Polkadot Head Ambassador Application: Luca Poggi

Head Ambassador Candidate: Luca Poggi
Twitter: https://x.com/LucaPoggi7
Telegram: https://t.me/LucaPoggi
Discord: lucapoggi

Dear Polkadot community,

My name is Luca Poggi and I am excited to present my candidacy for the role of Head Ambassador in the Polkadot Ambassadors Program.

HA role demands dedication and a passion for promoting Polkadot, and together with my team, we are feeling ready to leverage our skills to enhance and strengthen Polkadot's presence in the blockchain world.

The team I have selected is composed of individuals who share my principles. They will be actively supporting and executing a range of activities (see list below). As Head Ambassador, my role will not only be active in performing proposed activities, but also in representing and managing the activities, as well as being responsible for the entire group’s performance.

Proposed Activities

Business Development:

Promoting partnerships with companies (B2B), universities, institutions and governative entities (B2G) to incorporate Polkadot into their activities, expanding use cases, showcase the ability to implement essential services in a sustainable and secure way, while increasing the adoption of Polkadot and its entire ecosystem.
Providing technical assistance and advice to subjects interested in adopting Polkadot technology and/or deploying their project in the ecosystem.
Participation in sector events and trade fairs to stay up to date with market needs and be able to offer a product that best suits demand, as well as getting to know new companies, subjects and possible users.
Provide feedback on the services and products provided by Polkadot, based on the experience of use by companies and users, directly to the technical fellowship and to the entire community of Polkadot developers.

Events and Initiatives

Participate as official representatives of Polkadot in blockchain-related events on Italian territory.
Planning and organizing hackathons and workshops throughout Italy to promote Polkadot to the community developers and supporting the creation and management of study groups and hands-on workshops for advanced technical training.
Managing media relations to ensure positive and consistent coverage of Polkadot.
Creating promotional and informational content for various communication channels.

Education and Evangelism:

Creating and managing technical content (posts, threads and tutorials) on social media (Twitter, Telegram and Medium) in order to explain complex concepts in a simple and accessible way.
Organize periodic live video calls and AMAs to discuss and keep the Polkadot community updated on the latest news.
Carry out classroom lessons at universities, schools and company courses about Polkadot technology.

Community Building:

Management of the Polkadot Italian community on Telegram, creating a welcoming and informative environment for members.
Managing dedicated social channels (on X and YouTube) to facilitate discussion and exchange of ideas.
Organizing local and national meetups to promote networking among Polkadot enthusiasts.
Engaging influencers and key figures in the blockchain world to amplify Polkadot's visibility.

…and obviously…

Ambassador typical activities:

Participate in Polkadot events around the world
Attend HA meetings and participate in discussions in public groups
Provide help and collaborate in shaping the new ambassadors program
Collaborate with other HAs on projects where cooperation can lead to a more effective, competitive, and streamlined process

Compensation Breakdown

The HA, together with the team members, ensures a minimum monthly engagement in the proposed activities equivalent to full-time capacity, in accordance with referenda 487. This is the minimum guaranteed condition, to be considered as the sum of the hours of activities carried out during the month by the team members. In reality, I expect that the hours dedicated to such activities, by proposing ourselves as a team, will generally exceed the minimum threshold by a consistent amount.

The monthly amount received by the HA:

A small part (if needed), about 0-20%, will be allocated to an internal treasury, managed by the HA, which will cover possible reimbursements for HA travel expenses, costs related to work tools, and other minor expenses;
80-100% will be allocated to pay for the hours worked on the proposed activities, by HA and team members.

For any other expenses not falling into the categories mentioned above, a reimbursement request will be made to the ambassadors program treasury or specific on-chain bounties. In both cases, no administration or own fees will ever be counted; the expenses we will allocate in requests to the ambassador's treasury or bounties will only be out-of-pocket expenses such as the cost of sponsorship at an event.

A non-profit association will be established to manage all expenses in compliance with Italian regulations.

Activities Track Records

In accordance with the motto “Don’t trust, verify” widely used in the Web3 world, we will provide a tool, in particular a public page of our internal Notion database (unfortunately, we do not have an equally practical Web3 tool), where all activities carried out will be detailed along with the hours dedicated to each of them. This page will be periodically updated and can be publicly viewed by anyone. This will also simplify the reporting process as a requirement of the ambassador's program.

My background in the Polkadot ecosystem

Some of you may already know me, while for others this might be the first time. In other cases, the reputation of Iceberg Nodes probably precedes me. Here is my story.

I've been in the crypto space since summer 2014 and active in the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystem since 2019. I’m an early investor in DOT, and this gave me the opportunity to focus my energies and dedicate a lot of time in studying the technology, understanding the principles and seeing all the improvements since before the launch of Kusama (yeah there were already some Substrate projects around), until nowadays. Starting from mid 2022, I left my previous job in the welding manufacturing and certification field (I hold a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, a master’s degree in mechatronics engineering and a post master’s degree as International Welding Engineer), to become a full time crypto boy.

I’m the founder of Iceberg Nodes which provides secure non-custodial staking services in a total of more than 40 different networks, 95% of them as validators on relaychains, validators on standalone Substrate based chains and collators on parachains (also in 5 system parachains), so highly focused in the Polkadot ecosystem. My involvement in the ecosystem has also increased in having “skin in the game” as seed and private investor in some of the new Polkadot ecosystem projects, having invested in such sales almost $1.5M during the last one year period.

…but wait…let me explain about my Polkadot Vision!

But before continuing with the story of my journey within Polkadot, I would like to take a moment to share my thoughts on Polkadot. I believe that, for a Head Ambassador, it is crucial to fully understand the true technology of Polkadot, its role, and, most importantly, to be able to effectively communicate this to the audience.

What do I think about Polkadot? I am a strong supporter of modular scalability, and consequently, scalability based on sharding. I firmly believe that the scalability offered by Polkadot is the only one capable of achieving true scalability in the blockchain world.

To fully understand Polkadot, one must first understand what a parachain (or if you want “appchain”) is at the end. A parachain is a chain with specific functionalities, specialized in a particular use case. This is where the magic of Polkadot lies. Developing on Polkadot means inheriting the main network's security and accessing an entire ecosystem, including liquidity and functionalities provided by other parachains via pallets or smart contracts. When developing a product on Polkadot, whether a dApp or an entire parachain, it is crucial to form partnerships and collaborations with other parachains to leverage their functionalities for a complete final product. Within the Polkadot ecosystem, there must be a balance between cooperation and competition among parachains. Cooperation enhances Polkadot's overall product value through the use of XCM and the composability of different parachains. Healthy competition among similar projects stimulates continuous improvement and attracts new teams to the ecosystem, fostering innovation.

To elevate the product offered by Polkadot, it is necessary to educate developers not only from a technical standpoint (Rust & Polkadot SDK) but also culturally, conveying the vision and the way of developing on Polkadot, highlighting the advantages and challenges of this method. Often, I notice that developers, probably because they are used to Ethereum, design dApps with a too narrow mindset, as if they only had the possibility to create dApps based on smart contracts operating on layer 2 that rarely communicate with each other (during execution). On Polkadot, however, the product being developed has the ability to interface with other products within the ecosystem, opening the door to a new (and certainly more complex) way of developing a Web3 product. I believe that on Polkadot we should focus on developing products that cannot be developed in other ecosystems, thus strongly based on the unique functionalities that Polkadot offers. In my opinion, those who develop on Polkadot with a focus on these concepts, as well as managing to create an abstraction that allows various users to interact with the project itself without necessarily knowing the technical details, or even knowing which network they are interacting with or what operations are being performed "under the hood," will be projects that, in my view, have excellent chances of success.

In addition to what has been mentioned, I am a supporter of fee-less chains and account abstraction, which I believe are crucial for the future adoption of blockchain technology. It is important to note that "fee-less" does not mean the chain is easily susceptible to spam; rather, it means the feeless system is managed in a specific way, based on the product offered and certain conditions.

In addition, I believe it is necessary to avoid creating new tokens unless they are strictly necessary for the project. Currently, there are too many tokens in circulation; a quick look at CoinMarketCap or CoinGecko reveals this. In most cases, tokens are created merely to finance projects or, worse, for fraudulent purposes. Aside from PoW systems, the primary role of a token in PoS systems is to secure the network. Polkadot’s shared security technology makes it unnecessary to have a separate token for securing its parachains (aka staking). If a native token is necessary, the DOT token could serve this purpose, providing additional benefits to DOT holders. For instance, the selection of collators could be managed through other methods, such as the PoL (Proof of Liquidity) model, which I find particularly interesting. Moreover, with a well-funded treasury willing to support valid projects, development can proceed without issuing new tokens. The team’s profits should come from the volume and revenue generated by the product itself rather than from token sales. This economic model, based on revenue proportional to the product’s success, is most suitable for treasury funding. The project team's profits would align with achieving specific usage volumes, matching the interests of the Polkadot community and treasury in supporting such products. Private investors can still play a role by providing liquidity or other services, being rewarded based on the project's success. It is also worth mentioning a new funding mechanism soon to be available on Polkadot, devised by lolmcshizz, called "Optimistic Project Funding". This mechanism allows users to nominate whitelisted projects with their DOT. It will be funded with a constant stream of DOT taken directly from inflation and distributed to projects based on the proportion of DOT that has nominated them.

Obviously, these guidelines should not be seen as mandatory for all projects developing on Polkadot but rather as a guide for those projects that choose to fund most of their development through the treasury. Of course, there will always be the option to issue own token by accessing private funding methods, as has been the case in 99% of instances to date.

I am collaborating with a group of developers to create a project based on these principles using Polkadot SDK. Although I cannot provide specific details, I can say that it involves an existing Web2 application where blockchain can significantly enhance and improve an already widely-used type of products. This is a crucial point: many projects approach blockchain because it attracts attention, money, and investors, but often blockchain becomes an obstacle during product development, especially if the same product can function effectively without blockchain (even without compromises), or if adopted without considering the necessary requirements for it to function appropriately (decentralization, security, etc.).

I firmly believe in the principles outlined above, and I bring them with me when speaking at conferences, both on stage and at booths, with developers interested in creating their projects on Polkadot.

My contributions in the Polkadot ecosystem

That said, let's return to my biography, specifically my involvement in the Polkadot community. Currently, I serve as a curator in three bounties: Marketing Bounty (technical curator), BD Bounty (technical curator), and Meetups Bounty. In the past, with Iceberg Nodes, I was a member (now former member) of the Dot Validator Alliance and Polkadot.Pro. Currently, I am a member of United Block (an alliance of validators and collators in the Polkadot ecosystem providing RPC services to various projects) and a member of Polkadot's 1KV program. Additionally, I am a friend of ChaosDAO members, participate in their public conversations, and Iceberg Nodes is on their trusted validators list.

My commitment to the Italian Polkadot community began in 2019 when the need arose to establish the Italian Polkadot group. Since then, I have been a co-founder of Polkadot Italia, which now has around 2000 members. I have also founded or become an admin in other Italian groups specific to various parachains. Below, you can find a list (some are very active, others less so, but overall they serve as a point of reference for the Italian community on Telegram regarding Polkadot):

Polkadot Network Italia (now with topics activated)
Kusama Italia (read only as archive now —> added to Polkadot Italia group as topic)
Astar Network Italia 🇮🇹
Moonbeam in Italian
BIFROST ITALIA
Acurast Italia (NEW)
Manta & Calamari Network Italia
Substrate’s NFT & RMRK Italia
ChainX & SherpaX Italia
Acala & Karura Italia
Polimec 🇮🇹 Italia (Unofficial)
MNET Italia | NUUM & NEER (Previously Bit.Country Italia)
KILT Protocol Italia (Unofficial)
Zeitgeist PM Italia
Totem.Live Italy 🇮🇹
OAK Network in Italiano
Aventus Italia
Pendulum & Amplitude Italia
Composable Finance & Picasso Italia
Interlay | Kintsugi IT

In these groups, it is common to come across my voice messages, which can last several minutes, covering various topics related to the Polkadot world. These include comments on individual referendums, viewpoints on various articles, updates on new announcements made at Polkadot events, and more. I also regularly organize live sessions for in-depth discussions or updates on specific Polkadot-related topics.

Probably, my voice messages about Polkadot even reached the ears of my girlfriend, who gifted me an handmade hoodie with the Polkadot logo.

Being not a developer, my “operative” contributions have been very limited, specifically:

For the Polkadot.pro community: I developed a Telegram bot, which can be considered a precursor to the current DozeNodes tool. This bot showed the list of validator elections for Polkadot and Kusama, based on Phragmén's method.
For the Kanaria (RMRK) community, a very pioneering NFT project based on the on-chain “graffiti” tech, which is very original though somewhat limited. I created a bot that allowed users to trade emoticons on their eggs without knowing each other, interacting asynchronously through a Telegram bot. This bot is no longer active, as it was specific to a certain phase of the project (the "emote" phase of the eggs), but it is still accessible and will respond with a greeting message: https://t.me/KanariaEmoteSwapsBot

Because I have held this role as a point of reference for the Italian Polkadot community over the years, and because I often manage various groups related to Polkadot and its parachains, I have been invited several times by Italian YouTubers (or so-called KOLs) to talk about Polkadot during their live sessions or recordings. Below, you can find a list of these interventions:

I have also participated as a guest at live events within the Polkadot ecosystem: Decoded 2023, Decoded 2024, Decentralize Lugano 2.0 edition 2023, Decentralized Lugano 3.0 edition 2024 by Scytale Digital. If my candidacy is successful, I will further commit to attending more Polkadot events worldwide.

In Italy, together with the team I am running with, we have organized several events where I have represented Polkadot both on stage and by answering questions from investors, developers, and users at our stand. So far, we have successfully participated as official Polkadot representatives (with an official stand and sponsorship) at three events: Blockchain Week Rome 2023 (BWR23), Crypto Expo Milan 2023 (CEM23), and the latest edition of Blockchain Week Rome 2024 (BWR24). We have two more events planned for this year, with possibly more if the candidacy is successful. These events featured Polkadot as an official sponsor with dedicated stands, stage speeches, and educational materials. You can find more information about these events in the links below:

Blockchain Week Rome (BWR24): video, proposal
Crypto Expo Milan 2023 (CEM23): report
Blockchain Week Rome 2023 (BWR23): report
Material for the events

Additional Proof of Contribution as a Team

Motivations behind my candidacy as Head Ambassador

Since these activities are already underway, although not yet fully operational, my candidacy as a Polkadot Ambassador, supported by a team, aims to obtain an official title. This title will have significant value when interacting with companies, universities, government entities, and public administrations, giving us a different level of authority compared to presenting ourselves as simple community members. Additionally, the funds allocated for the HA salary will be used to support these activities, covering the necessary work hours by team members. This will allow us to plan and carry out activities in a structured and organized manner.

I am pleased to have submitted this candidacy, regardless of the outcome, because behind me there is a team of people who, like me, strongly believe in Polkadot's success. My candidacy also represents a way to recognize their contributions within the Polkadot ecosystem.

I apologize if I have taken the time to describe my vision and way of thinking within this candidacy text, but I believe it is an important element in evaluating a candidacy for the role of HA.

Regardless of the on-chain outcome of the proposal, I am pleased to have had the opportunity to share our reality. If you appreciate what you have read and believe that my candidacy has merit, I invite you to vote in favor. Conversely, feel free to vote against if you do not agree.

If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to post them. I will make it a priority to respond as soon as possible. You can also contact me via DM if you prefer.

Enjoy your time within the Polkadot ecosystem.

Thank you all for taking the time to read this proposal!

NOTE: 13VMfHtAP8LgsK6CHSP6b6f31zuK837CBrFFdDa582HWXESJ (@LucaPoggi) is the address object of the call of this referenda, as soon as the identities migration from Polkadot Relaychain to Polkadot People Sys Parachain is finished, sub-identity as "Luca Poggi" under super-identity "Iceberg Nodes" (14icei1ZMoG9QtKBFDk4y1eMR756q2TREuRAi2BanJ9MJVPL) will be set.