Membership


​​Kooks
Kooks are local impact generators: community advocates, volunteers, fundraisers and fun-makers. They are the heartbeat of their local community and have their fingers on the pulse. Upe has assembled 30 Kooks in their genesis community, and are onboarding one per week. We are tapping into their network to obtain important community information. Kooks need tools to share tribal knowledge, and support spaces for relationships and collaborations to bloom.


Businesses & Organizations
As Upe’s popularity continues to gain momentum, businesses and organizations are looking for ways to tap into the community’s network. While Upe accounts, which allow for event posting and claiming a local listing, are free, Upe has begun exploring revenue models that include upgraded listing functionality and boosting visibility.


Contributors
If Kooks are the heart, then Contributors are the hands. Contributors are the ones who ensure that information is verified and free flowing. Contributors can earn badges for participation in Community Quests and completion of tasks. These badges make Contributors eligible for access to events, bounties or future airdrops.




Financial inclusion: 
By connecting local small businesses to the community as a whole, Upe creates a circular economy where small businesses can have access to data just like the big corporations have. But instead of predatory social media, the local business will share the same space as the rest of the community.
Easier for small businesses to reach their customers.
Easier for people to start solid new ventures.
The money and the data circulates within the community.


Education:
This is where we shine, as Upe provides locally relevant data in formats accessible to everyone. You don't need to be a data-nerd to understand what's happening within one community and how people react to it. By making information about the local community easy to find and understand and rewarding the ones providing it, Upe promotes an educational flywheel.


Social impact:
It's commonly known that when local communities collectively understand and decide about the local landscape of needs, available resources, urgencies, and priorities, it becomes empowered to support (or resist) local authorities in building the best public policies. The same applies to the arrival of big corporations in small communities, when the communities feel empowered to decide to build its own fate, it’s harder to become captive of predatory practices by big corporations.

Our communities are short of police staff. Response times are slow, and rarely is there a favorable outcome for victims—who have to travel long distances to police stations to make an official report. Several towns, which are tourist destinations, are self-organizing to provide private security services. While some communities are providing contact information for the private guards to everyone including tourists, others are making it a 'pay to play' system and sharing it only with those who contribute funds. Not only is gating access to emergency personnel bad for the individuals who need help, but it also harms the community’s overall reputation as being a place where people want to visit or live. The local Upe community doesn’t want to criticize those who gate information; instead, we want to lead by example, highlight those who are sharing their contacts publicly, and incentivize the communities to share critical information regardless of who’s footing the bill.