PadawanDAO

The DAO to alleviate financial barriers for kids 15-25 to attend crypto conferences.

Our Beginning

In November 2021 a group of teens were sponsored by Ric Burton to attend ETHLisbon. After the conference, reflecting on the mass serendipity, we knew we must help others accomplish the same. We then raised $500,000 to sponsor hundreds of kids towards conferences like ETHDenver, ETHAmsterdam, ETHRio, + more!

What's a Padawan? What's a DAO?

Our name and brand vibe is largely inspired by Star Wars, where a Padawan is learning the ways from a Jedi Master. We drew the connection of those who we sponsor and the mentors as a Jedi <> Padawan relationship. A DAO is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization, which we created to store the funds and conduct formal votes.

Aleem Rehmtulla organizing PadawanDAO's ETHRio sponsorship

How we sponsor

Upon our inception, we did a mix of small spear-headed sponsorships led by individual core members, and large-scale sponsorships organized by the whole team with 50+ padawans at a time. We now occasionally put applications within our discord accepting 5-10 padawans at a time, while also fulfilling ad-hoc requests as students message the team.

A couple of our amazing donors

What's next

6 months in, after achieving our mission of sponsoring hundreds of kids, half the founding team left to pursue new ventures. Since then we've put an effort to include the community further, make applications more accessible, and begin new fundraising as our resources are coming to an end.