Dylan Sharkey, Advisor at Provoco.me:
Through my work with a select cohort of bleeding edge Blockchain Startups — that collectively have raised tens of millions of dollars in seed, venture capital and crowdfunding — I have come to believe that decentralized protocols and applications will be as disruptive in this decade as the internet itself was in the 1990s.
A new generation of token powered start ups is disintermediating the old guard of centralized monopolies like Facebook (where you and your data are the commodity) and Uber, Upwork or Airbnb — which masquerade as open marketplaces but charge extortionate fees to suppliers and consumers in their respective ecosystems.
Decentralized and distributed ledger technologies are removing the necessity for rent seeking centralized authorities and are putting the power and control back into the hands of the market participants — ordinary people like you and me.
However, this disruption through disintermediation is not limited to the corporate world. The “trustless” nature of distributed ledgers like the blockchain — and it’s evolutions such as IOTA Foundation’s Tangle — can also remove the need for a centralized, Hobbesian “Leviathan” to adjudicate and enforce the rules in other human organizational structures such as non-profits, NGOs and even Government.
Decentralization itself can present an alternative to traditional authority figures and avoid our human nature triggering a decent into a dog eat dog, free for all in all aspects of human life.
Let us illustrate this thought with recent, real world examples. If we focus on the responsibilities of both governments and charities there have recently been several controversial failures of centralized authorities in their responses to natural disasters: The US Government’s failure in the response to the humanitarian crisis caused by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and the failure of Oxfam illustrated by the abuse scandals in it’s response efforts in the aftermath of the Hati Earthquake are case in point.
Poor decision making by the US Government and FEMA leading to wasted time and money on private contractors, or the lack of action by the hierarchical management of Oxfam allowing abuse of the most vulnerable to continue for years, are just a few recent examples of how the public’s trust in centralized authorities has been shaken to the core.
Dismayed by the status quo and excited by the new possibilities for social change presented by advances in blockchain technology, the team at Provocome was inspired to create the world’s first Social Challenge Network powered by the Ethereum Blockchain.
Within the world of technology, Provoco is disrupting and disintermediateing the likes of YouTube, Snap and even Facebook through decentralization. They are working to remove the centralized authorities of traditional monopolistic social networks and putting the power back in the hands of the participants in the Voco Ecosystem- creators, challenge takers, judges and supporters.
Through user generated challenges, the Provoco platform can actively crowdfund the charitable and philanthropic projects that it seems like governments and companies today are too incompetent, too budget conscious or occasionally, too corrupt to execute. From disaster recovery to feeding the starving, from funding research to curing diseases not profitable enough for big pharma — we the crowd, the ordinary people can finally pool and focus our efforts to do some good in the world
Personally, I am honoured and humbled to have been invited by the Provoco Leadership Team to use my experience of helping build and scale a social network internationally at LinkedIn to help build the first decentralized social network with true global impact on the Ethereum blockchain.
And I am not alone, an entire generation is inspired to be able to conceive, fund and execute a project that can have an outsized impact for good in the world. As Jordan, one of our early Provoco evangelists, communicated on our Telegram group:
Of course, this being a youthful social platform with broad consumer appeal there will be a tremendous amount of dares, comical and occasionally distasteful challenges initially.
However, eventually we will get the first decentralized ice bucket challenge equivalent. Subsequently we are going to have the first crowd funded humanitarian mission with zero government or NGO involvement — this will be a paradigm shift that will literally change everything.
Once such a project is successfully conceived, funded, executed and publicised via the Provoco ecosystem, the world of charitable, non profit and philanthropic organisations will be massively and permanently disrupted for the better.
The Provoco team are tremendously excited about what this platform can achieve with early evangelists like Jordan creating and directing challenges to achieve a social good. Provoco has a unique opportunity to succeed in making the world a better place where even the most powerful governments in the world and international organizations like Oxfam have failed.
We invite you to join us at Provoco and as Mahatma Gandhi said: “be the change that you wish to see in the world”.
The Provoco Presale is now live with a significant bonus for early evangelists. You can buy your Tokens here: https://provoco.me/en/ico and support the decentralized social challenge revolution on:
Telegram: https://t.me/provoco_me
Twitter: https://twitter.com/provocome
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/provocome/