One of the first to join Utopian.io in its youth, @knowledges is a 24-year-old Computer Engineer in Nigeria, @curie community curator, and an autodidact with an endless thirst for knowledge in software, hardware and conceptual development of technological solutions.
On Github: https://github.com/onozasi
How did you discover Utopian.io, and what made you a Utopian?
I discovered steemit long before the birth of utopian. I was still familiarising myself with writing good blog posts, and trying to get more readers to see my publication by advertising my content across different discord channels. I could see a lot of bias when it comes to rewarding quality content on the blockchain. To be able to get more visibility, one has to be a whale, have whale friends or be forced to use bid bots, which I personally believe to be very harmful to the Steem blockchain. One of my ways of dealing with that was getting involved with the @curie initiative as a community curator. I still believe this initiative is a great service to the community of newcomers to the blockchain.
Then, I discovered Utopian.io and become one of its first adopters. I read about utopian while going through some articles on the steem blockchain, and it’s day I will never forget. I dived into the utopian discord channel immediately after reading the article. I met very few contributors there at first, but as their number grew, so did my understanding of how utopian works.
What really made me want to take part was Utopian’s mission and vision to reward open source contributions. I found this really fascinating.
What experiences do you think shaped your presence on the blockchain?
When I first signed up for steemit, it felt like I was standing in the middle of a desert with no clue on what direction to go. While still exploring the community, I joined a lot of discord channel to seek for more knowledge on how the community functions. Gradually, I started to make some friends and it was really interesting because I got to learn new things from them, and how to improve.
A big shout out to @inquiringtimes who helped in proofreading most of my articles before I published them. I was able to start writing better articles with her help.
The most interesting and inspiring part of it is that we have never met before but she took her time to guide and make me understand the ethics of the community. This influenced me a great deal in my participation on the blockchain and in Utopian.
How do you think Utopian affects your relationships with the Open Source community and ecosystem? How does it help you express your passion for Open Source?
I must confess that utopian is one of the greatest thing that ever happened to me and the open source community in general. I was not engaged with the open source world in my work or life, but with the birth of utopian, my love for it began to grow enormously. I began to familiarise myself with the open source world and tried to contribute as much as my skills would allow me. Utopian has helped me learn new things which have affected me positively in many significant ways.
With the birth of utopian, I started a new project (which is currently under heavy development). This project is aimed to incentivise great article writers and people to post about what they have professional passion about. I believe that as long as we have people posting about things they truly have passion about, we will create a new repository for great articles and written content on the blockchain.
What made you decide to take on additional roles in the organization itself?
I decided to take on additional roles in Utopian and become part of the team because I strongly support and believe in the mission and vision of the organization. The company had helped me personally so much and in so many ways, so taking on more roles allows me to express my love, support and gratitude to Utopian for having such a positive impact on me and others.
In all honesty, I am no different from other contributors. I just happen to be in a position where I represent them, help and guide them to do what is beneficial to the projects they contribute to, and to them personally. It is my hope that this way I can contribute to them having the same experience with Utopian as I have - one of learning and growing.
How do you see the future of Utopian? What would you want it to be, and where would you like to see yourself in it?
I see utopian as a big gift to the open source world. Though we are still very young, I believe in the potential of the vision and organization.
Utopian started about 9 months ago and today it's one of the most successful communities on the Steem blockchain. With the current cure team, I believe utopian is destined to keep growing stronger because it has some really dedicated individuals that aim to see the success of the project. Every core member sees the project as if it is their own, and they handle it with great respect and care. I strongly believe that if we keep this up, utopian will be the next big thing that happened to the internet.
My role may change as the organization evolves, which ever dimension it takes, I still wish to be a part of it and play a major role in it.
