Revolutionary Step for DigiByte and its Community
With great pleasure, we’re excited to announce the setup of the DigiByte Foundation.
A great revolutionary step for DigiByte towards protecting and promoting the true principles of decentralization, and to empower DigiByte and its community to further establish and maintain a sustainable decentralized world.
General introduction:
The DigiByte Foundation will be a volunteer managed organization that operates in a nonprofit way. Therefore aspects like accountability, trustworthiness, honesty, and openness to all stakeholders is seen as essential.
Goal of the DigiByte foundation:
To protect and promote the true principles of decentralization, and empower DigiByte and its community to further establish and maintain a sustainable decentralized world.
Underlying belief:
Decentralization is unstoppable, and DigiByte demonstrates just that.
Why now:
The reason why the Foundation is being set up now, and not earlier, is that we see ourselves at crossroads. Firstly we see a tipping point looming for adoption and adaptation of blockchain technology. As we see DigiByte as a pure representative of blockchain principles, we feel this is now also our time to “step to the plate”. Additionally, we have seen and see an increased number of concepts and technologies we feel are contrary to the blockchain principles, and are purely (more) monetary driven. DigiByte is not, and never will be. We also feel there is momentum building that separates the true decentralized projects from the lesser one’s we currently see in the market, and the Foundation can help to establish and protect that difference.
We are not centralized:
Although the tentative Board comes from within the DigiByte community, they are no more or less part of the DigiByte community than anyone else. As you know DigiByte is a pure voluntary operated, not owned by anyone, and has no employees. The Foundation cannot and will not be part of DigiByte. The Foundation is therefore by no means a centralized extension of DigiByte; on the contrary, that would go against anything we all wholeheartedly believe in. The Foundation aims to promote decentralization and empower the DigiByte community. As a Foundation we believe we can help mobilize that community, and work for and with them to achieve just that. In comparison, the Heart Foundation does not represent everyone on this planet, not even all people suffering from heart problems, although everyone has a heart… We do not claim to represent all people who own or use DigiByte, we simply want to be there for them, and invite them to join us in helping to achieve that (empowerment).
What sets us apart:
Numerous blockchain and cryptocurrency projects have set up a Foundation, so will the DigiByte Foundation be any different? Yes, we do believe so for a few reasons. Firstly, as explained above, the Foundation is not an extension of DigiByte; it is not a centralized representation of DigiByte. This is also represented in the deliberate choice not to include DigiByte Founding members in the Foundation’s Board. DigiByte’s founder Jared Tate fully understands that, and endorses that. For the Foundation to be independent — decentralized — he cannot and will not be part of the Foundation. Secondly, the Foundation will ultimately be run by its members. The Board is merely the voice of DigiByte Foundations’ members. That also brings us to the issue of members. Although we have not finalized the membership guidelines yet, we do plan to open up to as many members as possible. We feel there is a massive support for DigiByte and its unwavering stance for true decentralization. Mobilizing that “voice” means we can represent as many from the DigiByte community as possible. What we do know is that the barrier for membership will be extremely low, in the spirit of blockchain’s principle inclusiveness.
Vision statement (ambition for tomorrow):
Empower the community, decentralize the world!
Mission statement (ambition for today):
To facilitate and support all of DigiByte’s community and be a pilot for the blockchain community at large. Doing so makes DigiByte a catalyst in creating decentralized solutions that can be applied in the social, political and economic landscape. Via use of its secure, fast and forward thinking blockchain technology DigiByte will boosts awareness and adoption, resulting in a more and widely accepted use.
Core values the Foundation subscribes to:
· Decentralization
· Inclusiveness
· Permissionless
· Integrity
· Transparency — openness
· Consensus
· Thought leadership
Strategic focus points:
· Outreach
· Awareness
· Education
· Adoption
Structure/incorporation:
· Will be a nonprofit vehicle, where the legal form will be a Dutch “Stichting*” (Foundation). The Netherlands has a long standing history with foundations, and has one of the best legal frameworks to protect foundations. Charter of that Foundation will predominantly be to allocate resources to the cause or act independently itself to promote that cause.
* = In the US a “Stichting” is called a Public Foundation or Community Foundation. Purely for convenience purposes, we will use the term Foundation
Membership & roles:
Board:
- Chair: Hans Koning
- Secretary & Vice-Chair: Rudy Bouwman
- Treasurer: Rutger Krijnen
Vacancies Board Members:
- Legal & Compliance
- Community Liaison
- Ethics and integrity
Applications can be sent to info@digibytefoundation.io
Closing date: January 31st 2020
Hans Koning (Chair)
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hanskoningttim/
Twitter: @hanskoning
Drs. Koning has been in the forefront of nascent technologies for more than 25 years. Either as advisor, investor, or as observer, ever since the birth of internet he is committed to learn and guide new technologies in finding its way into society and businesses from the non-technical perspective. He finds it important what technology can do socially, economically and in terms of regulation, rather than how it works. This resulted in a long track record of helping young companies grow and succeed in all corners of the world. He prides himself in having achieved a unique combination of hands-on experience from being involved in the blockchain world and crypto community for 5 years, and on the other hand academic research and insights from his research PhD he is currently pursuing.
Rudy Bouwman (Secretary & Vice-Chair)
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rudybouwman/
Twitter: @RudyBouwman
Rudy is working in the Information Technology for more than 30 years. He has an education in Information Technology and finished a study Senior Management at the Institute of Social Sciences in The Netherlands. Starting as a computer engineer, Rudy developed his career in different management positions and the last 20 years he has a position as shareholder and Director in a IT Maintenance company. In 2017 Rudy started learning about Blockchain Technology and was convinced about the revolutionary impact on society and wanted to play a role in there. Rudy has applied his knowledge and business experiences as core member of DigiByte by reaching out to companies, building and maintaining international relations, and looking for integration opportunities and development of real-world use cases for DigiByte.
Rudy was also involved as CMO with the creation of the DigiByte Awareness Team back in May 2018.
Rutger Krijnen (Treasurer)
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rutger-krijnen-a503895/
Twitter: @justgoodstuff11
Rutger is a 20 years experienced Program Manager with a demonstrated history of success in IT and Telecommunications industry. He is a strong operations professional skilled in Project Management, PRINCE2, Agile/Scrum, Interim Management, ITIL, IT Service Management, and Change Management. Broad knowledge of Business Processes and IT. Seasoned in successfully managing multiple mergers and acquisitions, migrations, transformations of IT landscapes with the business goals in mind, Rutger is used to work with and to integrate different cultures in the workspace and vendors. He is very active in the block-chain space and within the DigiByte community specifically. And likes to engage with people and organizations towards the goal of creating awareness and acceptance of DigiByte.
Advisory committee:
Apart from the Board (legal requirement) there will be an advisory body. That body can help the Foundation achieve its goals, and can bridge/align relevant stakeholders to the Foundation, ensuring all voices/inputs are heard and subsequently weighed, and perhaps even more important all resources are optimally mobilized. This can be on an ad-hoc (temporary bases) or on a fixed-term bases.
No names have been volunteered or suggested, however certain areas of expertise could be of particular use, for instance: Legal, Strategy, Outreach, Liaison DGBAT, Development etc.
Vacancies Advisory committee:
- Funding & Development
- Corporate Strategy & Communication
- Outreach & Community
- Legal & Compliance
Applications can be sent to info@digibytefoundation.io
Closing date: January 31st2020
Community & engagement:
It is important to remember that the Foundation serves two purposes, and two purposes only; promote decentralization and empower the DigiByte community.
A great way to facilitate engagement is to “tie in” the community. An idea that is currently being tossed around is to establish a more intense level of involvement in DigiByte, say in the form of a membership. The word membership is for the lack of a better word, and this does not imply exclusivity, or even worse exclusion to those who are not member.
The great benefit would be that the Foundation would be funded to off-set its cost for incorporation, and it could — depending on number of members gained — sponsor some activities that are in line with the Foundation’s strategy from day one. For instance, we could now be organizing a DigiByte Conference, promotion of adoption projects, thought leadership activities, etc. As the Foundation does not have its own financial resources, and does not have a sec commercial drive, this could kick-start the Foundation, and propel traction and engagement with the community from day one. Finally, but by no means least, it also sets DigiByte and its Foundation apart from the rest of the Foundations and other cryptos. Moreover, it sets a new standard for how we see interaction with the community.
The last period we have worked hard on the strategic outline, and have agreed on Foundation principles. In the coming period we will be focusing on the next steps, like further building the website, DigiByte Foundation’s Charter, mobilize stakeholder and resources, action plan for incorporation, work on membership initiatives, etc.
Please make sure to follow us (links below) to keep informed about the next steps.
The DigiByte Foundation
Website: www.digibytefoundation.io
Email: info@digibytefoundation.io
Twitter: @DGB_Foundation
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/digibytefoundation
