1.) Preferred Display Name and Age
Display Name: Null / Rafael Brochado
Age: 30
Social Media Handles
Twitter: @rafaeldjpb - https://twitter.com/rafaeldjpb
Discord: Null#1163
2.) What motivates you to apply for this position?
I fell in love with IOTA’s vision of a feeless L1 and joined the community in mid-2017. Later, after it became clear to us all that the original dev plan wasn’t ever gonna work, I felt compelled to join the IOTA X-Teams and try to contribute in any way that I could.
Since then, I’ve been looking for opportunities to further support the community. It’s been tough figuring out where my skillset may drive the greatest impact, but now, after reading through the skills wishlist for this position, I was surprised to see so much overlap with the skills that I have. So, having finally found a clear role in the community that I felt I could excel at, I decided to apply.
Long-time community advocate for transparency & decentralization
3.) What is your educational and professional background?
Educational Background:
M.S. in Interactive Entertainment, 2018
University of Central Florida
Polytechnic Institute of Bragança & Kajaani University of Applied Sciences
Web3/Crypto Background:
Supporter, Investor (2012 – Today)
I started learning about Bitcoin by reading posts on bitcointalk.org around 2012 or thereabouts. Since then I’ve tried to keep up with the latest innovations & schools of thought in the DLT space. I enjoy reading through academic papers, participating in constructive discussions, and generally thinking about DLT adoption. If you’ve been in the IOTA community for a while, you may have seen some of the discussions I started in our Discord from time to time.
Professional Background:
Founder, CEO, Developer (2018 – 2022, 4+ years)
Not Suspicious – VR Research & Development Studio
Wartale – Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game
Mundo RPG Maker – Game Dev Community & Magazine
Grant Reviewer (2021 – 2022)
SBIR grant program by the National Science Foundation (NSF)
Guest Lecturer (2019 – 2022, yearly)
FIEA Ventures – Business Incubator at the University of Central Florida
VR/AR Coordinator (2019 – 2020, 1 year)
University of Central Florida
LisbonWorks – Film & Games Studio
CoolGames – Casual Games Studio
4.) What experience do you have that is relevant to this position?
XP as Grant Reviewer & Grant Awardee (2017 – 2022)
I have experience reviewing grant proposals for the National Science Foundation SBIR program , as well as with writing and pursuing grants, as the recipient of over $1.3 million in awards (see above)
Experience with software design & development, shipping products, scaling businesses, growing ecosystems, managing large multidisciplinary teams, and more (see above)
Experience with mentoring grad students at UCF’s FIEA Ventures business incubator every year since 2019, as well as equipping indie game devs with tools for success since 2008 (see above)
Web3 games appear to be a popular type of project proposal for Treasury DAOs, so my vast experience in game development will be critical in helping us identify & prevent misallocating funds towards proposals which aren’t feasible. I have experience with many of the public game engines (Unity, Unreal, Game Maker, Phaser, etc), as well as a few proprietary ones (e.g. see Wartale above)
5.) Are you a software developer? If yes, please provide info on your skills and proof of the projects you already have built/worked on (Github, languages, certificates, etc.)
Yes (see above). I have developed games & apps for VR, AR, mobile (iOS & Android), PC, consoles and browsers. I’ve worked with C#, C++, JavaScript, HTML5 and more.
6.) Do you have affiliations that may cause a conflict of interest when reviewing applications? The community would like to know particularly if reviewers are involved with projects as a creator, on the board, or employed. Please list any projects or applications you have affiliations to.
No.
7.) Are you willing to sign a legally binding service provider contract and reveal and verify your identity through a KYC process with the legal entity of the Treasury Committee?
Yes to both.
8.) Can you commit 10 hours weekly on average to work as a grant reviewer for the Shimmer community over the next 12 months?
Yes.
9.) If you are voted in the top 2 reviewers, you may have the option to join the Growth Committee and work with the TEA representatives. In this case, you may be required to work hours over the required 10 hrs per week. Are you able to commit to this if required?
Yes.
10.) Are you willing to sign a service provider contract, including an NDA with the Tangle Ecosystem Association, and respect the Non-Disclosure Agreement if selected as a member of the Growth Committee? Breaking the Non-Disclosure Agreement may bring consequences financially and or legally.
Yes.
11.) Provide any web links or supporting documentation you would like the community to see when assessing you for the Shimmer Community Treasury Grant Reviewer position.
N/A – links have been embedded in the answers above, when relevant.
12.) What is your long-term vision of the Shimmer Community Treasury? How do you see the Community Treasury affecting the Shimmer & IOTA ecosystem, and what does the Shimmer & IOTA Ecosystem look to you in three years?
My vision for the Treasury is one that evolves every day to adapt to the needs and circumstances of our ecosystem, as expressed by the community in governance calls and forum discussions. Treasuries play a central role at the heart of every other DLT ecosystem, and ours will be no different, so it is important that we treasure it. I’m interested in exploring ideas for how we can potentially create a virtuous cycle that would feed new funds back into the Treasury over time (so we can keep supporting new projects indefinitely), but at the same time I am also acutely aware of our need to move fast in equipping community developers with the resources they need for success. So my vision is for that of a hands-on, nimble approach. We’ll move fast when we need to, and slow down when we don’t. I’ll enforce the utmost rigor, professionalism, accountability and transparency in my own work, making it my personal mission to maximize our collective odds of success. I’ll make sure that rejected grant applicants get guidance and mentoring through constructive, actionable feedback, so they can better position themselves and apply again in the future. Working in tandem with the community and the Treasury team, we’ll continuously re-assess our areas of interest, strategic goals and growth metrics.
If managed carefully, the Community Treasury will transform our ecosystem. For hints on what that kind of success could look like, it’s best to look at other DLT ecosystems and their respective Treasury DAOs as examples. Given the level of talent I’ve seen in our community, there’s no doubt in my mind that we can not only match the success we’ve seen elsewhere, but surpass it.
- Yes
for approval
Letters of support or testimonials from partners/venues
No examples of previous success stories. The website proudly displays $597K given away, but doesn’t make an effort to show what actually emerged out of all those hackathons that the team has allegedly put together. E.g. How many of the past hackathon projects went on to become products?
No moat, no USPs.
We already have an open-source, blockchain-agnostic solution for secret management –