@MemeBrains - Special Council Nomination 01/2024

Help & Resources Prior Elections
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Personal Information

Discourse ID: @MemeBrains

Twitter: x.com

Country of Residence: Canada

Professional Background:

Repeat founder/CEO in multiple disciplines including DAO infrastructure, Construction, and Event Production. Active contributor in several DAOs including CityDAO, BanklessDAO, and Krause House. Helped build AIP-267, the treasury tab with analytics, which is launching soon on the official ApeCoin.com. ApeCoin Delegate for 8DAO. Two-time podcast host, one on DAOs and the other philanthropically on mental health. Bootstrapped my construction company as a solo founder in part by developing customized, in-house resource management software and automation processes. Then grew it to a team size of 60 people before selling it via an exit. I have been immersing myself in this decentralized revolution since 2017.

Nomination Statement

Concise statement on why you are running for the Special Council

DAOs are the future of human organization, and ApeCoin is paving the way.

My background naturally fits this position, and I am here to stay.

Iā€™ve voted on the most recent 76 consecutive AIPs in ApeCoin DAO, participated regularly on ApeComms, assisted the 8DAO delegation, presented on numerous DAO panels across North America, won at the ETH Denver Hackathon 2023 in the DAO & Community track, wrote this AIP, presented testimony to the State of Wyoming regarding the DAO LLC Bill-38, and explained IRL to the former Prime Minister of Canada what a DAO is and why we cannot be ignored.

Implementing good solutions requires a firm understanding of the problems, followed by effective prioritization, the discipline to GSD (git-sht-done), and the humility to ask for help along the way. This approach served me and my previous teams well, and it has been my approach with the ApeCoin community thus far. This will be my continued approach within the Special Council for the Ape Foundation.

Here are some of the priority topics Iā€™ve heard, you the community, bring up on several occasions each of which represent my current priority focus;

AIPs: You want them to go faster and smoother.

Costs: You want them down.

Transparency: You wanna know wtf is going on.

Accountability: You want people to do what they said they would do.

Treasury: Number go up to fund more community-led AIPs.

Motivation

Details on your motivation for becoming an ApeCoin DAO Special Council member

The ApeCoin community is filled with some of the most talented, dedicated and well-connected people in the Web3 ecosystem. Weā€™re poised to have one of the greatest impacts in DAO history, to be remembered by future generations, studied in their history books. This is what I crave to contribute to, and to build together. My skill set is honed on enhancing workflows, organizational structure, day-to-day operations, teamwork, and cutting out inefficiencies - all of which I believe will be of great value to this community.

Am I motivated? Damn right I am! Flying from Canada to ApeFest Hong Kong last week solidified my decision to serve this community within the Special Council position.

Rationale

Share relevant experience and skills that will bring value to the ApeCoin community

Iā€™m a roll-up-my-sleeves, ā€œgit in the trenches and battle it out on the front lines side-by-side with youā€ kinda guy. Thatā€™s what I believe this community needs as a Special Council member today, and itā€™s the kind of person you will be voting for when you vote for me.

Specifications

Further describe relevant experience, including crypto and governance participation, and/or ideas for DAO improvement

While CEO of my previous construction company, I personally managed dozens of condominium boards, each with thousands of stakeholders with elected board of directors managing their community treasuries and legal compliances. In hindsight they operated very similar to DAOs. I managed thousands of projects throughout 10 years within that career which turned out to be direct training for this Special Council role within the ApeCoin community.

Within Crypto; Iā€™ve supported CityDAO governance, strategy, and media work, involving itā€™s broad base of international members since shortly after their launch in 2021 through to and including their newly elected Council a few weeks ago.

I co-hosted the DAO Oā€™Clock IRL event with BanklessDAO in parallel to ETH Toronto earlier this year with 100 attendees. I participated in the initial minting of the Krause House NFTs, the launch of the CollablandDAO, and have on-going discussions with founding teams of both organizations.

As a bonus, hosting the CityDAO Podcast and the DAO Thought-Leaders TG has exposed me to a diverse range of DAO Leadership perspectives and approaches to solutions within this ecosystem which I am excited to bring to the benefit of the ApeCoin community.

Concluding Statement

Summarize your statement as to why you are the best choice for Special Council

Good leaders create more leaders. To all the great leaders, would-be delegates, and aspiring leaders reading this, weā€™re in this together. Iā€™m dedicating myself to help us all become more successful so that we can move forward more productively. I believe in and advocate for Non-Violent Communications mixed with a straightforward, from-the-heart Leadership Style.

Vote for me to enable me. Enable me to look under the hood so that I can start working on solutions and bring them to the table at an official capacity.

United we stand, and together Apes stand strong.

LFG.

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My thoughts. @MemeBrains is always friendly and helpful. He looks for practical solutions to augment the ApeCoin Dao.

It would be good for voters to read this post and the answers he gave below it.

I think practical tooling is important to increase the efficiency and automation of the DAO.

As the co-founder of Nodeblocks, why look for a SC role versus an outsource contractor provider role? Of course you could do both. Good to know plans if elected?

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Your track record since jumping into the DAO demonstrates your ability to get things done. I also truly appreciate the work you have done on the soon to be published Treasury page. We need individuals with your proven leadership skills and I look forward to hearing more in the coming weeks.

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It was good meeting you in HK. I appreciate the energy and ideas you bring to the space. With your past involvement with other DAOs, which you mentioned, Iā€™m curious if you have any ideas/ plans for our DAO to collaborate with other DAOs. Look forward to learning more about you and your ideas in the coming weeks. Good luck!

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Hi @MemeBrains, I am asking all candidates the following same questions:

If elected, what is the one item you feel passionate about and would like to see accomplished during your tenure within the DAO?

What is an area of expertise that you will be bringing to the table?

Are there any factors in your life that may limit your time and ability to serve? (Running a business, extensive traveling, secret agent for the SEC, etcā€¦)

What is your least favorite thing right now with our DAO in its current state?

Currently, many of the proposals are determined by large wallets, there are many grumblings about it though I stand neutral on this; if possible, would you change this? and if so, how and why?

Will you be an active participant in the DAO even if unelected?

Thank you and best of luck,

F/S

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Great questions @bigbull, thank you for asking :heart:

My answer to your question is presented below in two parts; first is the one-line TLDR accompanied by four summarized points. The second part is long winded, more thorough version for those who relish in details.

The TLDR

Iā€™ve submitted my name for the Special Council role instead of remaining an outsourced contractor, because my passion towards ApeCoin DAO has grown substantially while working with this community throughout this year, including the experience of working with current SC on AIP-267. I believe this is the most well-rounded decision for my personal life, my professional career, and for my passion towards the DAO ecosystemā€™s impact on humanityā€™s future throughout the next century.

The Long Answer

In order to more holistically answer this question, Iā€™d like to share how it came to be that Iā€™m in this ecosystem at all. From this place of fundamental clarity, the answer as to why Iā€™m running for Special Council while being the CEO of an up-and-coming startup becomes, imho, mostly self-evident.

I discovered the ideologic principles of decentralization during the beginning of 2017 when a friend introduced me to the Bitcoin. Before buying a single Satoshi, I spent months reading, researching, reflecting, and speaking with the Bitcoiner communities here in Canada where I reside. After I obtained the level of clarity required to make a sound decision, I opted to start converting my Fiat into Satoshis. I did this because I believe the world needs a better money system for commerce, less red tape, more spending transparency from our global politicians, and an objective value on our assets which cannot be destroyed by the inflation triggered by the majority of our current political leaders. In other words; money printer went brrrr for too long, and I felt inspired to support a solution.

While converting Fiat into Satoshis, I also opted to convert my residential garage into a mostly automated mining farm with enhanced, 2-stage soundproofing and state-of-the-art ventilation. This is an important part of the journey for anyone in this ecosystem to undertake and it was a great joy to have done so.

My interest in Bitcoin ultimately led to discovering the broader Blockchain/Web3 ecosystem such as; the real world applications of DeFi, the beautiful solutions towards online gaming, a love of memes (obviously) which is where I met @thebossdragon, and ultimately to discovering the ideological principles of a DAO.

DAOs presented a solution to me at a global level to the problems we face regarding our organizational structures, whether in a corporation, a charity, a social club, or a country. For anyone not familiar with the term Network State, I highly encourage you to, at the very least, skim through this book called The Network State, and then to engage with me in further discussion on the topic in another thread. Much to discuss here throughout the next decade and beyond.

My journey with DAOs began by contributing to CityDAO. I started by producing 49 episodes of their DAO podcast, presenting testimony to the Wyoming Senate regarding their infamous DAO Bill-38, then competing (and winning) at the ETH Denver hackathon earlier this year, which, along with monetary support by CityDAO, triggered the co-founding of NodeBlocks, where I am currently the CEO, and where @thebossdragon is the CTO.

Shortly thereafter, I discovered the ApeCoin community and have dove-in all the way ever since.

I dove in like this because the Ape community is arguably one of the largest, strongest, most expansive and inclusive community across this whole ecosystem, and as such holds the potential to alter human history for the better throughout the next century.

Itā€™s the natural, organic evolution of my involvement within this ecosystem to be in this place, right here right now, running for Special Counsel, within this community Iā€™ve grown to love, called the ApeCoin DAO.

Should I be honored with the community confidence to be elected into the Special Council position within ApeCoin DAO, my Co-Founding CTO @thebossdragon will be taking over many of the CEO responsibilities at NodeBlocks. Furthermore, should an irresolvable conflict arise, I would relinquish my position at NodeBlocks entirely.

One of the great many qualities about my partnership with @thebossdragon is that in addition to being a powerful CTO and a good hearted person, heā€™s also a great leader and a successful Entrepreneur, having exited his last venture to Battery Ventures after building it to 20million users. Should such an occasion arise where NodeBlocks were to on-board a new CEO, I would remain on the board of directors in an advisory capacity, as I believe this entire ecosystem benefits enormously from the enhanced DAO infrastructure @thebossdragon has been dedicated to developing throughout the entirety of this 2023 year.

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Thank you. I truly look forward to getting to know the whole team better, and to expanding the support I can provide beyond the Treasury Tab, to the Foundation level.

When I refer to the ā€˜whole teamā€™, Iā€™m referring to the fact that should I be honoured by the community with the Special Council role, I will be joining a team of 16 people, and that supporting this team to reach our greatest levels of success for the benefit of the community is my primary aim.

Each of us bring unique strengths from a diverse range of backgrounds. New SC members need to understand and respect the immense challenges which you, @Waabam, @capetaintrippy, @veratheape, and @Gerry have overcome to help us be where we are right now. New SC members need to be prepared to be collaborative and conducive towards a positive working dynamic so that we can all achieve the strongest results in the shortest time.

The 3 new incoming Special Council members need to also understand the critical role the Governance Working Group @AllCityBAYC, @tigerisfine, and @Amplify have contributed throughout their respective terms, and to be prepared to properly support them with their initiatives coming up in 2024. Itā€™s been a pleasure to get to know them better throughout these past months and at ApeFest Hong Kong.

Those who are newly elected into Special Council need to listen with both ears, and lean on the deep institutional knowledge and history of the DAO, which the Facilitators and Secretary @Lost @ChrisL, @12GAUGE, and Vulkan have accumulated and contribute every day.

And finally, newly elected Special Council members need to be prepared for the on-boarding of 4 new members, representing 2 new positions, and all the challenges which comes from such a bold and expansive initiative. Iā€™m referring of course to the formal commencement of the Metaverse and Marketing Working Groups and those 4 champions which will ultimately be elected into those respective seats.

Thereā€™s no ā€˜Iā€™ in team.

You and the OGā€™s in this space are here for a reason, they were voted in for a reason, and they leave big shoes to fill by those who step into them. Iā€™m dedicating myself to helping us all have the strongest 2024 ever.

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GM! Iā€™m glad you asked about this @capetaintrippy! Numerous mutually supportive cross DAO collaborations are on the forefront of my mind which Iā€™m excited to explore.

WHY

To be a DAO is to be part of a global movement towards decentralization and empowerment, ideally with a united front. This means we MUST work collaboratively with our friends in neighboring communities. A DAO on its own is an island, a group of cross-supportive DAOs is a continent.

One of my aims as an elected Special Council member is to help bridge the distance between DAO Leaders, and help bring DAOs to an elevated level of public awareness, recognition and positive light. This will bring an inflow of new contributors into our community while supporting this ecosystem as a whole move positively forwards throughout the years to come.

WHO & HOW

Hereā€™s a few of the DAOs I feel passionate towards, have connections with, and some of the cross-DAO collaborations discussions I intend to continue exploring and working towards;

8DAO

  • Establishing a formalized DAO & NFT program through the Cyberport facility in Hong Kong. This would be aimed at bringing increased awareness and support to the general public, and Web2 entities in exploring and launching their first Web3 projects.
  • This presents opportunities for ApeCoin DAO to receive high-level recognition and numerous to-be-explored token utility opportunities as these projects launch over the next several years.

BanklessDAO

  • As a leader in decentralized education, BanklessDAO is positioned as a large scale on-boarding portal for the general public into the DAO ecosystem.
  • The ApeCoin community has an opportunity to be at the forefront of this upcoming mass general public migration into the Web3 ecosystem, to assist in onboarding other builders into the ecosystem, and to ensure they are aware of the support which powerful builders here receive here at Ape. More good builders equates to more value-add for everyone.

Krause House

  • As the first DAO to purchase a basketball team within Ice Cubes Big3 league, Krause House is taking steps towards purchasing a DAO governed professional sports team, this marks a revolution in the entire industry of professional sports.
  • This is an opportunity for ApeCoin DAO to be supportive of the movement and positioned for token utility opportunities, brand awareness, and ecosystem leadership as the world of professional sports takes a new form throughout the next 20 years and beyond.

CityDAO

  • Having been among the first DAOs to purchase physical land in the real world, and to decentralize the governance of it through a DAO LLC in Wyoming, and having presented testimony to the Wyoming Senate about the DAO ecosystem and future regulations to come, CityDAO has a long road ahead of it that shouldnā€™t be ignored.
  • ApeCoin has numerous opportunities here to build utility for our token, to support the evolution of real world physical assets into the realms of decentralized governance, and to partake in the elevated status such a global change warrants.

OrangeDAO

  • As one of the leading DAOā€™s in the realms of decentralized investing and support for startup founders, OrangeDAO is one of the most powerful communities of startup founders and investors in this entire ecosystem.
  • ApeCoin DAO has numerous opportunities to support our future AIP authors, empower our builders with the right support, and to cross collaborate with some of the most powerful founders, mentors, and investors in this space.

Afropolitan

  • Afropolitan is on a mission to unite the Afro-American diaspora globally into a decentralized community of empowerment, with culture, movement, and music at the forefront of their values.
  • Ape Coin DAO shares numerous values of culture and community with Afropolitan. From this place of shared values, Ape has an opportunity to continue making strides forward in our shared vision of a more inclusive, loving, united world for future generations to come.

LinksDAO

  • As the first DAO to purchase a physical golf course in the real world, LinksDAO models to other decentralized communities how to achieve their mission, in a short amount of time, and in a sustainable way.
  • Ape Golf trip anyone? Scotland. 2024. Letā€™s do this! And while weā€™re there, letā€™s strategize IRL in a professionally facilitated setting, on efficient action planning to manifest our vision as well.

PizzaDAO

  • What better way to bring people together IRL than over our shared love of pizza. PizzaDAO has brought thousands of people together through hundreds of events across the globe.
  • This presents numerous connection opportunities for the APE Community to encourage new builders in the space to write their first proposals, with token utility on their minds, and to become more involved.

DAODenver

  • With the status of the largest DAO event throughout ETHDenver, with around 1,000 DAO enthusiasts in attendance, DAODenver has twice coordinated this multi-day event for thought leaders in this ecosystem.
  • ApeCoin was not here at past events, but should be in the future. This is an opportune time to help onboard new builders towards their first AIPs, to empower them with the support our community can provide, and help them build utility for our token through upcoming proposals.

CollablandDAO

  • With their token gating tooling connected throughout 40,000 Discord servers, Collabland understands what it means to build a tool that people want, and to provide utility of real value in this ecosystem.
  • Future Ape AIP authors who are building $Ape utility, and who are looking for support with their go to market strategies, would do well to talk with the Collabland team about the marketplace and product launch support. This cross collaboration requires more discussions and details to sort out, which Iā€™m happy to assist with.

AthensDAO

  • This is a community Iā€™ve only recently become acquainted with. That being said, they recently welcomed me as a keynote speaker on the main stage of their 300 person event, I will share the recording of how this translates into supporting new builders in the space and the future of the Ape community.
  • Once you see the recording, the cross collaboration support will become, imho, mostly self evident.
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Hey Iā€™m Puncar from HowDAO.xyz, we hosted DAO event in Paris and Istanbul this year and plan on many more, next one is in Denver. I believe crossDAO collaboration is critical for the ecosystem and Iā€™ve known MemeBrains for some time now and would love to continue these mutually supportive discussions with him and ApeCoin DAO.

Memebrain is an amazing DAO practitioner and entrepreneur and I am very happy to see his full involvement with ApeCoin DAO.

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Thank you for chiming in @puncar, I really appreciate your kind words :heart: :pray:

Looking forward to lots of collabs coming up in the future! :mechanical_arm: :sunglasses:

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GM @foxSlightly!

Thank you for the questions :pray: :heart: summarized replies here;

In addition to the prime, critical duties which come with the honor of the Special Council role, I would love to see more cross-DAO collaborations, fostering stronger ecosystem growth.

I believe this will attract more top talent to the ApeCoin community and prime us for a powerful lineup of new AIPs in 2024 focused on token utility and increased value to the ApeCoin ecosystem.

I wrote of this topic in the post above here, and would make it a mission to see manifest, for the benefit of us all

As a former CEO and bootstrapped Founder, I built a team of 60 people where we directly managed thousands of high-impact projects among hundreds of Multi-Family residential complexā€™s which operate almost identically to DAOs. It turns out Iā€™ve been in training for the Special Council role throughout the majority of my professional career.

Each Multi-Family complex comprises of dozens of condo unit owners, which is a very emotional and high-worth asset for them. Each owner also contributes monthly fees into a shared treasury for the community and elects a board of directors to manage that treasury. The board of directors then hires a property management company, which then hires legal, accounting, consultants, and other teams as needed to limit liability and carry out day-to-day operations. Itā€™s at this point where the arguing starts. Unit owners battle it out back and forth, criticizing their board of directors, and the board of directors inevitably end up in challenging situations from numerous fronts. I ask you @foxSlightly, does this sound like a DAO to you?

My role as CEO was to navigate these complex operationional environments with all stakeholders in order to find mutually beneficial solutions and them implement them. As noted above, I did this with my direct team of 60 for a decade.

No.

I am currently the CEO and Co-Founder of Nodeblocks, the service provider which built the Treasury Analytics and Transparency tooling with @Waabam and current Special Council within AIP-267.

As noted here in part 2 of my reply to @bigbull, I would be reducing my participation at NodeBlocks to that of casual part-time, and should an irresolvable conflict arise, I would relinquish my position there entirely.

Low participation.

Our overall DAO participation is too low, and too many of our AIPs are failing, both for numerous reasons. We currently have less than 1% participation from among our overall 141,600 wallet holders, and 58% of all Ape AIPs have failed. This is a big problem.

Double participation in the DAO.

By doubling the participation here at ApeCoin DAO, we dilute the impact of any one single large wallet, while fostering a more authentic decentralized community voice. The problem is not that certain large wallets have too much power, the problem is that not enough people in our community are participating.

We should be redirecting the energy from grumblings against any large Delegate into increasing the participation in the DAO overall. Letā€™s focus on solutions my friends, and give all our energy into their manifestation.

Yes 100%.

Among many other forms of contribution, I am currently one of the most active voters in the DAO, having voted on the most recent 84 AIPs consecutively, without missing a single one. I intend to continue this stye of contribution, in addition to the numerous other areas I contribute towards as well.

Thank you again for your questions, I truly appreciate your curiosity and intention to bring transparency and discussion to the topic :pray: :heart: :gorilla:

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Iā€™m James from Collabland (@jamesyoung). I would love to continue these mutually supportive discussions with MemeBrains and the ApeCoin community! Happy to work together with the ApeCoin community on cross collaboration!

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Iā€™m Anjali Young, Co-Founder of Collab.Land. Damaderoca on Twitter too.

Iā€™ve known MemeBrains for some time now and heā€™s one of my favorite people in the space. I would love to continue these mutually supportive discussions with the ApeCoin community.

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Hello everyone, my name is Jonathan (blackacres) and I am part of the Council over at CityDAO, but most importantly had the pleasure of being an early colleague of Memebrains at CityDAO. We met as he proposed, initiated, and eventually took off running with the CityDAO podcast, showing his initiative and his collaboration skills in many different environments and his effective ability to connect and communicate with people from all over.

Whether rain or shine at our DAO, we were able to bank on Memebrains continuing his work, meeting/exceeding benchmarks, and becoming a reliable source of work being completed.

I do want to highlight the ā€œrain or shineā€ commentā€¦He makes a commitment and he will follow through. He will think of the DAO over himself and is down to weather the storms that approach.

I am of the position that Memebrains will be an incredible asset to the Special Council here at ApeCoinDAO. Better yet, overall, a DAO will benefit immensely having Memebrains involved.

Blackacres

https://twitter.com/blackacrestypes

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Iā€™m Shanny from Krause House. I would love to continue these mutually supportive discussions with MemeBrains and the ApeCoin community.

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hi all :wave:

iSpeakNerd of Collab.Land and Boring Security here.

I worked with @MemeBrains to integrate the DAO App to the Collab.Land Miniapp Marketplace. He was energetic, responsive, and all around amazing to work with. Super excited to see him stepping out for Special Council!

Heā€™s a great DAOist and entrepreneur who truly cares about the original ethos of DAOs and crypto while striving to improve UX for DAOists everywhere. Glad to see him getting more involved with ApeCoin DAO.

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GM everyone. My name is Law Sun from 8DAO. Before I met with @MemeBrains in person in Hong Kong through the ApeFest events, we had been discussing a few times online how to make every contributors deliver their work on time and make the DAO move to their goal on track. He always gives me insightful and practical suggestions.

When we met in Hong Kong, we had a lot of great discussions regarding how to transform Hong Kong and Cyberport into a Web3 hub through an enablement program, mentorship, masterclass, and mastermind to general audiences and companies. He also suggested bringing some great DAOs such as CityDAO to develop a co-working and co-living space with Cyberport for those Web3 startups and communities as well as Krause House DAO to develop a Sport DAO to support Hong Kong athletes. He is impressively cool.

I believe MemeBrains is a guy with DAO in his heart, or DAO is his heart. I am expecting to work with him on the above projects and waiting to see him again in Hong Kong soon. For sure, he is a must-have talent for the Special Council. He will make the DAO not only a community on the chain but a global movement on the heart.

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gm fam!

Iā€™ve known @MemeBrains for a while now. I met him during a large Twitter Space with Origami DAO, which focused on the differences between web2 and web3 Marketing. We hit off from there, and he gave me warm introductions to both the CityDAO and Krause House communities, and we jammed on several spaces afterwards.

Aside from being a great connector, MemeBrains is also a talented builder, focused on bringing transparency to DAO governance via interactive dashboards. We hosted a demo a few weeks back, showcasing ā€˜NodeBlocksā€™, a project that he won a Hackathon for, which keeps members up to date on all recent forum posts, proposals, voting, and treasury info.

Memebrainā€™s is a strong contributor, very friendly, and will be a great addition to the Special Council. Proud to call him a friend.

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I want to express my support for Memebrains as a special council member. I have worked with Memebrains for over a year in CityDAO. He has single-handedly run the podcast while simultaneously contributing to multiple groups. He has created effective CIPs and handled a variety of high-level responsibilities, including marketing, DAO tooling, developing collaborations and working with all executive members of the DAO. Memebrains has shown himself to be organized, efficient, effective at communication, leadership and project management. I highly recommend him for the role of special council and I think he will make a valuable addition to the ApeCoin team!

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Hi, my name is Ure from Afropolitan. Iā€™ve known MemeBrains for sometime and I know heā€™s passionate about the DAO ecosystem. I would love to continue these manually supportive discussion with him and the Apecoin DAO

https://x.com/urey__?s=21&t=d9MK6Bkq3AGtxNc6Mh6aRw

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