Dream DAO

DAO Members Interviewed:

  1. Madison, Co-Founder
  2. Joshua, Founding Builder
  3. Madhav, Founding Builder

Interviewer(s): Deepa

What is Dream DAO

Dream DAO’s mission is to help Gen-Z leaders (15-20-year-olds) use web3 to solve society’s problems. The DAO grew out of a non-profit called Civics Unplugged, which it still collaborates with. Civics Unplugged is a 501(c)(3) social enterprise founded in 2019, focused on creating Gen Z leaders through training, funding, and networking.

Dream DAO is a spin-off from the original nonprofit. It runs two fellowship programs a year of 40 students per program. The fellows, referred to as Builders, are matched with leaders from web3 known as Champions. During the course of 6 months, the Builders are given an immersive introduction to web3, with exposure to key web3 concepts, events, and hands-on learning experiences.

When we learned about the potential of web3 to solve civic problems, we saw that not very many young people were being onboarded to the Impact side of web3. We thought ‘Who would be better at training and onboarding young people than an organization that is already focused on just that?” - Madison, Co-founder Dream DAO

Dream DAO launched in late 2021 and has run two fellowship programs to date having trained 80 students through 1:1 mentorship. The DAO measures impact in terms of how many students are onboarded to web3 through their fellowship program and internship placements.

They also conduct IRL events in various cities and colleges globally to create awareness and build a community of Gen Zs interested in web3 and social impact.

The learning experience in web3 is continuous as we learn a range of web3 skills including making and distributing POAPs, learning HTML or R, getting introduced to governance mechanisms, and even working on projects with the likes of NEAR Protocol, Tezos, or Polywrap. - Joshua, Dream DAO Founding Builder from Mexico

How Do They DAO

  • Co-creation of the DAO by engaging students from Civis Unplugged to help with ideation, structure, and launch of Dream DAO. The students who contributed to the formation of Dream DAO are now referred to as ‘Founding Builders’.
  • The DAO is remote and distributed, with students from all over the world. They collaborate on Discord and use it as a primary platform for ‘Learning Together’ sessions and connecting with mentors.
  • The DAO uses NFTs to represent membership, with students being awarded free NFTs while the Champions must buy them from the NFT marketplace OpenSea.
  • The DAO votes on all matters and uses NFTs (instead of fungible tokens) for voting and Snapshot (a decentralized off-chain voting platform) to cast votes.
  • Operations are divided into workstreams, with each workstream led by a Builder (student) and a Champion (mentor). The structure is fluid and changes with every season.
  • The DAO does not issue tokens. Because of the central role of young members, the target governance model is merit-based rather than token-weighted (i.e. not dependent on how much money you have spent).
  • The tech stack comprises: Discord for collaboration, Notion for documentation, Snapshot for voting, and Clarity for task management.
  • The co-founder Gary Sheng, who largely stewarded the DAO, has stepped down recently with the intention of making the DAO more decentralized and autonomous (i.e. not remain dependent on one individual for functioning).

For a deeper understanding of how Dream DAO operates, refer to the conversation with Dream DAO Founders and Builders.

Interview with Madison, Co-founder Dream DAO Interview with Joshua, Fellow Builder Dream DAO How we DAO by Dream DAO