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10,000 Builders (Li Jiang)

Good morning everyone, I wanted to share my dream with all of you today.

My dream is to help everyone unleash their full potential in the world.

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We know that talent is equally distributed, but opportunities are not. In Web3, for the first time, we have an open platform that anyone can build on without the permission of a bank to give you a loan, a country to approve your company, or just your parents.

And we want to do our part in building this new world where we can create wealth in harmony, together. We have started to fund 10,000 builders to go to their first Web3 hackathon and event to connect, create and be inspired. These students become builders and scale their products and impacts. We'll be investing $10 million into this next generation. More.

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At NYC.NFT last month, we funded 50 scholars to go. The scholars experienced the spirit of creating and building. And today, we have brought 25 more to San Francisco with our partner Layer3.xyz to be immersed here.

And that's just the beginning. We'll be send 300 more to EthDenver next year for the biggest Web3 hackathon in the world. We are also working with a new DAO, named HER DAO, to bring hundreds of more female builders into Web3 with $250,000 in funding from the Harmony Foundation. More.

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While our team was in Lisbon, we met a group of scholars who was funded by Ric Burton (one of the longtime Ethereum contributors) and from there, we saw the impact it had turning those students into builders. One of the teams sent by Ric also won an EthLisbon hackathon prize.

At these events, scholars will be getting hands on experience to turn their ideas into products and meeting their future co-founders and collaborators. In Lisbon, we filmed over 20 teams building and launched The ONEs Who Build video to inspire the next generation. More.

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It doesn't matter if you didn't go to an expensive university or if you are just in high school. The price of admission in Web3 is passion.

The 25 builders here today and the thousands more to come are all already actively working on projects. Their products will have impact on users and their personal experience will influence their friends to build. The "alumni" who have already experienced their hackathon or event will help the next generation to get started by giving peer support and project feedback. More.

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We don't want to make the scholars do anything for us. We just want them to create value in the world and to pass it on to the next person.

And finally I want to share a story from my life that I will always remember. When I first came to Silicon Valley, I met a mentor in Bill Campbell, who also helped grow Apple, Google and many other companies. I asked him once if there was anything that I could do for him, and he told me that my responsibility was not to pay him back, but to give everything I can to the next generation of people. For the scholars today who got a travel scholarship, I hope you will pay it forward to the next generation of people as well. Thank you. More.