Nobody said it was easy (nobody said anyways one should use a freakin’ Coldplay song in your title either)
Warning: TMI.
Every day we get emails saying how excited are people about this new ETHBerlinZwei, the concept, the experiences, the modular approach, the existing talent, the newcomers, the extravaganza, the diversity.
Doing this is an extremely rewarding experience. It is an experience that has spawned a project, and now a non-profit organization where we pour our hearts and souls, and we personalise to the maximum — we deal with what haunts us and make it possible for other people to do the same.
You might think that we’re overreacting by saying this. But the medium, as McLuhan says, IS the message. We created something, we didn’t really know it would serve as a healing mechanism to the wider DoD. But here it is. We all have jobs, but on top of that, we have DoD and ETHBerlin. It’s ours, and nobody can take it away from us. Even when our jobs disappoint us, or we feel we are caught in a rat race — we always have DoD to express ourselves, the growth of it is only limited by our own limitations, and as we work in a team, those limitations can be beat by simply, approaching them as a team.
How fucking utopian.
Truth is, we have all of this. We work for free because it’s fun, because this is our baby. However, our success this year largely depends on pulling ETHBerlinZwei through, which surprisingly, costs money.
We read messages from hopeful hackers all the time. Some are coming from Egypt, first time out of the country, had to get a passport. One told us how they believed that we can help them beat imposters syndrome (I have not still reached out to you but hey — I have imposter’s syndrome too — let’s chat when you’re here.)
Other people in their applications have chosen to express how they see our weirdness intersected with our search for innovation is the right fit for them. In between their impressive applications, they tell us how they need a platform to express their sexuality, and asexuality. Honestly, we’re all mad here. We can coexist and build amazing things (and by building we also mean amazing sustainable businesses/start-ups/OS projects). See Piñata, or Goerli, xDAI, or the MetaCartel. All born during ETHBerlin last year.
But this costs money.
DoD/ ETHBerlin chose to be grassroots because this is the only way that we can feel a higher sense of responsibility and serious skin in the game and grow the project. So we largely depend on donations, and sponsorships. Please consider helping us out. We are one of the first charities of our kind for the Decentralized Ecosystem.
Now, we don’t know if we will be the next W3C, the next EFF, but we will surely find a path along the way. We’re just one year old and already have a massively successful hackathon, a fully operational Testnet we are pushing forward, a collaborative free educational program, and an arts program with a published paper. With our next project just right around the corner, we need all the support we can get.
We pledge to do the work to take DoD to the next frontier, can you help us reach our goal and cater to the incredible talent we have ready to hit ETHBerlinZwei?
Reach us out please — joinus@ethberlin.com
Donation address just in case → 0x82338B1b27cfC0C27D79c3738B748f951Ab1a7A0
