So far in 2018, NeoResearch and NEO Global Development (NGD) attended approximately half a dozen events throughout Latin America. As a result of these events, it became apparent to both groups that a community-based approach to “strengthen and consolidate” the NEO Smart Economy in Latin America and the Caribbean would be highly beneficial. Responding to the need, NeoResearch has embarked on establishing a community-based group to propel the NEO Smart Economy in Latin America and the Caribbean.

AmazoNeo is a “social-led blockchain community that emerged in order to develop and consolidate the NEO Smart Economy in Latin America.” The group aims to “disseminate the use of blockchain technology for social impact” in the industrial sector, public sector, academia, and broader society.

Who is behind AmazoNeo?

Currently, the leadership team building the AmazoNeo community group is comprised of Vitor and Igor Coelho of NeoResearch, and Alexandre Barbosa. Alexandre is the first AmazoNeo ambassador, and excitedly looks forward to establishing and building relationships with future ambassadors.

Alexandre has a Master of Science in Territorial Development and Applied Economics from the Sorbonne University, KU Leuven, and the University of Padua, and a Bachelor degree in Control and Automation Engineering. Alexandre told NEO News Today his graduate thesis focussed on “the merge of complementary currencies and blockchain technology to promote civic engagement.”

Alexandre also mentioned he has traveled to more than 50 countries, and most recently worked in the technology and innovation policy field, with a primary focus on a fostering “sustainable digital transformation through the use of blockchain.” He is passionate about traveling, cultural diversity, and using blockchain to connect people and distribute power and responsibilities.

NeoResearch

NeoResearch, founded by Vitor and Igor Coelho, is a scientific research, blockchain development group, and aims to be a bridge between City of Zion (CoZ), NewEconoLabs (NEL) and NEO Global Development (NGD). The developer group was recently covered by NEO News Today. NeoResearch initially set out to develop a platform called SciChain, which aimed to provide a transparent peer-review system for scientific studies. However, while developing SciChain a barrier arose where NEO could only be compiled on Windows. To mitigate the situation, NeoResearch created NeoCompiler Eco to allow developers to compile NEO over Linux. The compiler can be accessed over a web browser or via an Android app, and is designed to make it much easier to build, test, and deploy NEO smart contracts.

Eventually, the Coelho brothers met with Peter Lin and Da Hongfei—NEO R&D director and founder respectively—at an event in Australia. There, the brothers discussed the tools they were building for NEO with the blockchain’s leadership team. Following that discussion, NEO Council provided the NeoResearch group with funding.

One of NeoResearch’s primary goals is to incentivize more of Latin America to use NEO and broader adoption of NEO in general. The NeoResearch team hopes to emulate its efforts developing and coordinating with others on NeoCompiler, as a framework to work with systems developers from different communities. The Coelho brothers and Alexandre Barbosa have begun to increase their presence at local events, and recently participated at Blockchain Summit Latam, a conference dedicated to increasing awareness and use of blockchain in Latin America.

Goals of AmazoNeo and establishment of governance

By establishing a second community-oriented group, the NeoResearch team can primarily focus on scientific, technological, and research-specific development tasks regarding the NEO blockchain (such as neocompiler-eco, neo-tests, etc.).

AmazoNeo strives to be a community-lead group that primarily focuses on industrial and territorial development in South America. In an effort to enhance socio-economic opportunities for development in the regions of Latin America and the Caribbean, AmazoNeo will take an interdisciplinary approach to its membership. To do this, Alexandre Barbosa has stated the group intends to establish “partnerships with incubators, accelerators, living labs, research institutes, industry and the public sector to consult for the use of NEO blockchain technology.”

Pertaining to its governance structure, AmazoNeo seeks to aggregate members from Latin America’s 20 unique countries, where “there will be a steering committee composed of multisectoral agents of the network,” according to Alexandre. Eventually, the community-driven group seeks to develop a reputation system based on member involvement and demonstration of commitment. AmazoNeo will further elaborate on its governance structure once a minimum of eight members from as many countries become part of the network.

The first election for the 2019 steering committee is tentatively planned to take place at the end of 2018.

Once ambassadors have joined the community group, AmazoNeo leadership intends “to create specific circles for collaboration of research and projects.” Some of its proposed realms for collaboration include the following:

Innovation, entrepreneurship, and business development

Science, technology, and engineering

Government technology, policy, and governance

Tokenomics and complementary cryptocurrencies systems

How to join AmazoNeo

Currently, the AmazoNeo leadership team is seeking committed partners who can be entrusted with growing the community-oriented group. To apply for a leadership and ambassador position with AmazoNeo, interested individuals can e-mail contact@amazoneo.la with the following information:

Name

City

Country

Background

A brief statement of how you intend to contribute and why you would like to join AmazoNeo

As AmazoNeo is seeking to elect a steering committee, applicants are urged to apply at their earliest convenience.

Looking Forward

Since AmazoNeo’s inception, the group has participated in the NGD-supported Blockchain Summit Latam hackathon in Bogotá, Colombia, which took place on October 17th and 18th, 2018.

Through the rest of Q4 of 2018, AmazoNeo plans to:

Host meetups in Belo Horizonte, São Paulo, Florianópolis, and Rio de Janeiro.

Curate the Digital Transformation Milestone in Ouro Preto ( Portuguese English ).

Attend the BlockchainGov event hosted by the Brazilian National Development Bank.

Following these events, AmazoNeo will strive to solidify its ambassador membership and structure its plans for 2019, in an effort to realize its vision and seek funding for future efforts.

For more information about NeoResearch and AmazoNeo visit one of the links below.