Hey, everyone. Thanks for being here.
Rachel, I just invited you as a co-host, so hop on and we will get started.
Hey, so glad to have you back.
always a pleasure. Listeners, thanks for being here. Hopefully we'll get some more
people in this space, but I am Zandra. I'm your host for today. I'm also the
community manager for Charmverse, and Charmverse is trusted by Optimism,
Cartesi, Game 7, and Mantle, and it's a web3 community operations platform for
members to build relationships, work together, and vote. So you manage your
members, you coordinate tasks, facilitate structured discussions and decisions, and
hold each other accountable. So if you're looking for a hub for your web3
community, for your grants program, come check us out, but not until after the
space today, because I am pumped to be chatting with Rachel Brizenden, rock star
of web3. Rachel, hello, thanks for being here. Oh, those are happy tears,
Zandra. I am always honored to work with you. It was so cool to see you at
East Denver finally in person. We've done multiple spaces like these, and I'm always
just like so honored to hear your kind words and support, and like just the
good vibes whenever we do a space together. I've been a fan of Charmverse
for quite a few years now. I've actually been working with different people on
the Charmverse team, and I view it as a project in web3 that's really
needed, that is kind of like a great connector and really community-focused
project. So Zandra, thank you for taking the time to do this space today, and
yeah, happy to dive into the questions and share about the work I'm doing now
at the University of Ethereum and EDcon. Yes, absolutely, and I just want to say all
of that right back to you. You really are a rock star in the space and well-known
in this space, and I'm honored every time you come on here and just excited to
talk about all the different things you do, because you really do have a
presence in web3 within the crypto communities, and yes, it was so nice to
be able to give you a hug in person after really just being online together
for the last, you know, year and a half or whatever. So that was so much fun. Next
time we really need to figure out where to hang out more, because it was so brief
and everyone's pulled in so many different directions that it's like, hey,
so nice to see you, let's hang out, and then it's like, poof, it's gone. So I'm
just so glad that we got to actually see each other in person, that was
wonderful. Yes, we had our moment, although I wish it was a longer moment,
but we had a number media team with me, and I was like, we got to interview
Charmverse, and then we got pulled in a bunch of different directions, and we're
interviewing people all over the main floor of the main venue. So yeah, it
was a wild day that I saw you, but it was really fulfilling getting
that experience, and I can dive into like, you know, the ETH Denver
experience for me and our team. I had one of the best days of my life at
ETH Denver this year, and I think so far it was one for the books, I think it was
the best ETH Denver that I've experienced. I would love to hear about that, so yeah,
tell us, I mean, it's funny, I don't know if it's the same for you, but ETH Denver
feels like forever ago, even though it was what, like three weeks? Right, yeah. But
it just, it's not even a month ago. Yeah, you like prepare for it, it's just a
marathon because you're just doing stuff constantly, but yeah, tell me what made,
I'm fascinated, what made one of your like best days yet? It was one of the best
days of my life, so I actually got to do a talk on the main, one of the main
stages at ETH Denver, the submarine stage, so I got to talk about dial dynamics
and working in web 3, which is something, you know, that's very close to my heart.
It's actually full circle, you know, I gave my first talk in Denver at Dow
Denver a couple of years back, and that is what catapulted my web 3 career, and I
spoke about Dow, so that was where I started in the space. So full circle now, I
talked about Dow dynamics, and I talked about working in web 3, and some of
the things that can help people as individuals thrive when working in web 3,
and kind of what that journey looks like. Now, something I wanted to do is, this
is a very unorthodox approach to this presentation, but this was part of that
day, so I actually went around asking attendees what they want to learn about
for that presentation. I went in with a blank slate and asked around, you saw me
doing the interviews, and I also did that during fiddle week, so I had a chance to
talk to people and ask, what do you want to learn about Dow's? What would you want
to hear about working in web 3? And I actually have notes in my phone of
everyone's answers, and one answer just stuck with me and influenced the whole
presentation. One girl told me, I want to go home and explain Dow's to my grandma.
Can you help me do that? All right, so I made a slide. Does anybody here know Charlie
Day from Always Sunny in Philadelphia? Like that meme of him trying to explain
something, and he looks crazy. So I made like a meme slide of like me trying to
explain Dow's to grandma, and you know, started with a meme, you know, and then
went into the synonyms for Dow. So something I've been trying to practice
this each number, and even now in my life, is discussing these terms in
layman's terms, right? Breaking down the vernacular in the jargon and being able
to kind of break up the curse of knowing, right? Because when we're in this
bubble, communicating with each other all the time, we start to speak the same
language, but we forget so much of the world doesn't know about this stuff
yet. And yeah, that was part of my presentation, just talking about what are
synonyms for speaking about these things. And then offering people a pathway, of
course, like this was actually my last 8th member at Opolis. So part of my talk
was focused on Opolis. And yeah, I have since transitioned now completely to the
University of Ethereum and EDcon. And yeah, this is I guess some alpha. I
haven't said this publicly yet, but yeah, I've moved on from Opolis this
past week. That's, I mean, I'm sure they're sad to lose you, because like I
said, you are such a force in this space, and you're so great at what you do. But
congratulations, that is super exciting. And we're definitely going to dive into
what University of Ethereum is, and some of the things that you do, and the
education you offer, and events that you're doing. But yeah, congratulations.
That is amazing. Super exciting. I love hearing about your best day at ETH Denver.
And it's so cool, you know, you have you really put yourself out there, you know,
saying that you started on the stage at Dow Denver, and here you are on the
main stage. And I've watched some of your presentations, just stuff that's
posted on YouTube. And you're great at it. You just, I like how you try to
engage the audience, how you interact with people, you make it relatable.
Always. And that's my favorite part. Yeah, that's my favorite part of
presenting. I was actually talking about this on our most recent workshop about
personal brand development and relationship building in the space. I
talked about how comfortable I am when I'm like getting on stage, like,
because I can balance energy off the audience. And like, I'm in a room with
those people having a real moment, right? And I can see how people are
receiving the information. When getting in front of a camera and podcasting
and making videos, I've oddly found that more challenging, because you
don't see the person on the other end receiving that information. So I've
always found it more fun to do public speaking. It's just been, it feels
like a more raw, authentic way to connect with people all in the same
room with you. That's really interesting, because I definitely get
nervous when I'm like in front of people. But I guess it makes sense.
But I just think it kind of flips sometimes how people feel, you know,
having people actually staring back at you at the audience. But it makes sense
being able to like gauge reactions or, or pivot if you're like, Oh, I'm
losing them. Like, let's step it up and do something else.
Yeah, and I what I always try and do, if you've watched my talks, I always
try and get people to raise their hand like, Hey, can you relate to this
thing? Raise your hand if you've had this happen to you. I try to connect
with the audience and tell a relatable story. And that's something
we do at the University of Ethereum, too, in our workshops. And yeah, happy,
happy to get into all the things there.
Yeah, well, okay, one more thing. I also loved what you were saying
about like breaking stuff down into layman's terms, because absolutely,
we get caught up in the vocab of Web3 and crypto, and we forget about
the newcomers and how intimidating it was when we first all joined the
space. So I love that you said that I think that's really important.
Also, what makes you great at this educational side of things. But
another thing that happened for you, I believe, during East Denver was an
invite to she fi season, the she fi season 10 cohort, right?
Yep, absolutely. So this actually came from the doing the media for
East Denver this year, I was walking around, it was I think it was
the same day that I saw you at the main conference, or the main
event, I'm sorry, sorry, East Denver, it's not a conference. So
yeah, walking around, like at the main venue, I saw Maggie Love,
and I was like, Oh, my God, we got to interview her. This girl
is so badass. You know, I've been watching her her journey
for a while and really have been wanting to join she fi since I
first heard about it. And, you know, I had the chance to
interview Maggie and then talk to her after. Now fast forward, you
know, she invited me to join she fi cohort 10. I didn't know
they're gonna be at 530 in the morning Pacific Standard Time.
So trying to show up and get the recordings is something I'm
working on now. But yeah, being a part of a global collective of
females is a really powerful thing. And something I like about
she fi is you can pay the membership fee and then you are
a member forever, like you can go and do other cohorts. So I'm
hoping they do one that isn't at 530 in the morning in the future.
So that's hopefully something in the future. But yeah, I really
love Maggie. I think the work she's doing is so important. I
think connecting with other women in the space and building
strong bonds and friendships is something I'm really passionate
about. I like forming bonds like that are authentic and net
positive for individuals and projects. So doing this is just
really fun. It's like a chance to build relationships and to
learn actual making friends while working and learning. It's
kind of the best of all worlds. And I agree. I've met so many
great, great people in this space, but really connecting
with women at these events events are so just like fulfilling my
soul. It's really good. I love it. So and again, another
reason I love the opportunity to talk to you every time we do
this. So let's dive in to your new role. So tell us what
University of aetherium is what this organization is all about.
Yeah, absolutely. So we do quite a bit. I'll try to break this
down in sequential order. So what I'll start with what I do.
So the first thing is focusing on educating the next
generation of builders to create solutions that can solve
real world problems of blockchain. Now we do this
creating these educational workshops, so I actually lead
curate and host biweekly these workshops with my colleague
Tina, who's also on the space here. So we go back and forth
hosting and we work together to plan out these Twitter
spaces. I'm sorry. Actually we do work together to plan out
Twitter space as well as the workshops. So a big component
of this is education and we work with students,
universities and blockchain clubs around the world.
Another cool thing about this is Vitalik is our honorary
president, so we're actually working with Vitalik and
some folks from the aetherium Foundation to put on
Edcon in Tokyo this year. So the first piece I'll say
is education. We really believe in the philosophy too
of learning by doing so I actually just before this
was recording a workshop for an intro to decide just to
share an example and we encourage our guests to share
like a hands on way for the students to learn by
doing and to get involved. So we always share resources.
We always share ways for them to actually take the
knowledge they've applied and do something with it right still
a work in progress. We ideally want to see these
students building solutions and we want to see them come
out to Tokyo and Edcon or I'm sorry Edcon in Tokyo to come
picture their project for the first two days of the
event, which is called Super Demo Day. So yeah first
piece is education workshops. We kicked off community spaces
and also Tina is leading our chapter leadership program.
So the chapter leadership program offers support and
resources to students, blockchain clubs and community
leaders that want to host events in their local
communities and beyond that right. We actually want to
have we want to accelerate different projects and
students on what they're working on. So yeah fast
forward to now Edcon that's what our team is focused
on now post December and this is actually going to
be the first event of its kind. So this is the first
crypto web 3 conference at this Olympic Stadium in Shibuya,
Tokyo. We've worked with the Shibuya government of Japan
to secure this Olympic Stadium. It is massive. It can
fit 14,000 people in the stadium. Vitalik is one of
the headlining speakers. We're going to have a
founders reunion. This is the 10 year anniversary of
Ethereum so that's going to be a big part of our
theme this year. And yeah I know Tina is battling a
sore throat right now but I know she has a lot of a
lot of insight into super demo day. What that looks
like working with the chapter leads on our project.
And yeah I feel like that pretty much sums it up.
That is so much going on. That's so exciting.
First of all have you been to Japan before?
I have not. This will actually be my first time.
Amazing. I've never been either. Are you
are you just going for work? Are you going to be
able to take some time and like explore?
Well you know what? Something I'm trying to
plan. I haven't even shared this with the team
yet but I'm trying to bring my youngest brother out.
So he's still in high school but he's really
into Japanese culture like video games, manga.
So I'm trying to bring him out with me so I can
take him around and maybe you know we're looking
at like Nintendo World and you know different
areas in Tokyo where we can go look at like
comics and games. So yeah trying to plan on
bringing him out there and getting you know nerding out together.
Totally. Now if you're going that far I feel like
you need to like tack some days on and enjoy
or take your brother. That's like a trip you'll
remember forever. That's amazing.
Oh absolutely yeah. I'm really looking forward to this.
I think it'll be I mean I know it'll be a once in a
lifetime opportunity. Like I hope to go back to Japan
in Tokyo someday but like who knows when that'll
be I'm on the other side of the world. So yeah I'm
really excited for it and we are really just chugging
along and doing a lot of work preparing for this.
So it's exciting to see different projects get involved.
I'm now focusing more on community partnerships as well.
So I mean this is something Zandra I think we have
some time scheduled for next week to talk about
you know Charmverse potentially getting involved.
So I'm excited for that conversation too.
Yeah me too and you know we're definitely very
interested in providing education to people in this
space. Entering this space whether it be about grants
about DAOs just helping people enter this space
gracefully and just have that access.
And that being said when I was checking out U.E.
I started doing one of the courses you know just
just going through it and seeing what was going on.
And listeners if you are looking to get some
education they have different different course levels.
So you can do beginner courses intermediate advanced
and it's a guided course where you read through
some stuff. They do great analogies to kind of
break things down and make it very digestible and
then you can and then you take a quiz at the end
and then you move on to the next phase of that
course. And it's just it's great. I think it's
just such a great way to absorb this information
and you really do need to break down the basics.
And like I said even for those people that are
more have more advanced knowledge go check it out.
It's a free resource. So I think the idea that
you are sponsoring EDCON is amazing. So wait what
So real quick so we're actually hosting EDCON so
our team's putting it on. We're not sponsoring it.
I mean we're organizing it yeah. Yeah but okay
so university no that's what I meant. So you're
sponsoring it right. We're organizing it and we are
yeah. Yeah we're organizing EDCON this year.
We are actively I mean we're getting closer to
EDCON now so we're still looking for
sponsors not as aggressively as we were. But yeah
if you know of any projects that are looking to
get involved that want to be a sponsor of EDCON
there are a lot of opportunities. Also want to
give a shout out to Dr. Tammy in the audience.
She is an OG DISA lady. Love it. Yeah thanks for
joining us. So yeah when is EDCON?
So it's July 26th to July 30th. Okay. In Shibuya,
Tokyo. Amazing. Oh I'm so excited for you.
And you mentioned so Vitalik is an honorary
president. Do you have the opportunity to
to work with him? So for EDCON this year yes but
admittedly he is not extremely active with UE. He is our
honorary president but you know he's he's very busy
and working on a lot of things. So on a day to day
not so much but for EDCON yes. Very cool.
I mean that must be an amazing opportunity too right to be able to
just to work with him a bit to get this
organized and just to have that opportunity.
Yeah I think one of the coolest things so far so I haven't had any
conversations with him directly but uh the director of the
University of Ethereum did mention on uh on one of our stand-ups that
you know he's like hey you know Vitalik watches these workshops you guys make
like the ethereum foundation looks forward to these and has anticipation so
just knowing we're putting work out there Tina and I are putting work out
into the world um that they're watching like it's
it's definitely a really good feeling. Absolutely
and you also mentioned so you have chapters kind of around the world
how many chapters are there currently of you eth?
That is a great question I feel like Tina would know this so
Tina I invited you up here if you can speak I know she's
she's sick right now okay uh if she is able to share a bit more about the
chapters that's information she would know
I don't know at the top of my head. Well I just remember looking and there were a
lot of chapters um like I said the courses the workshops
uh the events that you're putting on which oh Tina's here hey Tina
Hi Tina sorry to make you speak oh it's okay
remind me what the question is. Oh we were I was just wondering how many
chapters you currently have for you eth? We have um a bit over a hundred
chapters right now um and they're all very global. Amazing
that is so cool and do you work uh with these chapters to help get them set
up? Yeah we do um onboarding sessions we'll
do one-on-ones with the chapters and um we host them in our telegram groups
and things like that so there's continuous
uh communication with the chapters. That's very cool and thank you to you
and the rest of your team because as I was saying um looking at the work you're
putting together the educational content you're putting together
it's so important for this space if we're going to bring more people in we
need this education and um yeah I think it's amazing so kudos to
you and the team it's very cool and I'm excited to be learning more
about it um today and in my research to prepare
for this uh Rachel you said you are sponsorships
and partnerships but you're so focused on education
in your day-to-day how much of that is it are you helping
create the courses that are there are you more kind of
out there speaking at these events and educating people that way
where's your educational role or you know really what is your role and
tale over there? Yeah so I am the workshop curation lead
so our our topics I've selected uh I actually selected about 20 post-eighth
Denver topics so just kind of organizing them at a
high level then plugging in speakers and projects to come on
um and working with Tina to uh create the
workshops and the Twitter space is now in tandem with those
um for the courses actually so there's there's two people who are very
instrumental to that so I'd say the first is Vitalik so a lot of our course
material is actually written by Vitalik himself
number one uh number two I got to give a shout out to our product girl Ellie
she's done a lot on the product side of things
uh integrating AI to help people actually explain these concepts in their
own terms because we believe if you can explain
something in your own words and you truly understand it so
uh a lot of these courses are are formulated in that way
so that it can help the individual to uh to speak about these things
yeah I was going to say when you're going around with your video camera
with the video media team and asking questions of people and
and I love that really finding out what do people want to know not just
assuming that we know what people want to learn right
you're asking what do you want to know and then catering to that with your
presentations and that must come in huge at when you're doing this kind of
educational material at an organization that's
solely focused around education and workshops and furthering people in this
space yeah I really believe in just meeting
people where they're at I don't believe in just like
listing information and it's like trying to get a temperature check of
their level of understanding what they want to learn about and then crafting
um the presentation or the information based on that I think that's really
important and that was my approach in east Denver because
I actually I kind of had a mental block with putting together my presentation I
was like you know I don't want to say something that's
been said a million times already I want to go in and ask people what they
want to learn and create something unique and
that meets people where they're at so I'm a firm believer in that
I am too and it's working for you so tell me how did this transition
happen you know you were at op list you were doing partnerships over there
um and now you're in this role which to me really feels
right for you and you seem so excited about so how did this transition
happen in your career yeah so I was actually at op list uh
for close to two years um and it was a really amazing journey I
learned a lot during my time at op list it
taught me a lot of valuable skills that I learned today or
used today rather um and also I guess the transition
period looked like this um I got the talk at east Denver on
behalf of op list I was able to travel uh to east Denver
give my solo talk and also if you notice I hosted the career hub with meta
intro and higher chain uh this was the first career hub at
east Denver and I think this is actually going to be a staple event
moving forward um and and doing this work uh for
op list it kind of felt like full circle like
I just started to feel like my journey there is complete um
I did transition to part time a couple months ago and went full time with the
university of ethereum um and I just started to feel like you
know I really want to double down on web 3 I'm working with ue's because
you know we're getting ready for edcon it's a lot busier than it was before
so I just want to be fully focused on this
um and yeah I feel like I added value to op list I added value to their community
I built a very comprehensive list of partners that we've worked with
um so I feel like you know full circle my time there was complete and I
yeah I made the transition full time to ue's now and uh
moved on from op list it seems like a great transition
like I said you're really excited about it you deserve it
um you've absolutely put your time and efforts into this space
um so again congratulations that's so exciting
um also featured in Forbes no big deal oh my gosh yes that that came from
months of a conversation with one of our friends
Sandy Carter I don't know is anybody here familiar with unstoppable domains
if I could see any emojis yeah yeah she is uh
oh my gosh just such an og like she is one of my
true female role models in the space um just always going to events always
supporting others and you know um I have brought her up for
multiple things and this is the power of networking and
relationship building um when you show up for others and
consistently add value and show up for them
things like this could happen it's wild you know like
I brought Sandy up for my first episode of cryptosapiens which was a podcast I
hosted and produced through uh bankless style um I've done multiple
twitter spaces with Sandy multiple times I showed up and
supported her and unstoppable domains and then one day
I look in our GMopolis friends chat I think some folks here in that chat
I know you're in it Sandra um and she said hey I wrote a Forbes article
about this uh crypto tax company that we're partnered
with and I was like oh my god this is awesome like I didn't know she was a
writer for Forbes so then I started talking to her about
and saying hey do you think you could feature the
university of ethereum um and it was it just led to this like
uh conversation that lasted for a couple months
uh kind of going through different iterations of what we wanted to talk
about um and then getting the feature finally
uh while I was at East Denver I think it was actually the day I gave my solo
talk and it was just like so many amazing
blessings uh happened that day and that was one of
them and uh yeah it all came from showing up
and adding value having zero expectations and showing up for others
uh it eventually will lead to good things I love that
and again so deserved the way you do show up
um and I think that's you know we say in this space like do your own research you
can you can learn so much in the space if you just apply yourself there's so
much information out there there are people that are willing
to share their knowledge with you geek out with you
um and you've really done that and I think it's important to
just show this I mean you are just living reality
of like showing up doing the work here you are featured in Forbes
you know just skyrocketing into these great positions
like leading people in education connecting women
it's it's impressive and I I just love it you're an inspiration so
you definitely you're making me blush over here is that
no it's just I think it's important to see you know you put in the work
and this is what can happen and it's well deserved so
I love it speaking of are you still hosting your web3 Wednesdays
or the crypto sapiens podcast honestly so zandra I had to step down from a
lot of things like like I mentioned you know I started to step into this role at
the university of ethereum and um I realized how important this is and
I really want to focus on uh executing on our goals here um so I
mean I guess a big part of my web3 journey and my evolution is actually
learning to say no to things because uh in in you know my previous lives in web3
um I've signed up for a lot of things last year
I publicly spoke every month of 2023 and traveled all around the world
said yes to every opportunity yes this is I actually wrote about this I can
share with you um so I said yes to every opportunity that
came my way and you know going into the new year going into 2024 I told
myself this is going to be the year of discernment
I really have to start saying no to things because when you say
yes to things you're also saying no to other things right
um so that this year has kind of been my theme
learning to say no more learning to take things off of my plate
and really focus on executing on my primary goals
uh so yeah that's what I'm doing now I unfortunately
don't have the time anymore to host web3 Wednesdays or crypto sapiens
although uh those did give me a fundamental skill set that I use today
at um the university of ethereum so um it was kind of like my my boot camp days I
feel like absolutely I feel like I learned so much
just by talking to my guests right I learn a lot whether it's about their
projects or more fundamental fundamentals of web3
I totally get that but I also salute you for saying no
to things because this is definitely an industry in which you can work
24 seven every day of the year and you know obviously this work has paid
off for you but I think it's important to say here
here's what I want to prioritize here's what I'm going to prioritize
and throw your efforts towards that you've put in you've done the boot camp
as you said um yeah I'm sorry I didn't mean to put the
thumbs down there I meant to do thumbs up
but it's so true and you know it is kind of like
it's difficult to move on from certain projects especially when you
form like a familial bond like with crypto sapiens like
I love those guys they're they're an absolute pleasure to work with
I just couldn't justify like fitting it into my schedule anymore with
you know now this full-time job I'm working on
it became more and more difficult and I want it to be fair
and I want to show up 100% when I do something right so
um yeah that's kind of where I'm at with my uh
my web3 evolution I just want to show up and and put 100% into what I'm
focusing on instead of splitting my time amongst a
bunch of things now you're just gonna have to show up as a
guest on those you know on those kind of things
that's that's where you'll show up you don't need to host and prepare like that
anymore now now we just want you to come join us
occasionally oh thank you so so what do people need to do
to get started at UE well uh one of the main things I'll say
and this is actually pinned on this space
check out our educational modules at ue.org
as Andrew mentioned earlier there are different levels for different levels of
understanding um we have uh beginner intermediate and
advanced so it's it's really open for everyone that wants to learn
um the next thing I would say is our weekly workshop so
um I'll actually look really quick and pin um
our most recent ones so um Tina actually just did one with Ace the
card game uh so they're like a web3 card game
project um I'm pinning that there and then
also the one that came out yesterday is about
building a personal brand in web3 so this is something I've been very focused
on for the past few years so this topic is uh very close to my heart like
leveraging the power of relationship building
social media uh creating a presence and building your personal brand so if
that's something that interests you this is a really great workshop
um so yeah you can just follow the the university of ethereum and we post
these every wednesday um and then also some weeks we do
community spaces where we get together and actually talk about the
topics as a community kind of like this um so yeah and any other questions there
well how much is it going to cost people to do this
it costs zero zero dollars and zero cents
um it's open for everyone uh yeah we we are a non-profit so we're doing this
to focus on building up the space and
helping people to just learn more and educate
um so yeah the workshops are free anyone can watch them on youtube
anyone can go on our website and uh sign up and take our courses
um okay think of what else so we also have a
growing discord community as well so i'm gonna try and find that link uh while
we're on here and share that as well for anybody that wants to come in the
discord and uh pop in and say hi listeners definitely go check it out it
like like i said if you you can get so much learn so much about this space
and there are so many free resources and uh ueath is definitely a great one and a
great place to start um like i said different levels
go check it out it costs you nothing and they have
great information on there so definitely check it out
follow them at the ueath so d-e-u-e-t-h
or ueath.org um you can go there too so
or click on rachels pfp and it'll probably take you where you need to go as
well i'm guessing um also while i'm shouting out twitter
handles make sure you check out edcon 2024 it's at
edcon 2024 all capital letters um
yeah it is it's an i'm so glad you have learned about this
i'm definitely going to go take some of the courses because i have more
learning to do and more things i want to dive into
um cool yeah rachel thank you for posting that that's awesome
more information about edcon and tokyo 2024
you said that's in july yep so the end of july july 26 to july 30th
um so actually just pinned our promotional video if you all want to check it out
and our website is edcon.io so uh yeah feel free to grab a ticket or you
know you can dm me tina or the university of ethereum account
if you want to learn more about how to get involved or if you want to get your
project involved as well very cool i'm excited for your travels
for your new roles so a couple questions before i let you
before i let you go i know you have a slam day as always
but um how are we getting mass adoption of blockchain technology
how are we doing this well i mean uh we're doing this at ue through
education right for people to use something they need
to care about it they need to understand it at least at a
high level um i think there's a common analogy what
is it like people don't need to understand like how
https works like how you connect to the internet and i think we need to
basically streamline and simplify blockchain
education um and help people see the possibilities
like what's possible with this technology
what actual problems can be solved with this and i feel like
that's what we're focused on at ue on these workshops so
you know for instance with the d psi one we did today and by the way dr
tammy if you want to come up and nerd out about d psi things i have some
really cool workshops coming up um so yeah we're talking about how that's
solving problems in the world of science like
certain things with fundraising and credibility and using d psi and
blockchain to solve some of those issues um another
thing our very first workshop we did and this was like
one of the coolest experiences of my life um getting to work with the vice
mayor of berkeley and the princess of sierra leone
um was such a beautiful experience that still is making an impact today
so little i guess this is more alpha um
uh so i've been working with nouns dao to actually fund a proposal
from that conversation and the princess of sierra leone comes in and says hey
i want to use this technology to help my people get clean drinking water because
i think something like only two percent of the country has access to clean
drinking water and it's it's wild um so she's like how can we solve that um
through this space so working with nouns dao and having
this conversation over over months since november of last year
uh it looks like now we are going to get the funding to build a well in the
village of bumpay um in the southern province of sierra
leone so it's looking like that is going to happen
in the in the coming months so it's it's really exciting to see one of these
workshops actually making an impact um so that's just one example i love it and
i think that's a great example of why you need to say no to some things
so you can focus on these kind of things right
and even that uh took a lot of my time but i wanted to show like
we started off with that workshop and i wanted to show hey we can take a
conversation we can take an idea and turn that into
real world impact and i want the students to see
they can do this i want them to see what's possible so
you know i can pass the torch like once we build this first well it's looking
like we're going to do this in may uh once we do that then we kick off a
more long-term sustainable program that you know maybe students can come up and
help build or people in the community that are inspired and
this is just one use case i i definitely want this to expand beyond that
um to other topics as well absolutely yeah i mean i think you made a really
good point you know we don't always need to understand
how everything works we don't need to peek behind the curtain for everything
right we more need to show how it's going to affect people's lives or make
their lives better or easier right like we don't need all of the
technology for everyone because people are just going to zone out for that
but to actually show the value of blockchain i think is is going to
take it way further and again you're helping to do that yeah
yeah i think people want to feel inspired and actually see what's
possible um i know for me like one of the main
reasons i'm here is the community and the human-centric approach to working
in blockchain like you know working on dows uh getting
to connect with other people as equals not having
you know a boss and the same level of hierarchy that there isn't traditional
hierarchical organizations that lit me up and it made me feel as if
okay this is a space that can empower people on an individual level so that's
what inspired me and i guess we got to find that thing
that inspires people to get involved like what drives them
um i think that workshop from yesterday we did on on personal branding
relationship building and expanding your network
i think that touches on it like getting clear on what your purpose is
and aligning with others that align with your values i think that's a
a big component to doing anything in life right like
understanding your why absolutely and we talked about that in the last one and
i was yeah i loved hearing you talk about that
understanding your why you know why what do you care about
why are you doing this um i think that's a great tip
i i talk about that i think in pretty much every one of my
talks i i always keep it centered on the why like
i actually started my eat denver talk this year and you can all see this on
youtube the first slide was my wise impact and
community those are the two things i focus on the most in the space and
you know i feel like it's been fluid for me but those that's the thing i stay
grounded in trying to make an impact and trying to do things that are good for
i love it um sorry for for ranting no not at all uh dr tami did ask if you
could share the discord link because one of the links wasn't working
um so if you can also pin that that would be great
and then before i let you go you've shared
so many of your rewarding experiences and how much your hard work is paid off
um but i love to also get real on the other side of things can you
share or are you willing to share you know a hurdle
that you've had to get over or one of your biggest challenges that you've
needed to overcome with throughout your work in the space
um yeah i guess uh the first thing that comes to mind
actually i'll share two different hurdles um
and i i am going to try and get this ues invite up okay sorry sorry to make
you multitask i'm terrible at that okay it's all good i think i got it pinned
i see yep okay okay cool so that one should work dr tami
give us a thumbs up if you're able to get onto this court
um so yeah the biggest hurdles okay i have two right off the bat
the first one is balancing uh work-life balance
right that was something that was very difficult for me
um that became more and more evident uh last year and the year before
kind of experience burning uh burning out at certain points
and that is actually what has led me to come to a place of discernment and
actually learning to say no more often um because i used to say yes to
everything because i'm like so passionate about this space
and you end up uh potentially spreading yourself too thin when doing that and
we're all in this for the long haul right i realized if i want longevity in
this space if i really want to show up and make a long-term impact
i gotta take it slow it's not a race it's a marathon right
um so that was the biggest hurdle because i think on two different
occasions i really experienced a brutal burnout like
um there was one year i think i went to like
oh gosh i organized an event in san francisco then i went to denver to mcon and
coordinated event then i went to eath toronto to judge a hackathon
and then i went to lisbens in urcon so four different activations i did in a
short period of time then went back and was like okay
yeah i can't do that again um so yeah just knowing that like if you
are passionate about this space take your time it's a marathon not a
sprint um and the second one too um losing my
father last year i guess that was a big challenge for me but
i tried to transmute that loss into something positive
so this is i guess more on a personal level but you know
having experiencing a loss in your family while working in this space it
was really tough for me um but i took that and the month after
losing my dad i went and did a workshop at the university of southern
california just tried to push through tried to stay positive and keep working
you know and i got invited to join this group of
authors writing a book called impact driven entrepreneurship
and i was like okay like this is pretty wild because it was my dad's dream to
become a published author and then those women came to me and
invited me into this group and it's been so serendipitous uh so
some more alpha next month i will actually be a published author
uh with new york times best selling authors uh that i
co-wrote this book with so yeah taking the loss of my dad and getting involved
in this group gave me a positive outlet um after losing my dad so yeah those
have been my two major hurdles uh burnout and like loss in my family but
yeah i've tried to overcome that stay positive and and keep working hard
oh stop being more and more inspiring i can't handle it
um i'm so sorry for your loss and i can't even imagine
so um makes me emotional just to think about
but that's very serendipitous and congratulations on becoming a published
author that's incredible and again you deserve it so
i just i love sharing the challenges that people need to go through because i
think just getting into this space can be
challenging on its own and overwhelming and i think
to just be real and be like yeah it's hard sometimes and yeah we just need to
keep pushing through but again keep showing up
make those connections keep learning um and propelling yourself through this
space so thanks so much for opening yourself up
and sharing that yeah and i hope it allows people to
understand like you know the relatability factor to this like we're
all human we're all sharing our human experiences
and it's okay to not be at 100 all the time right
take your time with things don't spread yourself too thin in this space it's so
easy to do and definitely prioritize the healthy work life balance because
you know your family and your life your health all those things if you if
you don't have that what you have you know so
definitely prioritize uh that stuff and make sure you have a good balance
there i love that thank you so much
rachel i i can't imagine a better note to kind
of end on to remind people of because oftentimes that's another thing is like
how do you recharge your battery or how do you you know keep that balance so i
think it's important to talk about like i said in an industry where you can
literally work all the time but really keeping those
priorities in mind and you're in your life as well so
i really appreciate it um i'm sure our listeners do too
and as always it has been an absolute pleasure
i am thrilled for you i'm excited about all of the things that you have coming
up and excited to share this with uh share
all the things you've already accomplished so
listeners just keep putting yourself out there because you can see where it can
take you and um your energy rachel is infectious
i love it i love talking to you every time and
again i really appreciate you taking the time to be here
awesome thank you so much this honestly made my day i'm
just so honored to be here again um and yeah i'm looking forward to our
conversation and i i do envision charmers uh doing more in
the future with ueath and edcon i love it and listeners
definitely be sure to click on rachels pfp
give a follow make sure you're following ueath
it's lowercase d e capital u e t h go follow at capital edcon 2024
again edcon.io or ueath.org go check out all of it amazing resources doing
amazing things and definitely keep an eye on rachel
because she's just gonna keep crushing it rachel
have a wonderful rest of your day thanks for spending an hour with me
and uh i look forward to our chat next week
and the next time we get to hang out in real life would be fantastic
absolutely yes and thank you everyone for tuning in thank you tina
dr tammy pixo um thank you everyone that took the time today to join us
absolutely thanks listeners and we'll see you next time rachel have a great
rest of your day i'll be in touch you as well all right bye everybody