Proposal to induct Vikk to Senior Ambassador

Ambassador Programme
1

Proposal to induct Vikk to Senior Ambassador

Hello Everyone!

My name is Viktor or just Vikk, and I would like to submit my candidacy to be elected as a Senior Polkadot Ambassador into the on-chain Ambassador Collective. I submitted this proposal to the Polkadot Forum and not to OpenGov, as only HAs can induct me to SA, not token holders. Below, I provide relevant information for the Polkadot Community and the already selected 21 Head Ambassadors about who I am and why I consider myself a suitable candidate to take my place among the Senior Polkadot Ambassadors.

In recent years, my life has been built around the grassroots movement of Polkadot and Web3. I first encountered Polkadot in 2020. When I read the Litepaper, I fell in love with the mission and values of Web3. In 2021, I started to take an active role in the Hungarian Polkadot community in Budapest. Subsequently, in 2022, Six, the then and current Head Ambassador, nominated me to become a Polkadot Ambassador. Since then, I have been actively shaping the local Polkadot Community, both off-chain and on-chain. I believe that slowly but surely, we can bring about a better, more equal, and more democratic internet era, where tech companies and governments have less control over us, and where Polkadot, as a high-tech blockchain ecosystem, can protect us from the dangers of a dystopian future.

Achievements

First of all I would like to state that I am not an AI or fake, but a real human being. :wink: But since this is not enough to become a Senior Ambassador, I will list my successes so far. Below, without aiming to be exhaustive, I list my achievements in the previous, “off-chain” Ambassador Program as a Senior Polkadot Ambassador.

1. Contributions to events

  • I co-founded and organized the first large-scale blockchain event in Hungary, the Budapest Blockchain Community Week, with other local blockchain communities in March 2024.
  • I organized the Polkadot Day, the most attended on-site event of the Budapest Blockchain Community Week, with around 120 attendees. You can find pictures from the event here.
  • I organized 20+ Polkadot and Kusama - Hungary | Meetup at Mosaic Chain’s Office on a monthly basis to build a strong Polkadot community in person.
  • I co-organized the Polkadot Championship Hackathon in December 2023 with Senior Ambassador Gabo and Head Ambassador Six. During the hackathon, I also mentored and advised participants about Polkadot and Parachains. Additionally, I managed the hackathon’s X profile and gave an interview about Polkadot and the hackathon to the National TV of Hungary.
  • I represented Polkadot and gave a presentation on stage to an audience of over 100 people on Polkadot and JAM at a local crypto event, Blockchain Budapest, in May 2024.
  • Not only did I attend, but I was also an emcee at Builder Space B at the last Sub0 in Bangkok and in Lisbon at Starter Space A, also in Sub0, in 2023.
  • I interviewed a few ecosystem teams during Polkadot Decoded in Brussels, and the interviews will be shared with the Hungarian Community on Polkadot Hungary’s YouTube channel (currently under editing by Polkadot Hungary Team member, Spectra).
  • I represented Polkadot with my fellow Ambassadors at the Polkadot Booth at Polkadot Prague and UTXO Prague, organized by Polkadot Czechia
  • I represented Polkadot with my fellow Ambassadors, Six and Gabo, at the largest on-site hacker conference, Hacktivity

2. About community building with Polkadot Hungary Team

When I received the responsibility from Six to pave the way for Polkadot Hungary, I started looking for well-educated and passionate team members to work with voluntarily for the success of Polkadot. I volunteered alone as an Ambassador for a year. During this time, I organized monthly meetups and wrote blog posts on Grillapp in Hungarian about Polkadot’s features: Basics of Polkadot, Runtime upgrades, Nominated Proof of Stake & Nomination Pools, Kusama - The Canary Network and shared them with my community through various social medias. I started to moderate the Polkadot Hungary Telegram chat and, to this day, I always kickstart conversations to increase group activity. I also created and currently manage the Polkadot Hungary Twitter and Facebook accounts with other Polkadot Hungary Team mates.

In which I played a part, but not only to my credit, but also to the credit of the Polkadot Hungary Team:

  • DAO creation: We created the Polkadot Hungary Community as a multisig, which acts like a DAO. We participate with the multisig on OpenGov in the decision making and collect voting power delegation.
  • Nomination Pool: We established the Polkadot Hungary Nomination Pool for the local community (Pool ID: 219)
  • Organization contribution: I drafted the internal Organizational and Operational Rules of Polkadot Hungary Team, which is underwriting in cooperation with the team. We’ll share it with the local community in the spirit of transparent operation
  • Website developments: I participated in the ideation of the official website of Polkadot Hungary, provide some useful informations and resources, but all the credit goes to Vonyi, one of our team mates who developed the website and Ambassador Marco, from Polkadot Arena, who developed the source code of the website.
  • Logo ideation: I participated in the ideation of the Polkadot Hungary brand’s logo, but the credit goes to Eapo, one of our team mates from Szeklerland, who designed it
  • Articles: I established a friendly connection between Hungary’s most viewed crypto medium, Cryptofalka and got the admin right to post there all of the articles of Polkadot Hungary. In the meantime I only wrote a few articles, so the credit goes to Mildzsu, who frequently writes educational articles and to Vonyi, who writes weekly Polkadot ecosystem news, based on Polkadotters articles.
  • Polkadot Booklet: Translation of the Polkadot Booklet to Hungarian with my fellow contributor, Eapo. I printed 100 copies, which were snapped up at the Polkadot Day I organized. (Original Booklet created by Marco, Polkadot Arena, we just re-designed a little bit, added some paragraphs and translated)

3. Fostered knowledge sharing with UniFires as a Polkadot Ambassador

I have worked for almost half a year on fostering knowledge sharing and community building between Cardano & Polkadot communities with UniFires. During this time I represented Polkadot at numerous online discussions on influencers’ X / Twitter spaces and I also educated people from IOG, the company behind Cardano blockchain about Polkadot’s OpenGov. I met with new, very smart, open-minded people from both Cardano and Polkadot communities at this time.

4. Contribution to Mosaic Chain as a Polkadot Ambassador

I contributed to Mosaic Chain as a Polkadot Ambassador for almost one year. Since this summer, I have become much more active in the Mosaic Team as a Growth Lead. Mosaic Chain’s first product focuses on decentralized portfolio management, a missing piece in the Polkadot ecosystem. (In the Ethereum ecosystem, Set Protocol operates similarly.) Our ecosystem relies heavily on collaboration, so I am opening doors for Mosaic Chain to connect with other projects within the ecosystem. I would like to see a thriving DeFi landscape on Polkadot to help Substrate chains gain momentum, and I believe that Mosaic Chain can help increase liquidity in the ecosystem with its decentralized portfolio management features.

5. Contribution as a Blockchain Researcher at Centre for Social Sciences Institute

I have recently been recruited as a part-time researcher at CSS Budapest, where I am conducting blockchain research and using my expertise to present Substrate as the most powerful blockchain builder framework and the entire Polkadot ecosystem in depth.

Currently, I am collaborating on a project with researchers from various fields. In this project I have the opportunity to publish a short study on blockchain-based decision-making, aka. on-chain governance. In this work, I write about the functioning of the Polkadot OpenGov model as the world’s largest DAO and, at the end of the study, I make suggestions for conducting some elections in Hungary using blockchain technology. I truly enjoy this, as I love understanding how blockchain technology works and sharing this knowledge with others. Since there are few written, scientific materials on this topic, I mainly cite research written by the Web3Foundation, the Polkadot Wiki and Polkadot Forum, as well as discussions from Polkassembly. If the study is successful, it will be included in a book that is expected to be published in Hungary.

My Future Plans as an on-chain elected Senior Polkadot Ambassador

My goals is to be active in the field of Education, Events, Collaboration with ecosystem projects, and Business Development in Hungary. In addition I would like to guide new potential candidates to the Ambassador Program and provide them guidance and support.

1. Further Expanding the Hungarian Polkadot Community:

  • I will organize additional monthly Polkadot Meetups (Already Scheduled)
  • Creating a larger Polkadot-themed event: Winter of 2024 (In Planning)
  • Organizing the II. Budapest Blockchain Community Week and Polkadot Day 2025 (In Planning)
  • I will produce educational videos, online Q&A discussions with team members and write blog posts about Polkadot, Parachains, and OpenGov news (In Planning)
  • Engaging in the community life of other Substrate chains: organizing Mosaic Chain and Vara/Gear meetups in Budapest (In Planning)

2. Increase awareness about Polkadot Hungary Community with the Polkadot Hungary Team:

  • Reconstructing the Polkadot Hungary Team as a flexible pure-proxy (It’s done, on-chain ID needed)
  • Creating the new Polkadot Hungary Nomination Pool owned by the flexible multisig, like a proper DAO, so that a Pure Proxy wallet owns the Pool, not just a simple multisig (In Progress)
  • Change Polkadot Hungary’s address on all the delegation UIs to the pure proxy’s address. (Nova Wallet, SubWallet, Polkassembly, SubSquare)
  • Experimenting with creating a larger Polkadot Hungary Community DAO using the Kreivo DAO creator designed by the Virto team, or the Aragon DAO creator. (We will likely choose Kreivo since it is natively based on Substrate, currently we are testing the features of it) The goal with the bigger DAO, is that anybody from our community can join, thus we can boost activity, and launch incentive campaigns within the big-big community.

3. Organize Developer outreach programs with local Universities

Currently I am in a discussion with one of the best IT focused universities, Óbuda University’s lecturer to establish a blockchain course and add Polkadot and Substrate into the course topics. It can also be possible to organize only Polkadot focused days in which ecosystem teams/developers can educate local IT students. It’s currently under ideation, but I really would like to push forward this as in Budapest we have tons of IT students.

4. Business Development and potential future collaborations with local Startups and Crypto projects

Business development is unpredictable and very flexible, therefore I can not promise I will succeed in this field, but I would like to help to introduce the Polkadot ecosystem’s use cases to local crypto projects and startups and ideate strategic partnerships with them.

  • I already introduced the Web3Foundation grants program and the Games Bounty to the Novanet team, who wants to build an utopist game with tokenized in-game collectibles on an EVM compatible chain. Let’s see what we can brainstorm together.

  • I am also in discussion with a Budapest based startup, Solarpunk, which is focusing on the usage of decentralized storage technologies, especially Swarm. (Swarm is originally envisioned by Gavin Wood but the Swarm brand and the foundation founded by a Hungarian entrepreneur, Viktor TrĂłn). My plan is to guide the Solarpunk team to integrate Swarm into the Polkadot ecosystem (like uploading SubSquare’s UI and all the OpenGov proposals’ texts to Swarm, etc…)

Closing

Since the on-chain ambassador collective was announced in 2022, I have been eagerly anticipating its practical implementation. I am very excited because I believe that the Ambassador Program is one of the most important “human layers” of the Polkadot ecosystem, and I find it really cool that its “2.0” version will allow the program to run on-chain as one of Polkadot’s sub-DAOs. I truly appreciate the Technical Fellowship for enabling the launch of the Ambassador Collective so that I can join an on-chain registered body. As can be seen from my achievements above, I have tried to be as active as possible and stand out with my successes, and I am confident that I can demonstrate impressive results.

  • While I know only the Head Ambassador will get an automatic salary I would recommend later (with an upcoming PACI - Polkadot Ambassador Collective Improvements) to let the Senior Ambassadors and Ambassadors also get some portion of Salary, based on their rank. The rationale behind this is really simple: Participants of the ambassador program should be treated equally, according to their rank. The current disparity (HAs get salary, SAs and Ambassadors don’t, they can only ask for rewards from the Sub-Treasury) can lead to problematic debates within the program and reduces the desire for someone to move up the ambassador ladder, since they are not equally motivated.

  • In addition a salary can motivate the Ambassadors and Senior Ambassadors too to do more. It can serve as a real incentive to act for the success of Polkadot. My observation is that the global Polkadot DAO - the OpenGov voters - generally vote down the proposals from smaller, local Polkadot communities, preventing them from succeeding. For example, I represent Polkadot and work for its success in a small country with only 10 million people, Hungary. Since the number of Hungarian speakers is small, it’s harder to achieve breakthroughs in numbers because we can reach fewer people. As a result, our OpenGov proposals are likely to fail, as one already did—the translation of the Polkadot Wiki into Hungarian. (Despite this, Mildzsu and ZsĂłfi started translating the whole Wiki with Vonyi’s help: Polkadot Wiki Hungarian).

  • I believe that the Ambassador Program provides an excellent incentive globally for local Polkadot communities, without having to lobby on OpenGov and convince the global Polkadot DAO about the smallest local community plans. Instead, these could be funded from ambassador salaries. Since Ambassadors provide their reputation to join the ambassador program and have already demonstrated their contributions and loyalty to Polkadot, I believe there is no need to fear widespread abuse and embezzlement.

14 Likes
2

I wholeheartedly support Viktor. As a member of the Polkadot Hungary community, I have witnessed firsthand his expertise in managing multiple events and the entire Hungarian Polkadot community. It would be a well-deserved title for him and an opportunity to continue his work officially and on-chain. :wink:

1 Like
3

I’ve had the pleasure of working with Victor in organizing a hackathon and have witnessed his remarkable capabilities. He is highly active in his community in Hungary, consistently adding immense value through debates, ideas, and hard work. Victor’s commitment to community initiatives and his proven track record, make him an outstanding candidate for SA. I firmly support his candidacy, as his expertise and dedication would bring exceptional value.

2 Likes
4

Do you mean dystopian here? Because I would like a utopian future :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

1 Like
5

Haha, yes, my mistake. Thanks to let me know. :smiley:
And what do you think about the proposal in general @mister_cole ? :slight_smile:

6

Thanks Georgie! Good to hear those words! :slight_smile:

7

Thank you GabĂł!

8

I don’t have much of an opinion. I’m not yet entirely sure what the HAs have planned for Senior Ambassadors, Ambassadors, and Candidates, and without a clearer sense of what will be expected of those roles, I’m not comfortable evaluating anyone’s fitness for them.

That said, in general I don’t seen the appeal of publicly campaigning for roles that will be appointed by HAs directly, since those appointments are independent of community support (or lack thereof). (I admit that this may be a matter of my personal taste, of course, since I’m reflexively a bit averse to public campaigning in general.)

2 Likes
9

Thank you for your proposal. I’ve seen your dedication to the Polkadot community, from organizing events like Budapest Blockchain Community Week and Polkadot Day to building and managing the Polkadot Hungary team.

Your contributions to education, community building, and collaboration with local startups and universities are top-notch. I am happy you took over the management from Polkadot Hungary since 2023 and have my support.

Also congratulations for being the first Senior Ambassador applicant!

1 Like
10

I require all my appointees to have a public introduction and the role they take upon. We are wroking on the detailed documents/processes now. More details coming in the next weeks.

2 Likes
11

I have seen much dedication from Vikk in the last year when he spent his own money on organizing meetups risking not getting any retrospective founding for them. There are not many Hungarian speaking people in general globally, but I am pretty sure we would be top 3 in blockchain developers per capita, so it has more sigificance to spread the news about the Polkadot ecosystem into this audience.

2 Likes
12

Can I ask why? It feels like public campaigning to the community, but the role is assigned privately with no input from the public community.

13

Thank you Wigy!

14

I believe that both @mister_cole and @six are right: the applications for Senior Ambassadors and Ambassadors should be public and accessible to everyone. However, it is more than sufficient if these application proposals are posted by the candidates or the HAs/SAs only on the Ambassador Program’s SubsQuare/Polkassembly platform.

For example: If a HA or a SA would like to induct someone into the program, they can create an on-chain “induct” call on the Collectives Chain like a proposal, and specify the candidate’s wallet address. After this, the ambassador candidate can modify the proposal and include their reasons for being inducted into the program. This approach is transparent and doesn’t require posting everything on the Polkadot Forum.

1 Like
15

The role is actually assigned publicly, transparently. This is why I require my appointees to post publicly.

I also think transparency needs to be a key aspect for such roles.

1 Like
16

+1 agree with @mister_cole. Imagine hundreds of application flooding the forum for Ambassadors, and Candidates post. As for transparency, HAs can make the records public.

Technical fellowship used github/markdown for their onboarding, maybe something along these lines? GitHub - polkadot-fellows/seeding: The account/rank pairs which the Technical Committee should introduce.

17

There are (at least) 21 Head Ambassadors, each of whom gets to appoint 3 Senior Ambassadors–this will yield 63 Senior Ambassador posts right off the bat, flooding the Forum, with more to come as HAs are replaced over time.

I’m not sure the Forum is the right place for this, but I do applaud your commitment to transparency.

(To be clear, though I help moderate the Forum, this post is written as a community member, not a statement from Admins/Mods!)

18

There are many ways to post their profile publicly, not just this Forum. Vikk did it here which I think it fine, but I don’t think everyone else will follow the same process, so it is not likely there will be any flood.

19

Where does this come from?

Sorry to be so blunt, but this also just seems like a dumb way to run an organization. The HAs should make clear standards/expectations for what it means to be an Ambassador or Senior Ambassador, and apply those to each candidate equally, regardless of whether they know a HA personally or not.

20

I suppose I could be wrong, but that’s my understanding. The Collective referendum is very clear about how HAs are selected, but filling the rest of the ranks is up to the HAs as far as I know (I am not an HA nor was I a candidate for an HA role, fwiw).

In the Head Ambassador’s discussions, they voted on the number of SAs, and they settled on three for each HA.

(And I’m fine with blunt :slight_smile: )