The amount of media covering the real educational efforts on the island is depressing.
Road 22
It’s Tuesday morning. I’m in the car with AJ and Cybercode Twins on the way to pick up MichaelAngelo. AJ and MichaelAngelo are local students and political activists that see a different future for Puerto Rico. They want to establish a new narrative on the island by educating the youth about the Blockchain tech. To shut the valves of the brain drain is their mission. Edublock organizes hackathons, restartweeks, and workshops, while media is dumping trash on bigger initiatives like the pilot of Blockchain Unbound (the first crypto conference on the island that also donated 100% of its profits toward the non-profits fixing the island).
I find inner peace in covering the stories that actually matter, not the stories that follow the “maximum-hype” narrative. I call those get-rich quick schemes for journalists. People of twitter call those journalists “hitmen”. The sound of this word makes me cringe. Therefore I’m in the car.
I’m also in the car because I met Gustavo, the founder of the first hacker house on the island. Gustavo introduced me to the Edublock team. His social activism and passion towards using the crypto momentum for revitalizing Puerto Rican politics and economics deserves a story of its own.
We’re taking the 22 to go to the town of Arecibo (but actually Isabela). I roll the window to feel the wind. Mountains are covered with rugs of tropical forests. They remind me of Thailand where I’ve never been. I remember someone telling me that the island gets even more beautiful when you leave San Juan. It does; I keep falling in love with it every new day.
Since we picked up MichaelAngelo, he switched with AJ at the steering wheel. Today’s meeting is going to be about the by-laws, media and content strategy, partners, and the preparations for the upcoming hackathon (only several weeks away). AJ asks me to skim through the by-laws for feedback. Those guys have a lot on their plate and, since the entrepreneurial and coding culture had troubles growing organically on the island before Maria, I am happy that Cybercode Twins, Virtual-growth, Brock Pierce and other are advising Edublock.
It’s popular to speak about 2/3s and 1/3s of the island being disconnected from power. It’s not popular to call out PREPA for not letting the cheaper natural gas to arrive to the island. It’s not popular to speak about Solar panels and micro-grids being practically illegal on the island before Maria. It’s not popular to mention the number of solar and clean energy entrepreneurs on the island hustling to fix the situation every day.
It’s popular to speak about Puerto Rico’s debt but not very popular to research how this debt was able to accumulate in the first place. It’s not like Puerto Rico is an independent country, you know. The locals still cannot do their own trade-agreements with the neighboring countries and Jones Act (although suspended for 10 days as a part of fucking Maria relief!) still doubles and triples the cost of produce being shipped to the island. But get this: imports are just half of the problem; exports from PR to US have recently started to be taxed as foreign exports (still researching the topic). Why are we still talking about Blockchain entrepreneurs hiding away from their taxes in Puerto Rico 🇵🇷? Don’t you see the amount of intellectual capital that comes to the island together with cash and crypto? Luckily, a lot of people see.
Edublock is well aware of all those problems and they know that actions speak louder than words. I hangout out with them for the past two days and am convinced that education in the Information Age is a fucking political act.
In the room
2 hrs of drive and we arrive at the meeting spot. Within the next 30 minutes most of the founders gather in the conference room to begin the heated debates. Some of them can’t miss lectures and thus absent. Most of it is in Spanish, the key points are discussed in English, though.
Some of my takeaways:
- Edublock is currently negotiating with the hackathon partners and sponsors
- Edublock is a non-profit organization that will be accepting all sorts of donations (equipment, crypto, fiat, etc)
- Edublock is a progressive organization and is looking towards (1) making all of their books public and (2) testing the modern government models powered by the delegated poof of stake. Man, this sounds sexy!
- Edublock is planning to solidify its position on the island before expanding into US and Latin America. The movement of creating a global network of university chapters is going to enlighten youth about the opportunities of building the Web3 early in the game. I want to bring them to Ukraine.
- But everyone agrees. They need to intensify their content production and media presence within the next couple of weeks.
I get to know with everyone better during the pizza break. Here in the room with me are:
- Josue Soto
- Julio Domenech
- Ernesto Ojeda
- Obeth Soto
- AJ
- MichaelAngelo
- Cybercode Twins
While we eat and discuss the opportunities of using Steemit, Dsound and Dlive for reaching out to the crypto community 4 kids run into the room. Obeth introduces us to his familia. I am charmed by the way local entrepreneurs do business inclusive to family and friends. Business in Puerto Rico is on a whole new level of kindess and social impact.
Every single Puerto Rican entrepreneur I interview is politically conscious and works towards the comeback of the Rich Port. Blockchain movement is a catalyst but so is Maria. P18 and Piloto 151 were nurturing the downtrodden entrepreneurial scene for years now and they love the opportunities arising with the crypto movement. “Crypto colonialism” might be fun to read about when you’re on the mainland (and never heard of the films like “The last Colony” or “Bancarrota”) but here we prefer to roll our sleeves and fix things. I say “we” because despite being a ukrainian on the island I am part of the local inclusive community playing my part in the reconstruction.
The road back
"First I am going to fix my island and then I want to go travel around the world, " says MichaelAngelo when we drive back to San Juan 5 hours later. He is a 20-years-old computer science student. I left my country when I was 16 and today I envy his dedication to La Patria, and the peaceful approach that is takes. I roll up my window and hear the rain drops drumming the windows. My eyes slowly shut and I see the drum circle next to the fire. The crowd around it is dancing, singing, and talking. It's the celebration of the full moon in San Juan. I met with AJ that night, and that's why I'm in the car today. Puerto Rico IS the enchanted land. And I'm falling in love with it every new day.
Documentary
I’m on the island till mid May, shooting the documentary on the startup scene and the crypto movement in Puerto Rico. Feel free to reach out to me (1) to learn more (2) to schedule an interview (3) to connect me with someone I should interview.
Fundraiser
All of the profits from this article in Steem will go towards the production of the documentary. It’s no loger going to be called Puertopia: Pandora’s Sanbox and my focus of interests is going to be different from the one originally proposed. I’ll keep you updated as much as possible with the following entries.
With much love and respekt,
-K.