How Web3 changed everything, and why we should use it to change the world.
This is my first Medium article, or “story”, so let me introduce you to MY story.
“It is only when we take chances, when our lives improve. The initial and the most difficult risk that we need to take is to become honest. — Walter Anderson
So where do I begin, my name IRL is Mohamed, or Simo as everyone likes to call me. I was born in Casablanca, Morocco, which is a country in Northern Africa that has so much history, so much diversity in cultures and traditions but also a lot of inequalities, some corruption and difficulty to grasp opportunities.
I am not gonna lie, I’ve been lucky to have my parents and their never ending efforts to make my life easier than theirs. They made sure I was always busy, always learning and enjoying my life so that I don’t get the same treatment as they did. They put me in a private school which helped me get better in a lot of fields and make my way to Europe.
The African dream huh.
I got to France to get my Master’s Degree and perhaps a Ph.D. But the journey wasn’t even finished. Getting accepted in the 2nd best Business School in France (ESSEC) wasn’t enough to get a big enough scholarship from my country to pay the outstanding tuition fees and residency fees since I now live thousands of miles from my parents. But I was already 20 and had to be responsible. I got a scholarship that covered just enough to get me through the rough Parisian months, and got into tons of student jobs to cover for my first year’s tuition fee.
Did that work? Absolutely not. You see, a day doesn’t have enough hours for you to work and study, knowing that your wage goes entirely into the tuition fees.
That’s where I got a loan, which was not an easy task. Since I’m an African in France, I couldn’t get a loan myself when my French friends got up to 60K loans at a 0% rate since our school was so reputable that banks just wanted us to stay loyal. Well not for the immigrants apparently, as if my origins and nationality had anything to do with my ability to pay back my loans.
That’s where luck struck another time : I found a very helpful and kind lady in one of my workplaces that trusted me and saw my motivation. She vouched for me and the bank gave me my loan to pay the school.
THANK YOU CATHERINE.
Now that the first year was done, I had to think about another way to pay the 2 next years. And getting another loan was not an option.
I grinded everyday and send my CV to every apprenticeship in the Data Science subject since that was my major and finally got one at Data company as Associate Data Consultant. This apprenticeship paid for my school and expenses and made me promise myself to work for the company when I graduated, which I did.
I am now a Data and WebAnalytics Consultant and proud of my journey but there’s more to the story.
Remember the loan, the kind lady that vouched for me?
Well covid happened, and now the bank doesn’t like her credit score anymore, and made me look for someone else or pay my loan as a one time payment.
And that’s where Web3 saved me.
In parallel to my day job, I have been trading crypto since 2018, and NFTs since july 2021, and that made me a big enough bag to FINALLY pay off my loan, entirely. THANK YOU WEB3
Now what? Well I’ve made my family proud of me, showed them their efforts were worth it and that we really can change our life. But that’s not it, I can’t just take all this luck and good fortune the world gave me and call it a day. I feel that this was just the beginning for perhaps something bigger.
I do have one main goal in life since all this, I would want to be that lucky moment, that significative action that changes someone else’s life, and not just once.
Why not a Foundation, a web3 based one, with a DAO management system, that grants scholarships to people around the world to go and change their lives, and perhaps change the world after?
That would be the People Of the World Foundation or : the PoW Foundation.
