Hello. Hello. Is that you, Mark? That is indeed. I love listening to the Black Eyed Peas. It's
the perfect way to get this started. That's right. That's right. We're just going to give
it a couple more minutes to get some more folks to join us in. And Adrienne, are you
already in as well? Yup, I'm here. Okay, awesome. So, oh, it looks like we're getting a good group
together. Do you want to give it just a couple more minutes? Is that okay, Mark?
Absolutely. Let's go back to that track. Yeah, let's do it.
Okay, okay. I was going to say GM, GM, GM, but I guess I can't say that. I guess I
have to say good afternoon, good evening, and I guess some morning too. How are you guys doing
today? Can you give me a thumbs up or a heart or something out there, guys?
There we go. Thank you. There you go. I've got goodmorninggm.go. I love that.
Blaine's out there. Thank you, Blaine, for coming. One of our whales. Really appreciate it. Okay,
Adrienne, do you want to get us started? Yeah, of course. What we're going to do? Okay, great.
Yeah. All right. Yeah. Thank you, everybody, for tuning in this afternoon or this evening or
morning, wherever you're at. We're excited to have this space today with Mark from the Greater
Austin Asia Chamber of Commerce. We're here today to discuss Dot Austin, the first ever
city-centric Web3TLD. It'll be going over our backgrounds, how the partnership came together,
and how Dot Austin can strengthen the bonds of the community now and in the future.
Thank you again for tuning in. My name is Adrienne. I'm on the Unstoppable team,
and joining me today is our COO, Sandy Carter, and our partner at the Greater Austin Asian
Chamber of Commerce, Mark. How is your day going today, Mark?
It's good. It's good. It's a little bit rainy, but that's always a good time in Austin,
and Central Texas always has ... You can start out with a thunderstorm in the morning, and then
sunshine in the afternoon, and then, I guess, an ice storm in the evening, so you never know what
to expect, but it's all good. Oh, I just got to see ... I was just there at South by Southwest,
of course, because I was there with you, and I got to see a few bluebonnets, which is always
my favorite time of the year. Are they still out and blooming? Oh, absolutely. Oh, absolutely,
and not just the bluebonnets. There's a whole range of wildflowers. It's gorgeous. You drive down
the road, and you just think, this is a nice place to live. Awesome. Okay. Why don't you
share a little bit about your background, and what the greater Austin Asian Chamber of Commerce
is, and its mission, and some of the factoids that I learned about you guys at South by Southwest,
about the growing population in Austin would be really cool. Mark?
Yeah, it is really cool, so it's really strange, right? My mother's family is Irish-Scottish. My
father's family is a bunch of Yankees from greater Boston. I was born and grew up in Rhodesia,
and then South Africa, so I grew up on the continent of Africa. Moved to Austin in the
90s. Loved it. Thought it was crazy. Didn't want to leave. I worked for Motorola in the tech sector,
semiconductors, actually. They sent me to China. It was supposed to be a six-month assignment and
became basically 25 years, so I spent 25 years bouncing around different parts of Asia,
came back to Austin a couple of years ago, and joined the chamber, and they asked me to lead a
CEO, lead the community. So what's really cool there is, I guess part of it is to do with
COVID and how people just started to want to work from home and then figured out that Austin is
an incredible place to work from home. So we've had massive, I think Austin's like the fastest
growing city in the country, and the Asian community is the fastest growing community in the
city. So the Asian population in Austin has more than doubled in the past decade, and it's expected
to double and double again. So basically my role in the chamber is just to catch up with that growth
and make sure that the chamber is hip up to and involved with everything Asian as Austin becomes
more Asian. Pretty interesting. I didn't know you were at Motorola either. That's quite
fascinating. What did you do for Motorola? I was in semiconductors, so we were building fabs,
and in fact I went to Tianjin, China in 1995 to build the world's first 200 millimeter wafer fab
in China. Very cool. Amazing, amazing time. It's going to be part of my book,
and you'll have to read about it when the time comes. Oh, that's really cool. Super.
Yeah, that's really interesting. I actually went to Tianjin once a long time ago,
when I was I think 10 or 11 years old. Oh, cool. Yes. Yeah, it's an amazing city. So on the one
hand, it's like completely parochial and weird. On the other hand, my grandfather,
so here's a weird story, right? Here's how the world turns. My grandfather was in the US Navy
and was in Tianjin the weeks before the bombing of Hiroshima, and they were actually collecting
rice, and my grandfather was responsible for working with the Chinese vendors that they had
on the streets of Tianjin collecting grains of rice for the trip over, a potential death trip
over to Japan. So incredible that my grandfather was there, I was there, and you were there.
Yeah, definitely. And I guess, yeah, for those who may be unfamiliar, could you highlight
our recent announcement being the launch of .Austin, the first city-centric web through TLD,
and tell us more about that?
Yeah, it's super exciting. So for me, I think that Austin is emerging as one of these incredible
places of divinity is the wrong word, but web three activations. And so when Sandy approached
us with the idea of launching .Austin, I was instantly excited. And then after 35 seconds
of talking to Sandy, who wouldn't agree to do whatever she wants us to do? So there we go. We
just decided, let's do it. Let's make it happen. Austin is a progressive, amazing, high-tech
innovation city. It's the perfect place to start, you know, a .city domain.
And then I would just add to that, you know, Mark is very forward-thinking. You can hear
that in his bio too, right? He was in China years before anybody else was there, was doing things
that were pretty darn cool and innovative before anybody else was. And so, you know, what we had
done is we had talked to Mark about, you know, how the city might do it, that the city would
be the first. And Mark also announced some other really cool things at South by Southwest in the
same vein that I think this could be used with too. Like, do you mind, Mark, if we share some of
those other announcements? Because this really blends in very nicely with some of the other
stuff you announced with Smobler and the Sandbox. Yeah, absolutely. So we were very excited to work
with the Sandbox and with Smobler Studios to launch the first, I guess, city metaverse,
right? So Smobler Studios is a metaverse architect. They created a city metaverse for Austin, you know,
in and around South by Southwest. And so we were just thrilled to work with Loretta and our team
on that. And so Sandy, when you were talking about launching .Austin, it all made perfect sense.
So it remains an incredible combination, because as you know, we're talking about the night market
that's coming up in Austin. So we're planning to make this really iconic partnership between
unstoppable domains, the Sandbox, Smobler Studios, and anybody else who wants to get on board. In
fact, I was talking to the folks at a coin desk, you know, consensus is coming up in a couple of
months. And there's this so much convergence around web three that .Austin is just the perfect
time and place to make it happen. So Sandy, thank you for bringing us the opportunity and
we won't let you down. Awesome. And then, you know, the other so the interesting thing is,
you know, we also partner with Smobler in the Sandbox, we had released a game. So this now
means, you know, as your domain, Sandy.Austin, there's lots of places you can use that inside of
the city based metaverse as your, you know, as your identity as you're walking around in the city.
And there are also tons of other use cases that Mark and I have talked about to for
Austin. So I thought this was the perfect fit for Mark, being the CEO and leader of the greater
Asian Austin Chamber of Commerce, as well as for such an innovative city as Austin,
just truth in advertising, I've lived there twice. I've told my husband, if we move there again,
I will not leave because it is just such a high energy city and location as well. So it really
seemed like, you know, a really great and perfect fit for doing a city domain.
And Cindy, initially into the Sandbox utilities, could you share how unstoppable domains are used
for anybody who is interested in their utility or maybe a traditional web to user?
Yeah, so we believe that utility is greater than hype. So we want to make sure that every one of
these digital identities has value and has purpose. So I can't go through all 1000 use cases.
But just a couple of use cases that I think are really interesting. One of the most popular is
the ability to chat through our badging system with everybody in a community. This is really
important. Anybody on web two knows the ability to communicate with someone and all the different
options that are out there. But being able to do it in a segmented way and an encrypted way
is really powerful. So for example, when we launched dot Austin, we did a badge for everyone
who was there and got their dot Austin during South by Southwest. So now Mark or anybody at this
in the city of Austin could chat with all of those folks who bought a dot Austin during
South by Southwest and ask them questions about, you know, what was it like? What improvements
can we make for next year? You know, how could we do things better? What were the
restaurant choices like? How did you like the music? And that, you know, focus on community and
communication is so extremely valuable. So that's one of the big use cases. Also, of course,
because it's based on the blockchain, you can use Sandy dot Austin to transact in crypto.
We do about 30,000 transactions every week, millions a year, where people are just
transitioning or resolving that name to a crypto wallet name. You can do email with it,
you can do gamer tags, you can log into meta versus games, defy apps. There's 175 wallets
that we support. So there's just a ton of different things that we see as the use cases
for this. If you're interested in all of them, which we don't have time to go to all through
all 1000 today, you can go up to our website called unstoppable marketplace.com.
All of our partners are listed there. It's sorted by the function that they bring.
For example, Atari is there under gaming. So if you wanted to use your Sandy dot Austin for your
Atari gamer tag, you can do that. You can see finance applications out there, meta versus
wallets, dowels, you name it, you can see all of that out there on that site.
Perfect. And, uh, Mark, I'm actually really curious. How do you envision
dot Austin Demons strengthening the bonds of the community and the Austin area now and in the
future? Yeah, that that's a great question. You know, any, so, so basically we're a chamber
of commerce, right? So the greater Austin, Asian chamber of commerce, GA, ACC, it's a
mouthful, but we're really focused on bringing commercial business opportunities to our members,
right? That's what chambers of commerce do. But, but we also have a vision for the future and
creating a pathway to, to possibility, right? And who the hell knows what's going to happen next? So
our vision is community. And that ties in so well with web three, it ties in with
unstoppable domains. It's about having assets, right? It's about having personality and it's about
owning your profile, if that's the right word. So we're just excited to figure this out together
with, with you guys at unstoppable domains. It's really about our members. It's about developing
a local identity that's tied to the community that's tied to us unique IDs. How do we tie,
you know, members to each other? How do we tie? How do we connect and embrace their connectivity?
Right? How do we, you know, I'll be frank that, you know, Asians are incredibly good at hiding
from, you know, especially from Caucasians, right? So part of my role in the chamber is to really
embrace, accelerate, activate the Asianness of the community here. And so finding ways to do that,
that are elegant and graceful and sexy and magic is really what I'm trying to do.
I think there's ways that we can showcase, you know, perfect parts of culture. There's ways that
we can showcase, you know, community support. There's ways that we can be local and global.
So yeah, we're just excited about beginning this journey with you guys.
And community, I think, is also really important, right, Mark? I mean, for this, especially your
community in particular, but I think overall, right? How do you write community?
Community, in my mind, community is top of everything, you know.
Again, going back to a chamber of commerce, right? If you think of it in its most narrow form,
you know, your job as a chamber is to execute, you know, narrow chamber of commerce type stuff.
But in my mind, it all starts actually with community. So and in fact, that's part of the
magic of the Asian chamber, is that we have this incredible pan-Asian community with so many
cultures, ethnicities, languages, foods, arts, musics. And so our community is so diverse.
It's so exciting. There are so many possibilities that, you know, every time I think about what
do we do next, I go back to that question, okay, what's best for the community? How do we make
sure that we're building a community in everything that we do? 100% community is extremely important.
And Sandy, could you also inform our listeners on how UD badges work and how these could maybe
tie into a city TLD, such as dot Austin? Yeah, sure. Let me, let me also post up,
I'll pin up here to kind of an example of what this could look like as well.
But let me start out by just talking about where the badge is. So a badge really represents a
community. And the owner of the badge gets to define how the community gets built.
So for example, a community could be just people who own dot Austin. It could be people who went
to South by Southwest. It could be someone who, who takes specific actions. So for example,
we also announced dot pudgy for pudgy penguins. And one of their badges is an ambassador badge,
which showcases that they are out there actively tweeting and using social media
for the pudgy penguins. And so each of the communities is very different and very focused
on what the, what the owner of that community wants to emphasize. Now, once you have that badge,
the badge or the community, then you can use one of the functions inside of unstoppable
to do what we call a group chat. And the group chat is everybody who has that badge is in the
group chat. Let's take Austin. So Mark is the owner of the Austin community in that particular
form could get in there and say to the whole community, Hey, how did you like South by Southwest?
What do you think about Don Austin? He could ask, what do you think should be one of the first
things we do give you 10% off parking downtown on Saturday? Cause it's expensive or, you know,
what is it that you want us to do as rewards or as, you know, a benefit here?
So that's really powerful, right? I mean, the whole mantra is the community is the project.
The project is the community. So now with that badge or that community, you can chat with them,
you can seek input, you can help them design a roadmap, you can inform them. So for example,
Mark had this amazing event at the, I think it was new Mark, that library, which was gorgeous.
Was that a new library? It's fairly new. Yes. It is a gorgeous, gorgeous public library.
Maybe one of the most beautiful in the world. It is beautiful. And so Mark hosted an event
there at, you know, as part of the South by Southwest track. And that event was in the
library. So he, you know, he can, he could do all kinds of different things around that,
with that community. He had a community there in person, in real life. And now he can extend that
in real life community digitally as well and continue the conversation, keep them all
engaged and keep them moving forward. So I find that that, you know, that group chat capability
that comes with a community badges is, is really important. And then of course, you know, the field
is wide open for what Austin wants to do in the future too. 100%. Yeah, the group chat is amazing
for building community and most importantly, keeping community. And on the same topic,
now that dot Austin, the first city center TLD is officially released.
How would you say this paves the way for other cities across the globe?
If you're talking to me, we've already been approached by multiple cities,
some of which, you know, have some very interesting things, some of which are waiting to see what
Austin does. One, in fact, Mark, I haven't even told you this, one city said, I knew
that Austin would be the one that went first because they're so innovative.
Exactly. We are. I mean, this is the amazing place where amazing things happen.
It is really true. It's one of the reasons I want to get back there for sure.
And so, yeah, so we've had lots of other interests from lots of other cities. And I know
we've got a bunch of whales on here. And I think my whales for showing up,
you can see them doing their all the 100%. So they're really excited as well. And Mark,
you may not know this yet or not, but for a brand new TLD out of the gate, Austin is doing
extremely well out of the gate. And I think that's because people realize the potential
that the city TLD has as they move forward and also the value that it brings, right? People want
to want to invest in something that has value. So yeah. And Austin has that that echo is the
wrong word, right? But Austin has that vibe. I remember, if we go all the way back, if we
backtrack all the way to the beginning of this conversation, the reason why I ended up in Austin
in the 90s was because I read an article that said, here is the top 10 cities of the world.
So I read this article in the 80s or 90s, I guess late 80s. And it was an article in
some magazine talking about the 10 top cities of the world. And of course, Barcelona, London,
Paris, New York, and Austin was in there. And it just captured my imagination. And so
I'm thankful for whoever wrote that article, whoever captured or sensed that magic of that
that is Austin, because it's real, it's vibrant, and it's happening.
Yeah, and I'll just say I panned up to the top. Because Austin is a brand new TLD,
Mark and I decided to go ahead and do a premium drop. So if you understand a premium drop,
premium drop are those that are the highest most valued TLD secondary domains that are out there.
I just posted it up there. If you haven't seen it, you should go check it out because there
are some really cool ones like cowgirl and some single digits and everything too.
And then I also just posted up there, kind of a vision for what a TLD for a city could look like
something we presented at South by Southwest as well. And again, you know, the great people of
Austin, the innovative people of Austin will come up with even more and better ideas. But
just so you see those, both of those are pinned to the top. So if you're interested in those,
check those out as well. Perfect. And in regards to this new TLD,
have you two secured any dot Austin domains yet?
I have for sure. I've got a couple actually, but I'll let you go first.
No, I sent a long list to Sandy. I don't know if you guys have kept it yet.
But it starts with like Elon dot Austin. I mean, what else? How else are you going to start,
right? And you've got Mark dot Austin already. I do. Yes, indeed. And I have Sandy Carter
dot Austin and Sandy dot Austin. But I also got some I had to wait because of course,
I don't want to be out there very, you know, first and grabbing some away from our customers.
But I did get some really cool ones around. I love which dot Austin because I do love Austin.
So I also grabbed some other cool ones, too. I really wanted cowboy or cowgirl. But some of
those are now in our in our bank for what we're getting ready to do our premium drop today. So
yeah, there's some cool ones out there. So if you haven't seen, I'm gonna grab them.
Because Mark, I think some of the things that that Austin stands for are things like weird
and people if they've never been to Austin, one of the mantras of Austin is keep Austin weird,
right? Yeah, exactly. And, you know, and there's all kinds of ways to define what weird could mean
to you, me or anybody else. But the idea is like, let's keep Austin open. Let's keep Austin
innovative. Let's keep Austin imagining possibilities, which is why, Sandy, when you came to me with the
idea of dot Austin, it was like, we've got to figure out how to make this happen because
Austin is weird. And it's an awesome city. And let's embrace the future. And let's dive in and
figure out what you know what comes next. Yeah, for sure. And what are some other things that you
think Austin stands for? I know, like cowboy cowgirl, I've been to a lot of rodeos there,
what other things come to mind for you for Austin? Well, of course, you know, barbecue
comes to mind that there's some incredible barbecue. There's a legacy, not and not only,
you know, Austin City, but surrounding areas, for example, Elgin or Lockhart, there's some incredible
barbecue based cuisines that are that are really fabulous. They've got some influences from
France or the Creoles or sort of New Orleans. But anyway, so barbecue is one for sure.
Sports is another, obviously, the Longhorns, right? The University of Texas Longhorns,
whether that's basketball or football or baseball. Incredible, incredible organization, UT.
But also, you know, music, Stevie Ray Vaughan, right? Think of SRV and the incredible music that
he created right here in Austin. His brother, Jimmy Vaughan is still here, still performing.
We call ourselves the music capital of the world, and that music is still a vibrant part
of the community, of the culture. And then with tech, I mean, this is incredible tech explosion.
And it goes all the way back to, you know, I guess, to, you know, companies like Motorola,
like IBM, like Intel, like Texas Instruments in the, let's call it the old days.
But the modern tech happening here in Austin is incredible, whether it's companies like Samsung
investing billions of dollars with their semiconductor plant in Taylor, we've got life sciences,
we've got quantum computing, I think the most advanced quantum computing company in the world,
whether it's the pure theory or the actual physical hardware is right here in Austin.
So there's just this incredible array of innovation, technology, art, music, culture,
it's just a magical place. And so that Austin is just perfect.
Definitely. And I'm actually pretty interested. Can you tell us more about the upcoming night
market in Austin? I would love to. So we, you know, what we want to do is, you know,
you can think, I don't know if anybody on this call, if you guys have been to a night
market before, but there's something, you know, organic, exciting, dynamic, it's vibrant,
you can smell and see the lights and sights and sounds of food and culture and just positive
energy. So we're trying to create that. But we're trying to do it in a way that both
embraces, you know, primarily, of course, Asian culture and community, but also just makes
for a delightful experience. So we're planning to have a let's call it an urban night market
experience every year. So sort of, I don't know what, not rusty, but really urban essential,
you know, you can just see the buildings and the surroundings and the alleyways,
and that kind of sense of urban connectivity, once a year, and then we were going to have
a suburban event as well, more of a festival. But this upcoming event is going to be happening
just prior to consensus. And we're working with unstoppable domains, we're working with the
sandbox, smobbler, and we want to really create a multi dimensional physical and, I guess,
fidgetl experience. So you can walk in, we're going to have sumo wrestlers, we're going to have
Muay Thai fighters, we're going to have kpop, we're going to have anime cosplay. The whole idea is to
really embrace and celebrate Asian art culture community in in Austin. And so we're still
figuring out what that means. But it's going to be super cool. And Sandy, I'm so thankful that you're
that you're going to be part of it. Yeah, I can't wait. I can't wait to attend. So I've been
to several night markets. Anybody else out there been to night markets? If you live in Asia,
you've probably been I've been to one in Korea, I've been to the one in Hong Kong, which was
which was fabulous. I've also been to one in Singapore. I think that's kind of cool too.
So if you haven't been to one, you should definitely try it. And it is right before
consensus. So if any of any of you guys are going to consensus, you should
come and experience it as well.
And Mark, do you mind telling us about a use case that you wish you could have today for
the city of Austin using the dot Austin TLD?
Now you put me on the spot. I'm thinking probably parking. Right? We I think most of us have
parking phobia, where we've got to drive downtown and figure out, okay, my goodness,
where am I going to park? And how am I going to be there on time? Where do I go? What do I do?
Parking would be amazing. But but another one would just be like alumni, right? Think about
think about whether you're a Boy Scout, right? And you had that connection with your troop,
but you were part of something bigger. Or whether you're, you know, an urban tiger,
or you're a UT grad, or it's just it's really that creating that sticky connectivity that that
transcends, you know, day to day life, it's just like, it's always part of what you do. So
I guess, you know, practical application parking, you know, more of a sexy application, how do we
like, just create sticky, personal connections that that gravitate across, you know, ages and
Awesome. Okay, good to know. And Sandy, are there educational use cases for dot Austin
domains in schools and universities?
Yeah, so one of the ones that we would love to do is to be able to tokenize a diploma for a school
and have that be represented in your digital identity. And why is that important? Well,
I was just reading an article from LinkedIn. And it showed that almost a third of people
who list a school on their LinkedIn profile didn't go to that school, which tells you a lot,
right? Because there is no trust verification on LinkedIn, you can essentially put anything you
want to put up on your LinkedIn profile. And there's really no one who's gonna double click
on it or check out and say, Did Sandy really go to Duke University? And so with a digital identity,
you know, it'd be great if Mark and I could work together and get like your diploma from
University of Texas at Austin, digitized and placed inside that dot Austin digital identity,
or even just certifications, right, the school, the city does a lot of continuing education.
When I read there, I took up a sign language class, one of my best friends is, is deaf,
and so I signed to her. And so, you know, even that certificate that I could sign 101, not 201,
or 301, being in my dot Austin profile would be, I think, very powerful use cases. So I think
education is a really big one. And then, you know, if you think about it for businesses,
like when I was there, I met the I met with the CEO of AMD. I think the whole senior leadership of
AMD is there in Austin. And one of the things she was telling me is that recruiters will do,
you know, they have schools that they target, and they'll go and pull LinkedIn profiles from people
who graduated from schools. And they were also seeing like a third of the people who said they
graduated from a school like University of Texas, actually didn't graduate from that school, and
they don't find it out until later on in the recruiting process. So that could be a great thing
to do for Austin, but also a great expense saver for companies as well, so that they don't get too
far down the path before they recruit somebody as well. So I think that could be a really cool one.
Definitely. That's a huge use case. And both to Mark and Sandy here, how could
dot Austin domains contribute to local cultural preservation and storytelling? Do you think?
Do you want to go first, Mark, or do you want me to?
Sure, I guess I still need to think through that, because that's a great question.
And that's what really one of the cool things about Austin is that, you know,
it starts with, you know, keep Austin weird, but there's really a sense of personality around
the city, if that makes sense. There's really a sense of, this is a special place, let's all treat
it well. Let's appreciate, enjoy, respect, embrace, you know, just delight in the fact that this is
just an amazing city. So all of that energy is there. And so when I think about dot Austin,
I think about, okay, so I don't have an answer to your question, but I think that
does fit into that Austin magic, right? That that will keep Austin weird magic. So
I don't have an answer now, but I will have an answer soon. And it's going to be cool.
Okay, so here's some ideas. I'm just trying to, I'm actually playing off of you,
Mark. So you said, music is a big thing that Austin is known for. There could be
some sort of cultural badge around, you know, bands that you saw in Austin before they became famous.
So I don't even know if you guys remember the Dixie chicks. I saw the Dixie chicks in a,
in a bar in Austin that sat maybe 25 people. I sat like, I could touch them on the stage before
they even became famous. And I think that's one of the things that Austin is known for, right?
Is you see these amazing bands in small settings. So that could be one badge, right? That can be
really cool. Exactly. Can I, can I say that I smoked a joint with Willie Nelson? Is that appropriate?
I actually played, you know, he, he has a golf course, right? And so I lived across the road
from, from his golf course. Wow. This is going way back. And somehow I bumped into him and his
crew at a gas station and they were getting ready to play golf and off we went and it was great. So
perhaps, you know, a Willie, that can be a Willie Nelson badge. Yeah. And one of the things I'm
bringing my team down to Austin for an offsite and we're going to Esther's Follies. And if you
haven't been to Austin, um, one of the shows there that is it's quirky Austin humor. Um,
I don't know how long they've even been around, but it's really a fun show and people, uh,
you can see outside. So as they're doing skits, like regular people are walking by,
it's kind of fun, but it's, uh, you know, kind of, uh, maybe an Esther's Follies. Like I,
like I, I'm part of that historian culture that knows about Esther's Follies could be interesting.
Yes, exactly. Exactly. And then of course you can always bump into Joe Rogan.
Yeah, that's right. That's right. Talking about Follies. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's,
um, you know, landmark lovers, like you could do something, um, for your, you know, historical
preservation, like go into the, uh, the capitals right there. I've, I've had barbecue at that
capital building before with your, uh, governor Abbott. Um, anyway, I think there could be tons
of these that you could do that are, that are kind of cultural and storytelling. Um,
you know, badges in the context of a city like Austin that has that rich, uh, history,
but also the vibrant culture. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you could do a barbecue badge
like I've eaten barbecue at all of these restaurants, right? Yes. There's so many there's
now that's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, yeah, there's tons of them, tons of tons of them down,
even just downtown, but there's tons of them all over. So that could be a really fun one.
We'll have to brainstorm on that one because that might be a fun thing to do for the night market,
you know? Yes, ma'am. I'm, I'm just awaiting your return. Yeah. So we're, uh, so just
everybody knows. So unstoppable is going down for the night market. We'll be part of the sponsorship
of the night market. Then we've got consensus, which is, you know, a big brand show that's down
there in Austin and the convention center. And then right after that, we've got names con,
uh, which as you guys know, is done with a GoDaddy and ICANN and all of those great
domainers. So we've got kind of like a week and a half or more of, uh, exciting things happening
in Austin, Texas. And, and so by the way, and I guess we can make this public, uh, Sandy,
but we have a very special VIP space and room during the night market. So if you have, uh,
special guests that, you know, that want to come enjoy, but also find a place to just
chill and, uh, you know, catch their breath, we can, we can take care of that.
Yeah, I see Jason on here. Uh, Jason's part of a podcast out of Austin, a top podcast. So we might
have to invite Jason to come and join us as well as some of the, maybe some of the whales too,
if they can get down to Austin, Texas. That's, that's a great idea. I love it.
Perfect. And on the topic of badges helping, uh, with tourism and city branding, how do,
how do you think that, uh, general dot Austin domains might facilitate better tourism and city
branding marketing? Yeah. Another great question. I, I think that, um, you know,
South by Southwest is such a big part of the fabric of come to Austin, experience something
incredible. So I would say that a South by Southwest badge would be, would be amazing.
And actually I was just exchanging notes with the CEO of South by Southwest. Uh,
I won't drop names right now, but, um, I think that tying into something iconic like that
would be, would be powerful, but, but then also creating that lingering magic of, of more
personal experiences like barbecue, like music, like art, um, experiences that are very personal
and sort of community connecting. I'm, I'm, I'm thinking out loud here, but I can see how we
could have like big brand badges, like South by Southwest, or we can have very small, intimate,
more personal connections. Um, yeah. I mean, the, the possibilities are endless. So super cool.
Awesome. And, uh, going to Sandy now, what potential is there for dot Austin domains
in fostering local innovation and tech startups? Oh, so this one, you know, um, if you looked at
the press release, you'll see that Josh bear, he's the, um, CEO and founder of something called
capital factory capital factory is the largest accelerator. I think it's in Texas and definitely
in Austin. Um, and what he does is he has just amazing help for Austin startups. So I could imagine
this would be really cool. Mark, we could have like a unicorn badge that would signify that
your startup became a unicorn in Austin. That could be really cool. Um, you could do it by
the stages or by, uh, you know, purpose as well. There we, um, when I was there, I judged a, uh,
a contest, um, for the top AI startups in Austin and there was some great ones there.
Like there's a healthcare startup. We could even do them by category, right? Healthcare,
um, a responsible AI, uh, marketing. There's tons of marketing there. So that could be some really
cool adventures that we do. And because Austin is such a haven for startups, we could actually
bring, you know, brainstorm with them, uh, you know, with Josh and team as well to say,
what would actually help the startups? Like I'm looking, maybe something like I'm looking for
funding, you know, funding's really hard to get female founders. Mark, that could be another good
one. Female founders in Austin. Yes, yes, absolutely. And there's some incredible leaders
in that space that we can, that we can work with. Absolutely. Yeah. So I think some of those
could be really interesting too. And again, you know, you have to remember you're not getting
just the badge to get the badge. You're getting the badge so that now you have this,
it's a fantastic way, not just to acknowledge or celebrate an entrepreneur, but to also start
the communication flow. Uh, because once you have the badge, you know, let's say Josh could say,
I want all my capital factory startups to have this. And you know, he grabbed a ton for,
for capital factory. Um, but now he can actually innovate with them and chat with them and, um,
you know, help them along the way as they're, you know, as they're, uh, doing that. Oh,
the, another one I was just thinking about pitch perfect, you know, cause we had, um,
in this little startup competition, I judged, they judged like the, the idea, but they also
judge the people's pitch. You know, how did they do in pitching and demonstrating and communicating?
Anyway, I think there, there could be lots of things we do here.
Definitely. And, uh, going to Mark here, what would you say makes Austin
different from most cities that you have visited or lived in throughout your lifetime?
Yeah, I've actually been thinking about that a lot. And, um, I think my answer is
this, there's two parts to it, to, to the answer. One is that there is a legacy,
there is this sort of quirky sense of history and pride and purpose and legacy, right? Um,
and, and that's all, that's all centered around, uh, the city itself. You know, the fact that it's,
you know, Austin is the state capital. Uh, you've got that kind of government,
not influence, but presence, right? That, that consistent, uh, presence you've got the
University of Texas, which is obviously, you know, one of many of the great schools in the region.
So you've got that, I guess, backbone of, of, or legacy of pride and, and, and, and
confidence and excitement, but then you've also got this incredible injection of energy and dynamism.
And I would guess that 20 years ago, when somebody graduated from University of Texas,
they were going to move to, you know, San San Jose or San Francisco or Chicago or New York,
but today they're staying, right? So, so we've got now this self, not, not perpetuating,
but we've got, um, an energy, which is growing and building and, and self-confident. So
it's just, you've got this incredible legacy, but you've, you've also got the sense of new
sexy purpose. So it's just a really exciting place to be.
And I'm just going to add in there, Adrian, I know you're not asking me, but I have to say,
I think it's, I've visited 89 countries, believe it or not. I've had McDonald's and all 89 too,
cause I get homesick for our food. Um, but what I see in Austin and the reason it's one of the
most beloved cities is it's got this vibrant music and art scene. You know, Mark talked about
the live music capital of the world, but the art is there. It's got a vibrant art scene as well
with galleries and theaters. It's got the thriving tech industry. So it's a tech hub. It's an
entrepreneurial hub. Um, I would also say I was outside a lot there because of the weather,
lots of outdoor activities and you know, plays in the park and green spaces. And then I also felt
like it was, um, one of the most diverse communities too. I don't know how you feel about that, Mark,
but I felt like there was just huge diversity, right? Yes, very much so. Um, and then the food
and the drink scene. And then of course that unique lifestyle, you know, keep Austin weird.
So I've traveled a lot, which is, it's why I would like to, I keep telling my husband, if we end up
there again, I'm staying so you can move wherever you want, but I'm staying in Austin. Uh, cause I,
I've been there twice and, uh, I don't want to leave if I go back there again. Have you been,
well, you've been Adrian, right? Cause you came down for the consensus last year, right?
Yeah. So I used to live in round rock, which is about an hour drive of Austin. So I live in that
surrounding area for about six months. Yeah. That's home of Michael Dell, right? Yep.
Round rock. Yeah. That's right. And my husband works for Oracle. So Oracle is now headquartered
there. I think there's still headquartered there. Is that right, Mark? Oracle's there.
Yes. Tesla's there. Dell's there. AMD. Um, I didn't realize that AMD was, yeah.
Yeah. Lisa, Lisa's here and she, and she's part of our community. She, um,
we actually gave her, what me not gave her. We were lucky to give her, um, the award for,
you know, incredible leadership for the Asian community, but yeah. So AMD is, is a huge
presence here in Austin. Yeah. I was lucky enough to get to chat with her at Southwest
if you guys don't know, Lisa is the CEO of AMD. Huge, huge turnaround of that company as well.
Exactly. Huge. Oh, that's something else we could do. We could do
companies headquartered in Austin. We could give away bat. Like if you work for AMD,
give away a badge for that. We should talk to, yeah. Yes. Let's talk separately.
Sandy, let's, let's, you and I need to talk with Sandy. I mean,
sorry with Lisa about some ideas that we have for AMD. Yeah, that would be awesome. Okay.
Okay, great. Yeah. And if you guys on here on the call have some ideas for us too, for cities,
you know, raise your hand and, you know, as we start to close out, we'll take a couple of
questions for the audience too. So if you guys have questions, you know,
just raise your hand and we'll, we'll call on you as we go along.
Perfect. And as we start to wrap things up here, a question to both Sandy and Mark,
what excites you the most about the future of Web3 demand adoption?
So I'll, you want me to start Mark, or do you want to go?
Please, please go. Okay. So I think there's a couple of things that, that I love. One is the,
you know, the sense of community that this whole space generates. I really believe the community is
the project. The project is the community. I just think that makes so much sense. And it takes that
customer obsession, you know, to a whole nother, another area. The other thing I think the future
of Web3 domain adoption holds in it is this innovation and content ownership and creation.
It really empowers content creators, which I think is great for Austin with the,
you know, hub of music, hub of art, hub of tech. All of those are builders and creators,
and it helps them give some mechanisms for copyright control for ways to do direct monetization. I
don't know if I was telling you guys or not, but I met a woman who had won an Emmy for her album
and you would think she would have made tons of money and she didn't until her contract ran out
on the album. And she started taking each of the tracks of her music and creating NFTs.
And she was telling me she actually made more money selling that than she did from the album,
which is disappointing and surprising all at the same time. I think the other thing that
the future could hold for this Web3 identity is to expand access and reduce inequality too.
You know, I think Web3 domains can play a pivotal role in democratizing access to information and
e-commerce and online services, expanding that use of the internet not to be controlled by a set of,
you know, entities or companies. I think it can really, you know, take that to the next level.
And then I just love the ease of the, you know, transactions and the payments
as well. So that would be some of the things that I think the future holds,
you know, enhanced security, but seamless transactions, empowerment of content creators,
expanded community. I think that the whole future here is exciting,
but also transformative for the internet as we know it today.
Yeah, Celia, I don't know how to follow that. I guess I would say that
you know, Web3 provides such an incredible construct for personality and presence and ownership and
access and just magic, right? So it's really about how do we make that accessible and fluid
and celebratory? So in other words, people can do it and enjoy it and just it's real and
it's powerful and it's magical, but it's just so easy to do, right? And I think we're right on
the edge of that. And I think, you know, Sandy, you particularly, but others like you in the
Web3 space are creating magic for the future of humanity. So I'm grateful for the chance
to work with you. Awesome. And I feel the same way. We didn't ask about the partnership,
but I have to tell you, you know, partnering with Mark has been incredible. He is a risk taker.
He's an innovator. You know, he sees above and beyond. So it was, it was such a pleasure
to partner with you on this initiative. I couldn't imagine doing it with anybody else.
So thank you for your partnership, Mark, you directly,
but also from the greater Austin Asian Chamber of Commerce as well.
Okay. Do we have any other questions or anything, Adrienne?
I believe that's it. Yeah, I guess we can move on to the final thoughts. Sandy and Mark,
which final thoughts would you like to leave our listeners with?
I'll let you start, Mark.
Sandy, I want to get a bottle of tequila, whiskey, and vodka in a room, in a private room in Austin
during the night market with a collection of like let's say five to nine amazing minds.
And let's continue this conversation. Oh, I love that. That's great. Hey,
I just learned how to do this. So let me do this.
That's pretty cool, right? Sounds like fun. It sounds like a great, it sounds like great
fun. I love that. Yeah, I mean, I'm hoping this is what I would like to do. I would like for Austin
to be, I guess I should say continue to be the shining example of how an innovative city
moves to that next generation of the internet. So I hope that we just keep innovating,
innovating and innovating at other cities, just keep going. I want to do that. I want to copy
Austin. I want to be like them. I want to do that. Just like I heard it, you know,
South by Southwest and beyond. That's what I envision us doing. And probably that meeting
in that room will help that Mark, for sure. Exactly. Let's have that conversation. Let's
get it started. Yeah, you got it. Let's get it started. Just where we started with the
Black Eyed Peas. Let's get it started. Yeah, let's do it. Awesome. It feels right. Any questions
that you guys have before we close out? Anybody in the audience have any questions for us?
It looks like 135 is requesting. Oh, good. Yeah, that sounds great.
There we go. Okay, he should be up here. 135, which question do you have for us?
Yeah, I just sent Sandy a message, but basically, I think it'd be really cool if you can get a badge
for volunteering or having maybe like a Tesla or something. And even solar panels, you know,
just rewarding people for doing amazing things like that and helping you. Great idea. Yes.
I love that. Yeah, volunteer volunteering or solar panels. Yeah, I love that.
Different causes. That's a great idea. And look at, I don't know if you can see him,
but he's got 135.Austin. Love it. Love it. Thank you. Yeah, but that's great because there are those
global causes that we should be buying into, not buying into, it's the wrong word, but we should be
diving into, right? So whether it's climate change or other issues that we could all collect
and engage around. Beautiful idea. Perfect. Awesome. You know what we're going to do for you?
135, I'm going to give you a free .Austin domain. So ping me, hit me up on what you want. And if I
can do it, no single digits, but if you hit me up with something else, I'll give you a .Austin.
Okay. So just DM me. Awesome. Any other questions you guys have or suggestions?
It looks like that's it for now. Feel free to DM the main Unsolved World County if you have any
questions. But yeah, thank you everybody for tuning in this afternoon or evening or morning,
wherever you're at. Thank you, Mark, for attending. Thank you, Sandy, for speaking.
And yeah, we'll catch you next time. Okay. Sounds great. Thank you. Thanks, Mark.
And thanks to Oliver Wales who joined us as well. We really appreciate that. Thank you, guys.