Please Note: This application is not affiliated to either side of the current debate and referendums that are currently running. I have followed the bounty since its inception and decided to get my profile out to the community now in the hope that I can add to the team once the new world has been established. What is important to me is making what is an immeasurably positive function work harder for the community.
Lucy Coulden
X: @lucycoulden
TG: @lulu_clden
Discord: lucycoulden57130
Why are you a great fit for the curator role?
As many of you will know, I joined the ecosystem in early 2022 until recently, working with Bjorn Wagner, Parity CEO and W3F Advisor. Initially as his Executive Assistant and later, Director of Executive Operations. Before Polkadot, I was at Improbable, supporting the C-suite team and prior to that, supported Atomico CEO, Niklas Zennström. Before Tech, I worked in Private Equity with both IR and Deal teams and earlier, in recruitment and Business Development. In total, I have executed 10+ events for the Polkadot ecosystem, been involved in many more and c. 150 events throughout my career.
A constant thread weaving throughout my nearly 20 years experience is a passion and skill for events. During this time, I have organised and managed a multitude of events for employers, private clients and personal contacts. From weddings and parties to corporate away days, conferences, metaverse concerts, private dinners, fireside chats, team offsites, festivals, virtual summits. I have organised events for up to 500 people and have been involved in events for up to 5000, managing budgets of up to $10M.
Throughout my life I have gravitated towards people, finding huge rewards in bringing different groups and individuals together; creating an environment where stories, ideas and passions can be shared and enriched as a result. Since leaving Parity in March 2024, I have worked with a number of different projects and attended community and external events (Sub0 Bangkok, Token2029 Dubai, Decentralized Lugano). My aim has been to immerse myself within the wider community, deepen my understanding of the tech and enrich my knowledge of how all of the constantly moving pieces come together. This way, I ensure that I am laser focussed on the areas that I can provide the greatest benefit to the growing Polkadot ecosystem and offer a uniquely tailored service within my role or roles, sharpening my contributions to date. My time at Parity was intense and enriching, but I welcomed the idea of decentralisation as I believe it forces creativity and collaboration to lengths unseen in a traditional, centralised model.
I am confident that innovation and results will be immense in this new world, but I equally see a need for increased guidance and shared expertise from ‘experts’ across all fields; replacing a centralised core leadership group with a vast network of experience in all fields. In the planning and execution of results driven events I am highly accomplished, in the building and sharing of relationships I flourish and in my unwavering belief that Polkadot is the leader in blockchain technology I will continue to work unremittingly to share this fact with the rest of the world. This triad makes me a strong candidate for the position of the events bounty curator and I hope to have the opportunity to continue the fantastic achievements that the bounty team have achieved to date as it is crucial to the further success of Polkadot.
How would your involvement in Bounty #17 lead to improvements and what do you think these would look like?
I have followed the work of the current curator group since the inception of the events bounty and wholly appreciate the time and effort that has gone into ensuring the first iteration of this venture experienced some great successes. It is important to fully understand any organisation that you go into and to establish whether joining would bring benefit to the team, their clients (the community) and you personally; this is no different for the Polkadot bounties. Therefore I have studied past wins, difficulties faced and community feedback since the bounty has been active. I recognise the hard-fought achievements and hope to retain a lot of the value it brought, whilst also understanding how the community think the new program should next evolve and blossom.
My takeaways from everything that has been publicly discussed and physically executed have led me to confidence that I could bring the following as a curator:
- Increased scope
Currently the events bounty covers events only - rented space, F&B, entertainment, guest list. There is an opportunity to facilitate increased exposure by:
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Supporting teams / individuals to obtain speaking slots at relevant events
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Championing collaborations that have already passed on chain - such as Inter Miami and Indy500, ensuring the benefits that come with such relationships are fully extracted - every seat available is taken, every opportunity to invite key players met.
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Assisting in the establishment of new partnerships through allowing co-sponsor events to be considered.
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Proposal simplification and accessibility:
One benefit that is potentially being overlooked with the bounties is that the submission does not necessarily need to be written. The form is as detailed as an on-chain proposal and this is time consuming but more importantly, can be daunting to those who are new to the process or for whom the written word does not flow as easily. The most successful events are a perfect balance of content and enjoyment and for this, creativity is key. Harnessing such creativity in a written document might not always be the easiest or best way of capturing a vision. I would propose that an alternate submission be considered - a panel discussion. I do not think that this would increase the time required by curators, in fact it should speed the process up if managed correctly, as all parties would be required to come to the table prepared, ask and respond to all questions as they come up and reach a decision more rapidly as everyone is in the same (virtual) room. To keep the curators and event organisers accountable to the wider community all panels would:
- Require a basic submission - time, date, location, no. of people, budget (total and per person), reason for organising, expected outcome. To be posted in the Forum ahead of the meeting along with the agreed time and date for the panel.
- Be prepared to engage in a meaningful discussion which results in a decision being made at the end of that day.
- Detailed minutes to be posted to the Forum alongside the decision.
I have extensive interviewing experience and have taken minutes for CEO and Board Directors for a number of years, so if this is something that the community feel would be beneficial, I could lead this initiative confident that I have the expertise to execute.
- Helpdesk:
I have a wealth of experience which I am very keen to share, however I can, with anyone who applies for bounty funding. The vision is unique to the team / individual, the event planning and experience can be guided and this is something I could certainly offer when needed. Guidance on all three of the five basic W’s of events - who, what, when, where and why!
- Database:
Again, looking at simplifying the organisation process so the team / individual can focus on the concept and deliverables, I think a database, which I already have built out in many areas, could be of great use. This would include, by city, type, capacity, genre:
- Venues
- Caterers
- Entertainment
- Average pp cost
- Reviews / details about previously organised events
(NB: this database would be a google sheet, not an expense to the community)
Provide an example of an achievement / success of yours within the Polkadot Community that you are most proud of.
My proudest achievement, which I hope to build upon in the future, is my introduction of a series of events which focus on bringing founders / builders: Polkadot Evenings: Investor x Founder events.
The first of this series kicked off at the Polkadot Blockchain Academy (PBA) @ Berkeley University, USA in August 2023. I led the event from conception through to delivery and post event follow-up and analysis. Here, we brought three distinctive groups of people together: Polkadot Founders, current and those on the Founders Track programme at PBA, Polkadot senior leadership and external investors, largely CEO / C-Suite representatives from Silicon Valley based companies. Attendees included Dr. Gavin Wood, Rob Habermeier, Bjorn Wagner, parachain leadership, including Unit Network, Nodle, KILT, Oak Capital, InvArch, and C-Suite members from Dragonfly, Goldman Sachs, Polychain, Kraken and others (25 institutions in total). There was a cocktail mixer, followed by a private dinner with a smaller group of people. The following events took place in Lisbon at the time of WebSummit, November 2023 and Hong Kong where the PBA was taking place in January 2024.
I am particularly pleased with how this series evolved - and hope that it will continue - as it brought previously disparate groups together and started conversations with external parties from a more grassroots level. My approach to this series demonstrates my desire to look for new and effective ways to improve communication with external parties, showcase the current and upcoming Polkadot projects and ensure that everyone’s voice is heard in a complex and ever evolving Web3 landscape.
Other experience / achievements since joining the Polkadot ecosystem:
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Full event management:
- Parachain Summit, Copenhagen, June 2023
- Polkadot Parachain Mixer
- Polkadot Investor Dinner
- Leadership Retreat
- Private Web3 Meetings
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Speaker Management:
- Polkadot Decoded, Copenhagen, June 2022
- Sub0, Bangkok, March 2024
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External Events (attended and been in contact with organisers):
- World Economic Forum, Davos, May 2022
- SXSW, Austin TX, March 2023
- Proof of Talk, Paris, June 2023
- W3F @ Sonar Festival, Barcelona, June 2023
- Black Swan Community Event, Lisbon, March 2024
- Token 2029, Dubai, April 2024
- Decentralized Lugano, May 2024
World Economic Forum, Davos, May 2022 II Decoded NYC, June 2022 II Coindesk Consensus, Austin TX, April 2023 II Parachain Summit, Copenhagen, June 2023
