Blockchain@Columbia is Columbia University’s premier non-profit blockchain organization focusing on educating and empowering crypto builders, researchers, and creators.

We launched the first student group DAO, Lion DAO, in 2021. Some DAO activities include a grants program which encourages Web-3 research. Our annual conference, Ledgerfest, focused on crypto and web3 founders from Arbitrum, Polygon, Cosmos, Drift, Audius, and more! We host weekly speakers like Aave’s Founder Stani, Nansen’s Founder Alex, Optimism’s own Kelvin Fichter and we host weekly technical blockchain and development workshops.

This spring we organized a 3-day hackathon, Lionhack for students and other builders in the space to help onboard more people to crypto and incubate new projects in the space. We are strong supporters of innovative Defi projects, and we are big believers in what the future of OP Governance and the Optimism collective might become. Given our experience in our own DAO’s governance as well as in Uniswap, Compound, and dYdX, we believe that we are strongly equipped to act as a neutral and effective governance delegate for Optimistic Governance!

My view on the Optimistic Vision: We all know that one of the founding principals of Web-3 is proof-of-work, and proving yourself through impact and results have been a core principal of crypto communities since Bitcoin’s beginnings. But we believe the Optimistic collective is taking the proof of work idea to the next level with digital democratic governance. We believe in a world where incentives align and digital citizens can be rewarded contributing to the public good. We also believe in the continuous struggle toward self improvement, something the Optimism Collective has highlighted as a goal in its Vision.

My view on the first three articles of the Working Constitution:

We believe in the search for continuous improvement. The optimistic collective and vision will evolve over time and the world will look different in four years.

We’re excited about the experimentation between $OP governance and OP citizenship.

We believe fewer and fewer foundation intervention is better for the Optimism Collective in the long run.

My skills and areas of expertise: DAO Governance, Smart contract development, DeFi, Community Building, Education

My favorite Web3 projects: Compound, dYdX, Gnosis Safe