Trade. Market. Mind. Special: Exclusive Interview with Ocean Academy
You already know Ocean Protocol. And you might also know that there is a committed community around it. But do you know the Ocean Academy? Well, I did not until I got to talk to Albert, Kai, and Laurent, and here’s what I found out.
Since my exclusive interview with Ocean Protocol founder Bruce Pon in November last year, a lot has happened. Not only continues Ocean Protocol to be the driving force behind a decentralized data economy but the price of the OCEAN token (ERC-20) starts to reflect the success. On February 12th, 2021 the price even marked a new all-time high of 1.3880 USDT according to Binance.
I’m personally not surprised by these developments. With more and larger well-known companies, such as Daimler, Johnson and Johnson, Roche, Toyota or even Unilever, Ocean Protocol is increasingly expanding its list of important partnerships. And the mission is clear:
An accessible and decentralized data economy.
In this article, however, I would like to draw attention to the dedicated community behind Ocean Protocol. A project is only as strong as the energy and passion of the people behind it to spread the message. The Ocean Academy, which is explicitly not affiliated with the Ocean Protocol Foundation (OPF), represents this energy and passion. I had the opportunity to ask a few questions to Albert, Kai, and Laurent and listen to the story of behind the Ocean Academy (OA).
Why does the community need an Ocean Academy, and what are the goals of it?
In percentage terms, very few people understand blockchain technology and smart contracts. And I am far from being an expert myself, when it comes to the technical side behind cryptocurrencies. In companies, these terms are even quickly waved off as “science fiction.” That’s why four passionate Ocean Ambassadors realized in spring last year how important it is, or will be, to raise awareness of the Ocean Protocol in order to generate the most reach possible for the project.
This is how the Ocean Academy (OA) and “Ocean 101” came into being, which are intended to help with the onboarding of new Ambassadors. The mission:
To qualitatively pick up potential future users of the Ocean Protocol and get them on their way with information sharing and knowledge transfer.
Quickly the 4 founders realized that the project “Ocean 101” could play a much bigger role than just creating an information platform. They conceived an outreach platform that would not only educate about the Ocean Protocol, but show how to deal with it in general in Web3. The Ocean Academy was born.
In order to discover the future, the future must also be understood. For this reason, the OA aims to spark interest in the AI/data science community and motivate people to join the future for data science and data sovereignty. Many Web3 projects see their target audience as “crypto-natives” and do not reach the broader market they want to serve. Ocean Protocol wants to take a different approach here. This is because it is assumed that more than 90 % of potential future users are not familiar with Web3.
We want to make the Ocean Academy a mainstay for onboarding users, builders, ambassadors, and all other community members in the Ocean Protocol who learn from each other through inclusive experiences.
Therefore, the Ocean Academy (OA) staff consists of certified Ocean Ambassadors. Upon successful completion of the Academy and receipt of the certificate, graduates are free to apply for the Academy and grow Ocean Protocol Ambassadors and enhance collaboration among all people willing and able to contribute. The OA operates under the values of transparency, openness, and respect.
After “Ocean 101” came “Project Shrimp”
To ensure steady growth, Ocean Academy had applied to Ocean-DAO last year with a new concept called “Project Shrimp”. This involved funding which was needed to expand communication channels. More about the Ocean-DAO can be found in the Medium articles by Alex N.
The Ocean Community eventually voted for the “Project Shrimp” and the Ocean Academy was able to win the funding round with a total of $13.000 in OCEAN. The foundation for the new module was laid. With “Project Shrimp”, the OA is preparing for the growth of the ecosystem and providing an entry point to learn more about Ocean Protocol, its applications and potential. More about “Project Shrimp” can be found in this introductory article.
The Future of Ocean Academy: “Project Oyster”
With new funding from the second OCEAN-DAO round, the OA would like to involve the community even more in the next step in order to tailor new modules and content even more specifically. It seems important to the OA here that a sustainable contribution of high quality is made. It is not about mass marketing, but about a strong basis for a healthy growing ecosystem that will last for a long time. Welcome to “Project Oyster”.
We want to involve the community even more in order to find out what questions the community has about the Ocean Protocol. This is the only way we can continue to develop the Ocean Academy qualitatively over a longer period of time.
The proposal for “Project Oyster” can be viewed under the following link: https://port.oceanprotocol.com/t/proposal-ocean-academy-project-oyster/382
New educational module on Compute-to-Data (C2D) planned for spring 2021
With the new “Kraken” educational module, the Ocean Academy is pursuing the goal of explaining and promoting Compute-to-Data (C2D), the most important advantage of Ocean Protocol and a prerequisite for its introduction in large companies. The aim is to reduce the barriers for data owners and data service providers to monetizing personal data while maintaining ownership, control and GDPR compliance.
Information on the proposal: https://port.oceanprotocol.com/t/proposal-ocean-academy-project-kraken/465
A first conclusion about the Ocean Academy
If we take a closer look at the crypto industry, we are looking at a landscape that could be very different tomorrow than it is today. “We are still early” is not just some cliché statement, but the truth. We are all still early adopters. Through the questions posed to and the story of Ocean Academy, we get a behind-the-scenes look at real community work that doesn’t happen like this in many places within the crypto landscape.
And from a market participant’s perspective, a project like OA is very welcome. Why? Because the OA represents the future in a new data economy. An open and decentralized world. The Ocean Academy thus underlines the essential foundations of Ocean Protocol and ensures qualitative influx and reach, which can trigger network effects and strengthen other fundamental data. And this could then also be reflected in the price of the OCEAN token.
The bottom line is that at times many people were brought together, efforts were coordinated and new initiatives were launched. Furthermore, more than 60 potential new ambassadors had applied and to date, and 36 of them have become official Ocean Ambassadors.
This article was written by Thomas Schmied (DecenTrade) in collaboration with Jeannine Meyer. Furthermore, the following people contributed to this article:
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