In the crazy times of creating projects and cryptos with no real purpose, this one is a truly refreshing concept that gives blockchain technology another use case - connecting change instigators to the processes and tools to collaborate and develop communities.
Introduction:
Blockchain technology is a new fuel of technological (r)evolution. That's what we have seen so far. But it has the capacity to be used for more than that. It has been the backbone of Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies, but having an immutable record of previous events and self executable smart contracts in order to ensure trust and fairness can be beneficial to many other problems besides double spending. It can record much more than financial transactions - it can show and inspire the growth of an entire human society. But before we start changing the whole world, let's make a difference in our own backyard first!
The founder: Marquis Davis
Marquis describes himself as Social Entrepreneur, Polymath, Developer, Digital Marketing Expert and a Blockchain Evangelist. His diverse nature derives probably from the fact that he has a Bachelors degree in Political Science and Economics and two masters degrees - one in Marketing and Social Enterprises from The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the other one in Public administration and Non-Profit Management.
The Project:
The main inspiration Marquis had for the way he started thinking about solving the problems we as humans face is an observation made in a TED talk back in 2010 about the amount of hours we spent playing video games on a weekly basis, mostly concentrated on saving the World. The idea is that allocating only a portion of those billions of hours towards creating a better real world for ourselves and our loved ones could make a huge difference. All of that, through observing community based on its assets and not needs, for creating purpose over profit by using a collaboration network instead of relying to hierarchies. Based on that principles is how in the beginning of 2017, he decided to start Urban Array!
The Mission:
Urban Array is a Decentralized Autonomous Social Enterprise that uses decentralized technologies to give regular people the ability to organize, collaborate and rebuild primarily their own local communities, and it is mostly concentrated on the ones that government or the ‘market’ don’t adequately reach or serve. It uses blockchain technology, more specifically smart contracts, to manage a fair and equitable governance and voting process in order to allow crowd-sourcing of work, resources, capital, and rewards that enable people to have ownership within their communities.
Current progress and future plans:
Since the inception of Urban Array, Marquis's activity has been focused on raising awareness of potential this technology and we as humans have to change the current state of things by giving our own contribution to our network and environment. By doing so, he has been able to grow a small but very dedicated community with a task of finding the best possible approach to create both substantial impact on the South Side of Chicago area and a new micro-economy model.
Current approach he has is to get all builders like he is to create some kind of community center in order to educate its future members about possibilities they have and reward them for their own contribution with a token, spendable only within their own network of merchants. So getting them on board with this noble idea is also one of the tasks. Since the token that Urban Array will issue is supposed to be a reward for each individual's time contribution, he wants to find the best way to make it as stable as possible, with, in the desired case scenario, some small but yet constant growth in order to further incentivize people to take part in rebuilding their society.
Few days ago, he held a speech at Microsoft building in Chicago as a part of a Blockchain for Social Good Meetup, where within his roadmap he revealed that his plans to start the crowdfunding for the project are due in March/April 2018.
Ways to fund/contribute to the project:
Currently, the best way to get involved to this organization is to reach out to Marquis himself. I will post his personal social media pages under the useful links. If you're wondering what type of people he requires or what set of skills do you preferably need to get on-board, rest assured, as long as you share the vision, there is plenty of things to be done to make it come true!
If you are an investor seeking out a way to help this movement grow beyond its current borders, there is a donation page available on Urban Array's website. For any other inquiries, please contact Marquis in person.
However, the most current field of need for Urban Array are the instigators. So feel free to check out whether you can fit your time and skills into any of the ones listed on their website.
My conclusion:
I had an opportunity to meet with Marquis on several occasions, and talk with him in order to see what exactly were the motives behind his decision to choose the path he did. For a man with such diversified field of talents he could have chosen an easier way to make himself successful or rich if he wanted to. But none of those are his intentions. That's why he thinks so much more on the utility of his organization than the utility of his token. He's an economist. But before anything else, he is one of those people who measure wealth and success based on how many lives have you changed this week, and pointing out how simple it is to do so. He is rich, going towards even becoming a millionaire someday - by changing millions of lives through his actions with Urban Array. And yes, I would like to be that type of millionaire myself! So I'll look to join forces with him as well.
Quote from Marquis:
"Urban Array leverages community’s energy, talent, resources and collective wisdom to guide the organization in its mission to deliver socially responsible products and services to the market and help make our shared world a better place. "
Useful links:
Urban Array Website - https://urbanarray.org/
Urban Array Meetup Group - https://www.meetup.com/UrbanArray/
Marquis Davis LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/marquisdavis/
Marquis Davis Twitter - https://twitter.com/marquisdavis?lang=en
Urban Array Twitter - https://twitter.com/urbanarray?lang=en
