Ambassador Stories, Journal #32: Stephanie King & Benjamin Braatz
Welcome to the 32st journal of the “Ambassador Stories” series! 
New stories will be shared with you, whenever new ambassadors join our ranks and provide their stories.
You’ll be able to enjoy the various, unique stories of our Cardano Community Ambassadors: what motivated, and still motivates them, to be part of this amazing and wonderful community?
The Cardano Community Team would also like to thank the Ambassadors for all their continued efforts and participation in sharing their stories with us. 
Please read all about Stephanie & Benjamin down below! 
The Cardano Team is happy to welcome Stephanie & Benjamin, and we are looking forward to your contributions in the coming months. Thanks for all that you do, it is much appreciated!
Part 1: Stephanie, Content Creator:
Stephanie has recently joined the Ambassador ranks as a Content Creator.
1) Tell us a little about yourself. What is your background?
I work as a consultant, helping nonprofits leverage technology tools to support their mission. I enjoy being a part of all the important work that my clients are doing, and I love building technology solutions that enhance their impact. In that role, I’ve learned a lot about how to explain techie concepts to people with different backgrounds, and help them get excited about what we can do with technology tools. In my personal life, I am an artist, dancer, gardener, and lifelong learner.
2) How did you get interested and involved with Blockchain/Crypto?
During pandemic “lockdown” times, one of my “pandemic pod” friends was a knowledgeable blockchain developer, who was starting a staking pool, and a website, and just generally diving into the deep end. Lacking anything better to do when the world was shut down, I listened to his ramblings, and eventually started to understand what he was so excited about. I started writing for the website to help translate my friend’s big ideas and new concepts into words that more people might understand. Along the way, I fell into the deep end myself!
3) Why Cardano?
When technology really interests me is when there is impact and application for the betterment of ordinary humans. I’m not drawn to collectible NFTs, metaverse gaming, or crypto-investing (Although I’m glad Cardano has a place for the people who are! ). I do get excited when we talk about the applications of decentralized governance, banking for the unbanked, technology tools that don’t hurt our planet, Decentralized Identities that give people more control over their data and their destiny! Cardano’s vision is big, encompassing many things, and a lot of it is really inspiring. Probably because of that, Cardano attracts a community of kind and welcoming people, many of whom put a lot of intention into keeping it that way. Who wouldn’t want to be part of that?
4) How are you contributing to the Cardano Ecosystem as an Ambassador?
I write and edit news and insight articles at Lidonation.com, and create video content for the Lido Nation channel on YouTube. My focus is on newcomer-friendly and educational content. I try to share my excitement about Cardano, while keeping things balanced, and encouraging my audience to ask good questions.
5) What is your future vision for the Cardano Ecosystem?
I’d like to see Cardano become the first project that leaps the knowledge gap that separates blockchain technology from most everyday people. In the 90s, the internet was mostly a forum for techies, but now it’s a global utility. Blockchain is going to become a global utility as well. My hope is that an inclusive and human-centered project like Cardano would be at the forefront of that tra.
6 ) What is your personal message to the Cardano community?
The Future is for Everyone!
—The End of Part 1.
Part 2: Benjamin, Moderator
Benjamin has recently joined the Ambassador ranks as a Moderator.
1) Tell us a little about yourself. What is your background?
I am a 44 year old software developer from Germany. I have studied computer science and did a PhD in theoretical computer science on Graph Transformations for the Semantic Web (the old Web 3.0 that made sense). So, I have always loved to analyse and develop systems that are somehow mathematical or at least formal in a broad sense.
I always was politically interested, but could not really find the right place to contribute in our existing political parties. Nevertheless, I’m still (mostly inactive) member and supporter of the Greens in Germany, because I still believe that we have to change our societies for more ecological and social sustainability and that we have to have political action and not inaction for that.
2) How did you get interested and involved with Blockchain/Crypto?
I first heard of Bitcoin pretty early in the 2010s and was mostly underwhelmed. (Should have bought some, anyway, but hindsight is always twenty-twenty.) The ideology that not only questioned some of the regulation around our capitalist economies, but wanted to escape it altogether to create some libertarian utopia – and thereby also incapacitate the possibilities of better policies to change our societies for the better – was just not mine at all.
Crypto was and still is a topic that is almost exclusively viewed negatively in my usual tech-savvy, leftist bubbles. And they have very good reasons for their criticisms – from the obscene energy consumption of proof of work via the ridiculousness of most NFT collections and their prices to people being talked into it who cannot afford to lose what they risk.
Nevertheless, when reorganising my finances in 2021 (pretty bad timing for traditional as well as crypto) and deciding on investments to try out, I decided that it cannot hurt to have a look at least at the proof of stake options, which are not burning the world.
3) Why Cardano?
When researching the proof of stake chains, Cardano of course came up as the by far largest of the bunch. And the science-driven development approach as well as the many mission-driven pools and projects also immediately appealed to me. (I’ve got a more nuanced view regarding both by now, but the sentiment is still the right one.)
So, I bought some ADA in the summer of 2021 – not much, just a couple of hundred – and joined the forum in autumn. It immediately impressed me as a friendly place, where I could even get some nice discussions out of slightly provocative posts questioning the sense of ugly ape NFTs, the effect of cryptos on wealth distribution and topics like that.
4) How are you contributing to the Cardano Ecosystem as an Ambassador?
I became a moderator ambassador rather quickly in May 2022 due to being very active on the forum. I really try to leave no question and especially problem unanswered in the forum as well as in the Cardano, Cardano German, and Cardano Developers Telegram channels.
It started as a combination of xkcd: Duty Calls and being bad at seeing a post unanswered if I think that I have at least a half-good idea of how to answer it. In the almost a year, since I joined the forum, I have learned a lot about Cardano’s technology – often while trying to help people out. And I’m always happy to share that knowledge.
5) What is your future vision for the Cardano Ecosystem?
I think, we still need a few months or years to improve on the solid technological foundation of a finance ecosystem. By then, I hope we will see more real-world use cases – real real-world use cases, not just trading and lending of tokens that mostly represent projects that are also for trading and lending. I’m skeptical regarding grandiose visions of crypto or specifically Cardano changing the world or at least whole societies and would be perfectly content if just a lot of small and some medium-sized projects find their funding and maybe organise their governance on Cardano.
6 ) What is your personal message to the Cardano community?
Be humble and honest with others and with yourself! Regard alternatives and risks!
And try to learn! If you want to be your own bank and especially if you want to run a project in a finance ecosystem, you need to understand what you are doing! We have a great community that will always assist you. But the initiative to not only get the solution for the problem at hand, but also understand and learn has to come from you!
—The End of Part 2.
We are truly blessed with such motivated community members we have in our ecosystem! Thank you all for reading, and don’t forget to leave your comments/likes and give our Ambassadors some Cardano community 
and follow their work!
Until next time, with new people and new Ambassador Stories! 