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March marks the culmination of all of our efforts in Q1 2023 and what a quarter it has been. We’ve onboarded some amazing new community members to the DAO which continuously reaffirms why we’re so dedicated to building this community. In this latest edition of Growth Updates, we’ll be breaking down:
- Highlights from the recent “Blockchain Meets Bio” event with Drew Endy and Vitalik Buterin!
- The new promotional videos that we’ve launched.
- Details on our upcoming community token launch (13th-23rd April).
- Bio.xyz Demo Day Announcement.
- Another exciting episode of Science Spotlights we hosted with the wonderful Dr Rebecca Vaught.
- This month’s community spotlight, featuring Thomas Alexander!
Highlights From ‘Blockchain Meets Bio’ with Drew Endy and Vitalik Buterin
The “Blockchain Meets Bio” event brought together experts from synthetic biology and blockchain, encouraging collaboration and exploring their combined potential. Co-hosted by ValleyDAO and SynBioBeta in the beautiful country of Montenegro, the event featured thought-provoking talks, engaging discussions, and a memorable sunset sail boat party.
Key Takeaways:
- Biology is fundamentally decentralized, offering inherent power and potential for building more robust societies.
- Network states provide a new model for organizing people and resources, shifting power back to the people.
- Diverse participants, including synthetic biology leaders like Jason Kelly and Jennifer Holmgren, exchanged ideas, unlocking solutions for global challenges.
- Inspiring talks covered digital collaboration platforms, network state design, carbon negative manufacturing and and the future of vaccines.
- The event culminated in a fireside chat with Drew Endy and Vitalik Buterin, and a sunset sail boat party.
“Blockchain Meets Bio” ignited innovation and collaboration, empowering attendees to harness synthetic biology and blockchain technology to tackle global challenges and build a sustainable future.
Videos launched
We’ve launched two new videos that we’ve been working hard on behind the scenes. Check them out!
GROW Token Launch April 13-23
In order to truly create a community-governed ValleyDAO ecosystem, an ERC-20 token with the ticker “GROW” will be created on the Ethereum blockchain. The token will be used for voting on important matters such as electing work group leaders, selecting which research projects we fund, deciding how the resulting IP-NFTs are sub-licensed or commercialised, compensating contributors and enacting governance framework and rules.
GROW will play a crucial role in creating a fully decentralised organisation. As such, it is deeply important to us that we align community and capital so that we can truly achieve our ambitions to fund and support impactful research around the world.
We recognise that significant capital is needed to properly support research and development in synthetic biology. Thus, we endeavour to create outcomes that satisfy our ambitions whilst maintaining the overarching goal of decentralisation. Working exclusively with partners who are aligned with the vision and share our fundamental values is how we will ensure the integrity and longevity of the DAO are not compromised. On the 13th of April, we will announce who these partners will be in full detail and how much they’re looking to contribute in terms of funding.
To participate in the auction, participants will first need to be whitelisted through the form here. For more details about the auction, visit the following link.
Click to partake in the GROW auction.
More details about the GROW auction
Bio.xyz Demoday
As you might know, ValleyDAO has been part of the bio.xyz program, aiming to accelerate the development of DAO’s in decentralized science. As we’re reaching the end of the program, the bio.xyz team has prepared a demo day where ValleyDAO and other cohort DAO’s will get the chance to present their work and results from the last 6 months. We highly encourage those interested to participate on the 27th of April, you can register for the event here.
New Science Spotlights Episode
As a multi-disciplinary scientist and CEO of Van Heron Labs, Rebecca is dedicated to designing, developing, and commercializing cutting-edge technologies at the intersection of biology, chemistry, genetics, computing/AI, and engineering. In addition to her work at Van Heron Labs, Rebecca is also a member of the Board of BIO Alabama, the CMMC, HudsonAlpha Educational Outreach and serves as a scientific advisor for ValleyDAO and FFD.
Rebecca shared with us some of the new mind-blowing data about their new ‘Rocket Fuel for E. coli’ and also reflected on her career progression, why she started VH Labs and what she was most excited about in the field of Synthetic Biology. If you didn’t join us live, you can watch the full recording here:
Community Spotlight
This month, we’re thrilled to be giving the spotlight to Thomas Alexander (‘SynbioUnsiloed#4852'‘ on Discord) who has continuously supported the DAO since joining back in October last year.
Thomas is a Bio-Engineer (NCSU '20) and Biotechnology Master's student (BOKU Vienna '24) focused on building a sustainable, equitable, and circular global economy built with biology. He works with ValleyDAO on the Comms and Governance teams and with the wider world through hands-on biotech projects, writing a sci. comm. column for Bioeconomy.xyz, and sitting on Biotech Policy and Advocacy working groups.
He tells us "I can honestly say that working with ValleyDAO has been one of the pivotal projects of my early career. I've been a part of online science communities before but none of them have made me feel like such an integral part of building something bigger. Come to explore the potential for changing the scientific paradigm with the tools of DeSci, stay for the network of dedicated synbio dreamers."
