Buckle up, this is just the beginning...

Today we're opening up the NEAR Protocol ambassador program. It's important to us to plant the seeds of this grassroots revolution in every corner of the globe. If you want in, apply here: https://nearprotocol.com/ambassador/ 

As a decentralized network, NEAR needs a meta-community of inventive and determined community organizers to bring people together and spread the word in different cities.

Fundamentally NEAR isn't (and shouldn't be) a company of engineers in Silicon Valley; it is a decentralized community spread out across the world working together to make it easier for innovation to really, truly benefit everyone.

And so who are these ambassadors? Each ambassador is, in some ways, the self-contained genesis block for a new NEAR community in a new place.

As an ambassador, you might be more interested in business models, dApp users, and entrepreneurs - and run meetups about blockchain use cases, write blog posts, or translate existing content into a local language to spread the word.

Or, you might be more interested in BUIDLing (yes please!) and focus on connecting with developers (both blockchain and trad. web) and helping them understand how to build on NEAR, or run technical meetups and answer dev questions.

Either works. It takes all kinds.

I'll make a separate, specific request here:

If this interests you, but you don't feel like you 'fit in' to crypto, or maybe you're a woman, or young or old or from a minority group that isn't normally associated with 'tech' - please, please apply!

It can be hard to trundle in to places we don't feel like we belong, but please, trust me - you are welcome and invited in crypto here.

Even if you think your application sucks - ESPECIALLY if you think your application sucks.

(Goes for our beta too - https://nearprotocol.com/beta/ )

As an ambassador, you'll get compensated in NEAR tokens for the community building work you do, as well as competing in ambassador-only competitions and building relationships with this unique and committed corner of the crypto community.

So that's it.

If this isn't you, but you know someone who would be a good fit, please pass it on.

And remember, in the future when the web has been locked open by an intensely dedicated distributed network of people, this is who you'll need to thank. https://nearprotocol.com/ambassador/