What is the VELA DAO?

The VELA DAO is designed to remove obstacles and strengthen the collective knowledge of the VELA community by providing unconventional education entrepreneurs with funding for operational support, resource-sharing, and the utilization of new technologies. Grant recipients who receive funding from the DAO become members of the DAO and are tasked with strengthening the knowledge, skills, and capacity of VELA’s community by sharing their learnings and voting on the next group of entrepreneurs to fund. 

Why does the VELA DAO exist?

VELA’s approach to catalyzing innovation begins with our distributed community of entrepreneurs grounded in shared values. We see the VELA DAO as a platform that distributes ownership of VELA’s resources, gives grantees decision-making and operational power, and incentivizes grantees to support each other – expanding VELA’s impact and, ultimately, better serving the education ecosystem.

We are striving towards a world where funders and community members work collaboratively to identify new projects, more effectively allocate capital, and more transparently assess the growth and impact of projects in the ecosystem. We believe a DAO is one way to distribute ownership and employ web3 tools to challenge the status quo of how philanthropy operates.

The goal of the VELA DAO is to create a platform that adds value to the existing VELA community and ultimately expands the VELA community and its impact, using web3 tools. It will start with a grantmaking opportunity, and there will also be a token community to reward community members who support each other. In a world with fast-paced technology change, including AI and web3, the VELA DAO will also teach members how to use these technologies inside and outside of the DAO.

Who is in the VELA DAO?

The VELA DAO is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) that is leveraging Web3 technology to disrupt traditional philanthropy, giving VELA grant recipients the power to fund and support the projects that they believe will add the most value to the VELA Founder Network. All funded projects fall into one of four categories: curricular support, marketing/PR, legal support, or Web3 projects and all funding must be used exclusively for a charitable purpose. The first 12 projects selected for funding by the VELA DAO are:

• Acton Academy Fort Lauderdale (Ft. Lauderdale, FL) which will use funding to create optimal Web3 implementation for vPAL, their AI learning project, and help it scale to additional locations, supporting the development of their decentralized ownership model.

• Colossal Academy (Ft. Lauderdale, FL) which will use funding to scale their self-directed learning approach by building the Goal Guru, an app that will allow key stakeholders to be in communication for the greatest good of the learner.

• Lower Lights Leadership Academy (Yuma, AZ) which will use funding to support the finalization of their 501(c)(3) status and to deepen their understanding of insurance opportunities and needs.

• Nneka Gigi Virtual Studios (Los Angeles, CA) which will use funding to support the creation of a virtual educational African Art gallery using NFTs to foster cultural pride, education, and engagement among Black girls, their families, and the broader community. 

• OurSchool (Portland, OR) which will use funding to support their marketing efforts to expand into new states, including Florida, Texas, and Alabama, to support LGBTQIA scholars, creatives, and young people.

• Positively Arts (Las Vegas, NV) which will use funding to design a mindfulness program to provide staff and learners with more tools, training, and resources to support mental health and social-emotional learning. 

• Radical Learning (New York, NY) which will use funding to support the hiring of a public relations specialist to support brand development, media work, and community partnerships, including events with entrepreneurs that increase awareness of unconventional education paths.

• Savage Learning Environment (Los Angeles, CA) which will use funding to hire a legal team and accountant to support their transition to 501(c)(3) status and to better understand potential liability concerns for their programming. 

• South Florida Homeschool Resource Center (Davie, FL) which will use funding to engage a social media specialist to help reach new homeschoolers in the tri-county area to share the guidance they offer on Florida laws, portfolio assessments, and support in navigating the homeschooling world.

• Tutor Tots Online (Atlanta, GA) which will use funding to support the creation of a robust digital marketing training program tailored specifically for VELA founders. It will cover digital marketing strategies, including Search Engine Optimization, email marketing, social media management, and online advertising techniques.

• TwiddleU (Liburn, GA) which will use funding to build a Web3 network for children with autism as an intervention tool, empowering parents and educators with opportunities to connect, share, and access content in support of nonverbal autistic learners.

• Universe Konadu Inc. (Newark, NJ) which will use funding to support the development of and infrastructure for a customized software and online platform that can independently host a learn-and-earn, self-paced, hybrid vocational training and certification course for youth and young adults.

These projects were carefully selected by the founding members of the VELA DAO. All of them are VELA grant recipients who have successfully launched education ventures and learning environments. They are: 

• Karema Akilah, founder of The Genius School and The Genii DAO

• Thanasi Dilos, co-founder of Gotham Labs and Civics Unplugged

• Kyle Gamba, founder of La Luz

• Jeffrey Imrich and Sung-Ae Yang, co-founders of Rock by Rock 

• Alycia Comer-Wright, founder of Cultural Roots Homeschool Cooperative

Can I join the VELA DAO?

Any member of the VELA Fund Community can apply to join the VELA DAO. Applications will open soon, keep an eye out on the website!

How does the VELA DAO award grants?

VELA DAO awards grants based on the funding requested during the application process. For the upcoming round, $97.000 is available to be distributed between several projects. The grants are distributed through a Web3 wallet to the project’s Web3 wallet. All of the selected grantees will receive support to set up their wallets before receiving the funds.

What’s a DAO?

A DAO, or Decentralized Autonomous Organization, is an innovative type of organization that operates transparently and autonomously, without traditional central leadership. Its rules and operations are encoded in smart contracts on the blockchain, ensuring the automatic and immutable execution of decisions made by the community. 

DAOs offer a flexible framework for experimentation with new forms of governance, collaboration, and value creation, empowering its members to participate in decision-making through voting mechanisms. This creates a sense of ownership and engagement, leading to a more motivated and invested community

In a DAO, decisions are made by a collective of individuals, decentralizing authority across a large community. Each DAO has a mission, decided by its members or founders, and ideally, even though it can focus on external impact, it can also impact its own members. In the case of VELA DAO, the mission is to distribute funding to non-traditional educational projects (external) yet, its members are grantees and project owners (internal). In that way, the VELA DAO not only supports its members financially but also selects projects to fund and participate in the DAO.

What’s Web3?

Web3 represents the next generation of the internet, envisioning a decentralized and user-owned online world. Unlike the current Web2, where large corporations control most data and interactions, Web3 aims to distribute control and ownership using blockchain technology and peer-to-peer networks. 

Key goals of Web3 are:

1. Decentralization: Data and control are distributed across a network rather than being held by a single entity.

2. User Ownership: Users have greater control over their data and digital assets, truly owning their online identity and interactions.

3. Transparency and Trust: Blockchain's immutable ledger ensures transparency and builds trust in transactions and interactions.

4. Tokenization: Digital assets and value can be represented and exchanged using tokens.

What’s Blockchain?

Blockchain is like a digital, secure notebook that keeps a record of transactions and information. Imagine it as a chain made up of many blocks, where each block is a "page" that contains data, like transaction details or other important information. Once a block is added to this chain, it’s locked in and cannot be easily changed, making it very reliable.

Here are some key points to understand:

1. Decentralized: Unlike traditional systems, where one central authority (like a bank) holds and verifies information, blockchain is shared across many computers (called nodes). This makes it decentralized, meaning there’s no single person or company controlling it.

2. Transparent: Anyone in the network can view the chain, so it’s very open, creating a high level of trust among participants.

3. Secure: Each block is linked to the one before it and secured with cryptographic codes, making it extremely hard to alter past records. This security is one reason people trust blockchain for things like financial transactions.

4. Immutable: Once data is recorded, it’s difficult to change. If someone wants to alter a block, they’d need to change all subsequent blocks across all computers, which is practically impossible. This makes it a permanent, unchangeable ledger.

5. Use Cases: Blockchain powers things like cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum), but it’s also used for other applications, such as tracking supply chains, securing contracts (smart contracts), and even managing digital identities.

In simple terms, blockchain is a way to record data that’s secure, transparent, and resistant to change, making it very useful in areas that require high trust and accountability.