09: The City of Miami & DAO’s // Erick Gavin from Venture Miami
Background:
Erick Gavin is the Executive Director of Venture Miami, an ecosystem builder, and strategist. While attending law school at the University of Miami he set his sights on technology. His experience and connections in the legal community afforded him the opportunity to make a meaningful pivot into the technology space with a new lens. He spent the next few years working in Product Design and doing Data Analysis merging the two into a specialization in Data Visualization. As such, he began teaching about leveraging data for social impact to students at Watson Institute and Design Thinking through the University of Miami.
Erick now focuses on leveraging Data and Design to solve complex problems, create impactful technology, and serve communities that have been historically left out of the innovation and technology space. He remains aligned with these goals through investments in purpose-aligned education, access to growth opportunities, and a commitment to collaboration towards audacious community goals.
Time-Stamped Show Notes:
- 2:25 By researching DAOs, Erick came across CityDAO.
- 3:47 Helping small businesses leverage technology is what Erick was doing before he became the Executive Director of Venture Miami.
- 5:12 Being in the political scene, Erick is doing a lot of talking and conversing with people, which he enjoys.
- 7:21 Mining Bitcoin back in 2017, Eric Gilbert was so fearful and wanted to hide it from everyone.
- 8:53 During his junior year at the University of Michigan, Erick got his first Bitcoin.
- 12:56 Erick explains what Venture Miami is all about.
- 15:19 There are five people behind Venture Miami. Erick talks about his team and their respective roles within the organization.
- 17:25 Crypto and Web 3 have been Miami’s strongest industry and they have the most blockchain investments in the country. Their community leaders are also very much open to cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.
- 20:33 Erick offers his insight as to why Miami is called the hub of the Web 3 space.
- 22:54 Eric Gilbert and Erick talk about Miami Coin. Erick discusses the use cases of Miami Coin.
- 30:25 There has been some news about the possibility of something like a bitcoin wallet being presented to citizens or airdrop, just like what happened in El Salvador. Erick gives his own take on this subject.
- 37:02 In terms of the concept of DAO, Miami is still in its research phase because it is still very new to them.
- 41:37 There are some important questions about DAO that Erick is having right now that need to be looked at.
- 42:26 Eric Gilbert uses BlockbusterDAO and CityDAO as examples of the top-down and bottom-up approaches. He also suggests having a Miami DAO discord channel that could bring forth key discussions regarding DAOs and answer certain questions.
- 44:58 Following the BlockbusterDAO approach makes more sense for Erick.
- 48:58 As a small token of gratitude, Eric Gilbert offers a gift to Venture Miami and the city of Miami.
- 54:18 In Erick’s perspective, replacing the current political system with the concept of DAO is still a long way off.
- 58:57 Erick offers vital suggestions on what is the next step for CityDAO.
- 1:02:36 For those who have utility ideas for Miami Coin, Erick is very much open to suggestions.
Key Points from the Interview:
- “The greatest thing about a DAO is that it’s not replacing people, it’s replacing process, and it’s replacing structure.”
- “So how do you integrate a DAO, what role does a DAO play with traditional governments and traditional systems that you can figure out what the interplay is and where it fits? That’s the next challenge for CityDAO to figure out.”
