Announcing CCS Semester II. Apply by Feb 6th here

We can be in instant contact with each other, wherever we may be… It will be possible in that age, perhaps only 50 years from now, for a man to conduct his business from Tahiti or Bali just as well as he could from London… When that time comes, the world will have shrunk to a point.

- Arther C Clarke (1964)

Over the past 50 years, something remarkable has happened. We now live in an era where our youngest generations increasingly feel more like their true selves online rather than offline.

Let that sink in for a minute.

When we look into our past, we see the visionaries staring back at us. As technologists, it is in our nature to dream about the future — the excitement of what could be.

But in our fascination with what's to come, we may overlook how our creations impact society. What are the ethical, anthropological, political, and sociological implications of the technologies we are building? And more importantly, why does any of this matter?

At Crypto, Culture, and Society, we aim to bring people together to explore web3’s broader societal impact. We’re approaching the next big wave of technological change while grappling with what it means to truly live our lives online — to be our ‘digital selves.’ Not only is this a key theme of the present but a deep provocation for those present and future generations who will never know what it was like to live offline.

As our lives increasingly revolve around technology, we have an opportunity to create a community that is more inclusive, accessible, and productive than the digital spaces we’ve experienced in the past.

We can create a better digital present and future. With this historical context in mind, we’re inspired to announce Semester II: Our Digital Futures.

Introducing Semester II

Following our initial crowdfund, we quickly established Crypto, Culture, and Society as a distinct voice in the ecosystem. We hosted unique discussions with leading voices in the space (like Jarrod, Packy, Li, Reggie, Bhoka, and Dame), published our takeaways on our publication, galvanized a growing audience, and created a diverse environment for intellectually rich conversations. And most importantly, we aligned on our mission: building liberal arts for crypto.

In Semester II, we are building on this foundation and introducing new experiments to design a better experience for CCS members. We’re excited to invite you to apply for Semester II. Those accepted will be asked to claim an NFT for 0.1 ETH that grants access to all the following:

• All Semester II workshops (live and recordings)
• All Semester II elective courses
• Private member-only discussions & social events (IRL and URL)
• Some tokens of appreciation ;)

Workshops

We will continue to deliver thought-provoking live workshops with world-class speakers. This semester, we’ll keep the conversation going in small group discussions and text-based channels. We're honored to work with the following speakers on important topics in the space:

• “Humane DAOs, Humane Products” led by Antoine Sakhos
• “What DAOs and Co-Ops Can Learn From Each Other” led by Austin Robey
• “Cultivating Catalytic Communities” led by David Ehrlichman
• “We’re All Marxists Now” led by David Phelps
• “Towards a Digital Pluriverse” led by Divya Siddarth x Jasmine Wang x Daanish Shabbir
• “Multichain Scaling Strategy” led by Graeme Boy x Variant Fund x L2 Leaders
• “Social Contracts meet Smart Contracts” led by Katherine Wu
• “The Ballad of a Music NFT Queen” led by Latasha x Sirsu
• “Enriching Communities through Metaphors” led by Rafa x David Spinks
• “Public Goods Are Good” led by Scott Moore x Alisha
• “The Evolution of Community-owned Resources” led by Shreyas Hariharan

As always, we will share all takeaways in our Mirror publication, the Society Journal.

Electives

We want to blur the line between learners and educators. Learners should be empowered to create their own learning experiences, so we’re piloting a bottoms-up initiative called “electives.” These will be courses created and led by CCS members, meeting on a weekly or bi-weekly basis and only accessible to Semester II members. Elective facilitators will have autonomy over structure; some electives might be instruction-based while others focus more on discussion. This may serve as sandbox for experiments around token incentives.

• “Mythology to Metaverse” led by Courtland Leer
• “DAOs & Technological Determinism” led by Kassen Qian
• “Web3 and Social Impact” led by Nate VanNortwick
• “A Modern Renaissance: Tracing the Art Historical Origins of NFTs” led by Tasha Kim

Social Experience

We’re not just a community for learning — we foster friendships with like-minded people. Members might come to CCS for the content, but they stay for the friendships they make. This semester, we’ll prioritize experiences that enable members to make meaningful connections with each other. We ask ourselves the question: how can we create friendships that are strong enough where you might invite a fellow CCS member to your wedding or a vacation? We’ve set a high bar for ourselves; we believe digital-first relationships can be meaningful, and that CCS is a community where they can form. Stay tuned for our first experiments with IRL events.

Contributor Experience

Many of our Semester I members had a deeply rewarding experience getting involved with CCS, and we’re excited to double down by partnering with Station to revamp contributor onboarding. Station is on a mission “to make working for passion accessible to everyone online, regardless of who, and where you are.”

Each of our Semester II leads (below) will define concrete opportunities for the community to contribute towards building the future of CCS together.

• Brand & Media, led by Tasha Kim, will develop our brand, visual aesthetics, and lead external comms strategy.
• Community, led by Kassen Qian and Caryn Tan, will help new members find their place at CCS and foster meaningful relationships.
• Electives, led by Courtland Leer and Thomas Howell, will build and support a range of member-led elective courses while incubating a new product opportunity.
• Operations, led by Olly Hunt, will build operational processes that help CCS scale and own internal comms and project management.
• Publication, led by Sara Campbell, will convert knowledge from our workshops into public goods, while building a distinct, high-quality brand that attracts the best writers from across the ecosystem.
• Services, led by Nick Ducoff and a pending Project Manager, will build partnerships with leading DAOs and protocols by delivering learning experiences tailored to their needs.
• Strategy, led by Bhaumik Patel, will make sure the pieces fit together across the DAO with a focus on new experiments, recruiting, and partnerships.
• Treasury, led by Liam Herbst, will own how we spend, track and optimize our community treasury.
• Workshops, led by Melvin Salvador and Kemi Akenzua, will develop a world-class workshop experience together with leading voices in web3/crypto.

Partnerships

We are fortunate to have formed partnerships with mission-aligned organizations we deeply admire. Gitcoin, an open sourced platform galvanizing public goods, and NEAR Protocol, a layer one blockchain, have offered substantial grants to fund Semester II and continue building public goods.

Their financial support enables us to reduce the cost of CCS Semester II to just 0.1 ETH per learner. With their support, we can fund scholarships to make web3 more inclusive through our new Study Abroad program, where value-aligned DAO partners will receive three free seats each for members of their community to “study abroad” with us this semester.

Our Semester II Study Abroad partners include: Web3Familia, Surge, DreamDAO, Boy’s Club, Web3Baddies, and SheFi.

Apply today

We want to set a gold standard for learning communities in web3/crypto. To get there, we’re curating a community of talented, value-aligned members who can make CCS a home for thoughtful and intellectually stimulating conversations.

If you’re interested in joining CCS Semester II, fill out the brief (~3 min) application form above by February 6th at 11:59pm ET and emphasize why you’d be a good fit. Seats will be limited to create a more intimate space for thought-provoking conversations. We’ve found that members who are able to commit about ~2 hours per week have the most meaningful learning experience.

We’ll notify you of your application status on February 10th. Accepted applicants will be required to purchase an access NFT for 0.1 ETH to secure their seat in Semester II. We will onboard accepted members on February 14th and the first speaker-led workshop will kick off the week of February 21st.

In the coming months, we’ll share details about our broader vision and roadmap.

It’s time to LEARN.

Thanks to Olly, Tasha, Kassen, Kemi, Sara, Caryn, Sarah, and Thomas for their contributions on this post

Tasha Kim designed the cover art