James, more commonly known as Flu, was in Technical Support and Data Analysis for over 10 years, most recently supporting a Fortune 10 company in the big Pharma industry. Surprising to no one, before he was in tech support, some of his first jobs included selling cars and service on them. This early sales experience, mixed with his self-taught technical skills, has been instrumental in his success thus far in Web 3.0. Part of the crypto world in a passive role for years, Flu finally had enough of watching others build awesome products and decided to dive in and see how he could help. After getting his feet wet as a Cardano Community Advisor and later, marketing small Play 2 Earn BSC plays, he found a great opportunity in DeFi Kingdoms, here on Harmony. He helped them grow quickly, and then started contracting for other projects on Harmony, before finally accepting a contributor role for Harmony, in order to help build the ecosystem as a whole. His goal for this position is twofold, to help projects on Harmony feel supported and empowered by the core team to build amazing products on chain, and to help Harmony Core team get a true picture of what is happening on chain and to feel like they have made wise investments in the projects they have helped develop with grants.

◦ Challenged by Li: Funding of 5 projects (launch 50k usd grant) within 6 months, working with projects funded in this way to assure their compliance to Harmony requirements and ideals.

◦ Development of a “Book of Business” for the vast majority of projects listed on our ecosystem roadmap, making sure we have contact information and a good working relationship with dapps on chain.

◦ Setting up weekly meetings with new/upcoming/established platforms on the Harmony chain to see what and how they are progressing through their initial building project, and how they are utilizing the funds that Harmony Core have provided. Raising any issues with the team that Core may have. Update: Funded 4 Project Y Projects with Essa (ETH Austin) Funded 4 Project Y Projects with Devin (NFT LA) Funded 1 Project for Launch Grant with Essa (SphereDAO)

◦ (Future) Having weekly meetings with Harmony Core regarding needs of individuals projects and how Core can better support them. Also, reporting to Core when specific projects choose to migrate away from Harmony, or build on another chain rather than Harmony. Collecting these data points as a kind of “exit survey” to see how we can better retain/attract developer talent and make sure they feel supported/rewarded for building here on Harmony.

◦ (Future) Establishing myself as a thought leader for DeFi, and GameFi specifically. I have a goal to have a speaker role at a conference or event by the end of 2022. Update: Have spoken at a Chainlink Unplugged during ETH Austin - March 2022

Ecosystem Advocate Notes