The ArbitrumDAO Co.Lab
Fellowship
Fellowship Wrap Up
Over the past three months, six fellows have embarked on a journey to dissect and innovate within the collaborative tech space, culminating in the development of groundbreaking research papers. Their work promises not only to enhance our understanding of collaboration technologies but also to pave the way for more efficient, inclusive, and effective organizational structures in the digital age.
We want to congratulate and thank our intrepid Fellows for their faith in us and their time and effort in the first CoLab Fellowship program. It is with great pride that we present below a compilation of the work generated by our Fellows as part of the first Co.Lab initiative. (The final downloadable versions of the papers are still being worked on and will be posted asap.)
We also want to thank our Fellowship program mentors for their passion, patience and perseverance to get us to this point and beyond.
Finally, to all those in the ArbitrumDAO (ThankARB, Delegates and the broader Arbitrum community), we want to express our deep gratitude for enabling us to offer this Fellowship program of supported research into important collaboration tech challenges. We hope this program will make a lasting impact on venture development in the Arbitrum ecosystem and progress the cause of humane coordination for the world!
Artem
https://www.linkedin.com/in/temazhiganov/
Problem space - Governance
Validate the need for enhanced sensemaking and deliberation among governance professionals, confirming their challenges with current tools.
Artem's passion for governance, sensemaking, and democracy, is backed by 10 years of experience in creative strategy, product marketing, and customer research. Artem's in-depth study of governance in DAOs and platform co-ops for an MSc thesis. He also built Harmonica (a conflict resolution bot).
- Final Paper
- Before the Proposal | Video - Blog post:
- Getting real with the unmet needs of Harmonica's customer
Dominik
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominikstumpp/
Problem space - Governance, Culture & Trust, Reputation
Decentralized reputation systems, crucial for collaboration, often face limitations. They tend to lack context sensitivity, standardization, and interoperability, struggle with subjective rating classification, and are susceptible to manipulation. Dominik's research focuses on these issues within reputation systems, exploring potential solutions possibly using knowledge graphs.
Dominik has been working full-time in the area of reputation systems and is investigating knowledge graphs for evaluating the reliability of information. This fellowship gives him additional capacity to better build something foundational in the reputation area.
- Final Paper
- From chaos to clarity: proposal evaluations in web3 grant programs | Video - Blog post:
- Innovating Trust in Web3
Humberto
https://www.linkedin.com/in/humbertobesso/
Problem space - IRL, Finance
Bringing Web3 to the streets! Researching how Web3 can power micro-credit to undercapitalised people through co-ownership.
Humberto holds 14 years of experience in IRL community building and social entrepreneurship. His business partner, with over 8 years in traditional finance and street commerce, owns a micro-credit company that can pilot the research. Humberto has been involved in web3 projects since 2017 with organizations like MetaGame, The Commons Stack, and Proof of Humanity. He has also presented peer-reviewed papers, spoken at events and on podcasts.
- Final Paper
- Unlocking IRL reputation in web3 | Video - Blog post:
- DAOifying an IRL Financial Company
Milena
Problem space - Rewards allocation, Incentives
Compensation is a recurring pain in DAOs and Collectives, who lack a trustless and automated method to distribute gains within the collective and its community.
Milena brings three years of DAO experience, co-founding Aut Labs (formerly SkillWallet), which underscored collaboration hurdles within DAOs, stressing the importance of early-stage user testing and feedback. Active in hackathons, she enjoys constructing prototypes, blending technical skills with community-driven strategies. At EthIstanbul, she developed a profit-sharing network prototype and aims to conduct comprehensive research on community and collaboration dynamics related to this project.
- Final Paper
- Compensation in Early Stage Teams | Video - Blog posts 1:
- My first weeks in the Co.Lab Fellowship - Blog post 2:
- Learnings from the Co.Lab Fellowship - Blog post 3:
- Aspects of a Compensation model
Rich
https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardjameslopez/
Problem space - Community
How to embed transparency in Ops tools for web3 Orgs such as a decentralized CRM, a collaborative treasury tracking tool, and other everyday tools for Orgs to use internally.
As the sales lead at Pocket Network, Rich experienced community demands for transparency in aiding growth. He conducted user research interviews on this topic for over six months and has a good understanding of the obstacles experienced by operators in different Orgs.
- Final Paper
- Unlocking the power of off-chain data for better collaboration | Video - Blog post 1:
- Questioning Assumptions - Blog post 2:
- Lessons from Co.Lab Fellowship