Notice: This is an abridged version of my DV application due to the limitations of Polkadot Forum. You can find the full version on my personal GitHub page: sikderqais · GitHub
Intro:
I am Sikder Qais, or Qais as my friends call me, I am a Private Investor/Business Owner based out of NYC, New York. Prior to 2020, I was a Cybersecurity professional and manager. I was the right-hand man to many CISOs in large financial institutions helping them navigate Application Security, Threat & Vulnerability Management, and the ever-evolving Cybersecurity regulatory landscape. I was also a former PwC-US consulting financial institutions on their Cybersecurity. You can find my resume here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sikder-qais-283b5728/
I got involved in the Polkdot ecosystem in 2020. My first parachain auction was Acala and Astar. But, I got involved with OpenGov in February 2024. Initially, I had very little interest in participating in OpenGov. However, I started getting more involved after I started noticing OpenGov abuse in April of this year. I consider myself one of the retail Polkadot community’s voices against OpenGov abuse.
I go by many names in this ecosystem:
- I go by Fossil112 on OpenGov
- I am verified as Mars Entertainment LLC on OpenGov
- I am also Physical-Business-56 on Reddit
- I am @SikderQais on Twitter
- I am @SQais112 on Telegram
- My username here is SQais112
My Polkadot Address: 12RC63G52VeBkLhPxgVcieMG7Fwr1Qwu4q5eKUwz7KvD3228
My Kusama Address: DzWc2Lso5Pe4TWKmkFfUSt7QEES7nCwSiBuYrEb337BbgU4
Political Philosophy:
My political philosophy is very simple. I want to Make Polkadot a Market Leader Again! I will pursue this goal regardless if I lose my bid for Decentralized Voices. Here are my methods for making Polkadot a market leader again!:
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Stop OpenGov Abuse: My first goal is to stop OpenGov abuse. Abusing OpenGov hurts retail investors’ confidence in the ecosystem and the reputation of Polkadot overall.
- I want to introduce the concept of an Ethics Board. This board is responsible for keeping OpenGov ethical. The Ethics Board will consist of 7 members hand-picked by the Technical Fellowship, Parity, and Web 3 Foundation. They can also remove any members of the Ethics Board anytime should they deem any of the members have been compromised. The Polkadot community can also whistle-blow to the Technical Fellowship, Parity, or the Web 3 Foundation should they believe any of the members have been compromised. A wish for change can also be used to add or remove members of the Ethics Board as needed by the community.
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The Ethics Board should have the power to cancel any refs on OpenGov with a majority vote of 4/7 should they deem them unethical, corrupt, or abusive to the Polkadot Ecosystem.
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The Ethics Board should also review and vote on large treasury spending consisting of greater than USD 100,000. I am proposing that a 4/7 vote should be accomplished first for any tracks asking for a large treasury spend before the community votes on it in OpenGov. This will force any large spend in OpenGov to take ethics into account.
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Shift OpenGov to a Value-Centric Approach: What do I mean by a value-centric approach? I mean all refs that ask for treasury funding must provide an equivalent or higher value to Polkadot than the proposed funding after the ref is completed.
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Marketing Bounties: I am only interested in the Conversion metric. I don’t care about how many Impressions we generate with our branding, or how many Engagements our Key Opinion Leaders (KOL) generate. Marketing Conversions metrics include:
- Institutional/Retail Polkadot Investors introduced to Polkadot
- New programmers/developers introduced and converted to PBA attendees, POP, Plaza, JAM, and Parachains/Partnerchains developers
- New Parachains/Partnerchains introduced to Polkadot because of marketing
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ROI-Centric Approach to OpenGov: What I want to see is a return-on-investment-centric approach to all spending in OpenGov. This means after every spend a Debrief/After-Action-Report should be generated to determine the efficacy of each ref based on spend. These reports should include money spent, ROI-rating, the efficacy of the ref, a rating of the services rendered, and lessons learned. We should refrain from rewarding Polkadot actors who have a history of delivering low-quality or suspect services.
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A Community-Centric Approach to Polkadot America: I think Web3/Parity has done an amazing job at creating Polkadot communities in Europe and Asia. But, I think we should shift our attention to America (the world’s wealthiest country). I co-founded Eagle DAO to give Americans a voice in the Polkadot ecosystem. This isn’t an official DAO, there aren’t any multi-sig wallets associated yet, and it won’t be ready by DV Cohort 3. But, it is a community of Polkadot Americans that are passionate about Polkadot. We discuss refs, and potential future refs here:
- My future goal is to expand the Polkadot American community based on cities and states as Polkadot chapters to further Polkadot-related initiatives in the US:
- The chapters will focus on Polkadot-related funnels:
- A funnel for introducing Polkadot-related products to Americans such as Polkadot Pay, Nova Wallet, etc.
- A funnel for inviting and educating institutional and retail American investors into Polkadot.
- A funnel for developers/programmers to build Dapps/Appchains in Polkadot via POP and Plaza etc.
- A funnel for developers/programmers to build Parachains in Polkadot by introducing them to the Polkadot SDK/PBA etc.
- The chapters will focus on Polkadot-related funnels:
- My future goal is to expand the Polkadot American community based on cities and states as Polkadot chapters to further Polkadot-related initiatives in the US:
Why Chose Me As DV:
- I will always fight OpenGov abuse, corruption, and conflicts of interest.
- I will keep track of and report on high-risk OpenGov refs (Key Risk Indicators, KRIs) and share them with other DVs, Technical Fellowship, Parity, W3F, the Polkadot community, or anyone else as requested. I have created similar reports for the C-Suite when I worked for the big banks.
- I will vote on, and provide feedback on every OpenGov ref.
- I will attend every AAG, you can already see me saying GM at the start of every AAG for the last 3 months or so on the chat.
Thank you for reading my post. Now let’s Make Polkadot a Market Leader Again!