support for small stake pools. I’m also very accessible, I’m on telegram and discord every day. I’m always happy to chat about anything any SPO needs to. I’ll run a telegram channel solely for this.

RayMata[GROW]

ALOHA Everyone,

About Me

My name is Ray, by trade I am a network & systems engineer who owns a small MSP on the Big Island of Hawaii for the last 16yrs. Like many small business owners, I wear a lot of hats to make sure the job is done and our hard-working employees get paid. With Cardano I am driven by a force to give more than I ever have, that has kept me up all night helping others build their pool and now supports anyone and anything that brings the vision of Cardano one step closer to reality.

Why SPOCRA?

I remember the day SPOCRA formed, real concerns about the future of our SPO community were flying around all the channels, Charles was encouraging us to form a trade association, I saw how much our SPO community needed a voice at the CF table. I saw how many committed and talented and skilled people we have here and how much they cared about making the Cardano vision a reality. I witnessed firsthand that first day ideas become a plan and within 24hrs Charles was already talking about SPOCRA on his live streams. Today, I see a thriving community ready to give whatever it takes to bring Cardano the development, adoption and partnerships it will need to be what is designed and destined to be.

My future contributions to Cardano:

1. Educate our youth at the schools, local meet-up groups, anywhere.
2. Weekly Q&A live streams to promote & educate Cardano vision.
3. Start traveling to other countries & work on the ground for adoption and partnerships.
4. All things Atala PRISM.

I humbly ask for your vote to represent your wants, needs and concerns. I ask for your trust in bringing my expertise and dedication to never giving up the mission to organize our community around our highest values. I simply want to make it easier for us all, no matter how big or how small, to be what we are, the backbone for a new global financial and social operating system. I am here to serve you.

Shweta_kBLOCKs

My short background:

I come from a very humble town of India called Jhansi. I have always questioned the norms of society which has led me from just a girl in a small town of a third world country to the First Engineer of my family to a Technical Lead in Accenture Denmark.

What Makes me Different:

— First Female Stake Pool Operator on Shelley

— Creator and Admin of “Ladies of Cardano”

Ladies of Cardano

(Also mentoring other female SPOs in creation of Stake Pools plus ensuring that they follow best security/technical practices)

— Strong technical background (studied Bachelor of Technology and working as Technical Lead in Accenture) so I fully understand security and systems

— Passionate about speaking to the people and for the people and have good understanding of business (as I did Master of Business Administration)

— Last but not the least being a woman, I am bound to provide a different perspective from men, which is what makes any ecosystem healthy and sustainable in the long run

My Future Plans with Cardano:

— To provide women a voice in this ecosystem: Not because I do not like men but we need to involve rest of the 50% of population in order to make Cardano a household name

— To give back to the society I came from:

With the introduction of the Goguen era, I want to implement various use cases of Cardano (ranging from Finance sector to Health care sector) in Rural parts of India. Just imagine making Cardano available to an additional 1.3 Billion!

StakePool247 (Lauris | EU01)

Hello fellow members,

I’m Lauris and have been with the Cardano project since 2018 when I first heard about this project. Overall I have been with the crypto industry since late 2013 when I was building my mining farm (GPUs and later ASICs). Have seen a lot of useless projects with powerful marketing as well as great ideas with poor support. I think Cardano has it all — Great Vision, fantastic support from the community, and capability to convert the vision to reality! Previously I have been working as an IT lecturer and later worked for such large corporations as Microsoft and Samsung but left the corporate world to start my businesses (some failed and some of them successful). I have a strong technological background and a business-oriented person. Cardano now is one of the main projects for me.

Currently, I’m running my pool: EU01 which I started on the first days of ITN and now “migrated” to the Mainnet, also I’m administrating several multi-server pools for other pools owners. So far I’m managing a telegram group where I have been helping a group (250+) of new stake pool operators by guiding them on how to run a stake pool using the following channels:

— telegram channel:

StakePool247 Support Group

— youtube videos:

Stake Pool247

— online manual:

Cardano Node 1.19.1 (Stake Pool) installation guide (MainNet) for dummies

My goal is to educate and create technical awareness on how to run a successful stake pool and I’m against having a script kiddie generation of stake pool operators.

Cardano has a HUGE potential to change the whole blockchain industry from which a lot of people around the world would benefit. But to succeed — we need to build this on Solid Foundation — and one of the blocks in this foundation are pool operator and their mindset.

I’m willing to put my time in developing the right mindset and technical knowledge and awareness about the project so Cardano would become the gold standard in the blockchain industry.

ThaiTheo [VRITS]

Hello fellow stake pool operators,

My name is Theo van Raaij, stake pool operator of VRITS and an IT professional for over 30 years which anyone can verify for themselves at

Theo van Raaij - Senior IT Datacenter Consultant - Wolters Kluwer - Tax & Accounting Europe |…

But life is not about what you have done in the past. It is about everything you are doing now and the things that you will do in the near future. Five years ago I set the goal to retire myself in 2021 or 2022 and migrate to Thailand. And I’m happy to say that I’m still on track.

In my opinion SPOCRAs goal is to safeguard the interests of the majority of stake pool operators while keeping the Cardano Ecosystem healthy and in good condition. To accomplish this we need to start with building a solid basis. After that we can start to create a SPOCRA roadmap, present it to all SPOCRA members and ask for approval to proceed with the roadmap.

This might look very simple, but in reality it will be very challenging. Because each board member has her or his own ideas, experiences and opinions. This will sometimes lead to healthy and unhealthy discussions. In order to succeed however we will need to stay focused on what we are trying to achieve as SPOCRA.

Instead of what has been written above, I could have told you about my past, ideas, experiences and opinions. Trying to persuade voters to vote on me. But most SPOCRA members don’t know me and all my words could be a complete fabrication of my imagination. Actions to me means more than words.

So I ask all voters to have a critical look at what all candidates have done so far and what they are doing now within the forum, discord server, twitter, telegram, website, etcetera. In other words: DYOR before voting and make your vote count.

Thank you for reading my candidate proposal until the end.

toshz [TOSHZ]

Hi everyone! My name is Razvan Lungu and I’m from Romania. I have a BS in Computer Science and have been working as a Web Developer for 10 years. I’m passionate about technology in general and I’ve been following Cardano since 2017. I realize the potential of Cardano as an industry changing technology. That being said, I’ve seen lots of stake pool operators promoting their pool for the good of the world and all that crap.Look, I’m not into that kind of hypocrisy. Yes, I’m into the Stake Pool “business” for the potential it has to generate profit. I don’t mind breaking even. But I can’t support a $400/month cost for too many months in full. As long as costs and rewards are somewhat even, then I am ok with maintaining my pool as long as I can.

This is my pool:

• Ticker: TOSHZ
• Name: Toshz Cardano Staking Pool
• Pool ID: bf082b24ce9ad72f0eb48beecf231466b62b7a8ce0890c7a9dcef87a
• Fee: 4%
• Pledge: 5K ADA -
• Website: https://lungurazvan.ro/cardano/

Server Specifications: -Hosted on AWS -Block Producer with 2 relay nodes and a third in standby, each on a separate instance -Location: Frankfurt, Germany -Instances configuration: 4vCPUs, 16GB ram, 256GB SSDs with swap enabled (just in case), 5Gbps network connection Security: -All inbound/outbound ports not required for node operation are closed -One single user with access: myself -SSH disabled and only enabled for monitoring/updates -Encrypted storage (paranoia? maybe) If anyone has any questions feel free to ask. Also checkout the coincashew guide, that team did an amazing job with their staking pool guide.

Wes [FLOWR]

Hi everybody, I’m Wes, 32 years old and the pool operator of FLOWR. I run my own IT company in The Netherlands for 8 years now. Before I work for a finance company as Microsoft system engineer(MCSE Certified) and start with Linux around June 2019 (when jormungandr starts). This was also the time when I fell in love with the Cardano project. Before this I was just a ada holder from 2017. I am apply because smaller SPOs also need to be heard. I have been committed to this from the beginning of ITN with various simple instruction video’s. In these video’s I try to explain to delegators why these pools are important to the network and why you should not ignore them.