Mark Frazier

Another Moonshot? “Flex-redemption” currencies for a gift economy Can personal currencies speed the rise of a demonetized society? This project aims to build an open source platform for personally-issued gift currencies. These would be gift cards redeemable for (issuer-designated) units of volunteer time, resources, or guaranteed-outcome solutions. A key innovation of the platform would be support for issuance of tradable gift cards with multiple redemption options. Choice of the redemption option would be for the recipient to decide. This would make the personally-issued gift cards more valuable – and tradable – than promissory notes locked into only one mode of redemption. In the comment below, you’ll see a link to an example of a personally-issued, flexible redemption currency created in an innovative community. Vibrant gift economies built on such flex-redemption notes could scale today with blockchain based record-keeping of issuance, trading, redemption, and guarantor terms.

Another one I’m exploring – Students as (co)owners of new learning ventures Waves of fast-changing technologies now threaten to overwhelm many established schools, even as millions of young people are preparing to fulfill their promise. Can a new system of education engage young talent in peer learning and teaching? What rewards are in reach for students that launch learning ventures to surpass today’s faltering, factory-era classrooms? Student-owned learning ventures may be the answer. They can be a replicable way to outcompete traditional learning models. Past and present examples confirm this potential: •The Lancaster system for peer learning 
In the early 1800s, U.S. literacy stood at 80 percent prior to adoption of public school systems. In poor areas, much of the credit was due to a reward-based system for peer learning created by a Scottish immigrant, Joseph Lancaster. Today, similar peer learning incentives can motivate students to share proficiencies, with rewards linked to improved outcomes in using AI and applying entrepreneurial skills. •Microsociety Schools 
Hundreds of schools in North America have adopted a system where students spend half of their day building and running “Microsocieties” - creating constitutions, setting up dispute resolution “courts”, launching currencies, and running startup enterprises. Such initiatives can be extended into virtual realms, and become springboards for curating and scaling student-run business ventures. •Alpha Schools 
This chain of fast-growing schools connects students each day with two hours of intense work with a highly-personalized AI tutor. After this, they are free to build any projects and ventures that they love in a supportive peer culture. Spectacular skill gains have ensued, and the model is now spreading world-wide. Such innovations can be accelerated by new student-owned (or co-owned) learning ventures. These can spring from home school incubated “learning pods,” microschools, and virtual charter schools. They can feature: •students as resource creators (with AI help) of curated tutorials and eLearning content; •students as royalty-earners for short- and long-form resources accepted into their venture’s curriculum; and •students as originators of personal “moonshot” projects and new business opportunities (either as solopreneurs or with friends). Alongside their development of valued peer learning skills, student-owned schools also can spearhead projects to improve their communities. For example, schools might organize prizes and contests inviting ideas on how an idle site might be transformed (see in comment below a link to a student-painted mural at a vacant lot in Sao Paulo). Winners could receive a small prize – or even a small share in site value appreciation – in cases where the envisaged project becomes real. Related links in comments. Look forward to your ideas and comments…

Here’s a Moonshots-inspired opportunity – Springboard partnerships: job security plus follow-your-heart benefits Companies have an opportunity to convert fear over AI-driven job losses into security for current employees – while offering new springboards for employees to launch ventures in sync with their values. As explored in recent Moonshots podcasts, AI-enabled leaps in profitability will enable corporations to retain rather than downsize their workforces. Productivity gains also will enable firms for the first time to roll out comprehensive mentoring, on-demand learning, and attuned tools for workers to meet challenges at hand. Yet mid-size and large companies can go way beyond this. They can provide Springboard Partnerships for employees who want to launch spinoff ventures of their choosing. Corporations can offer employees enriched bundles of AI resources for such startups to succeed in the new economy. With Springboard Partnerships, workers can map and test drive – as solopreneurs or with friends of their choosing – new ventures inspired by their life dreams. These ventures can go through realistic simulations and encounter a gauntlet of potential challenges, to improve odds of success. Companies can offer contingent backing through the Springboard Partner platform for participating startups. These funds can be released as each new venture achieves actual, pre-set growth milestones. Once profitable, the new ventures can flow back a small share of their earnings to the parent firm.

Next Friday, I'll be at the Moonshots gathering in California. Anyone else heading there? Look forward to saying hi if so! First comment below links to new projects hatching here.

This is lovely. linkedin.com/pulse/how-compr…

How can we better learn from one another’s experiences as the era of artificial intelligence opens? A simple, fractal geometry based on heart-head-hands coordinates may open new prospects. I explore these in a chapter on “Creating Value in an Era of Abundance” for a recent book, What Is To Be Done? How freedompreneurs are revolutionizing our living together.” academia.edu/167098978/Creat… Appreciation to Sebastian Grell and Duncker & Humblot for bringing it to European and global audiences. (DOI: 10.3790/978-3-89644-348-9.2025.414723)

From @naval, an opportunity for U.S. citizens to grow rich from inflows of global talent. Demonstration areas for this reform could be launched in struggling areas, rural and urban. Especially in localities agreeing to concentrated business climate reforms.