I keep waking up feeling entirely awake around 7 a.m. each morning. I am interning at a new and unbelievably innovative cryptocurrency nonprofit that is attempting to dramatically change the lives of 1.7 billion people. This number represents the amount of people who don’t use a bank. This number also represents the amount of people who spend their lives attempting to fulfill their basic needs. Thus, the nonprofit that I am interning for is trying to create a circular economy that gives all humans in need a free universal basic income. The free basic income is referred to as UBI. If every single human on earth had access to a UBI, it would mean that the most basic of human needs would be taken care of. If you would like to learn more about how it works, head to gooddollar.org.

Today I met my boss, Jessica ,at Eats Cafeteria around 10 a.m. to start the work day. The goal of the day was to go over ideas, talk about plans and explore our understanding of what Good Dollar’s mission is and how the system works. At noon we met Anna, another boss of ours, for lunch and to continue the onboarding process. It was hard to believe, but my experience, if you can call it that, in the world of Minecraft, Roblox, Clash of Clans, twitch.tv, sneaker reselling and drop-shipping may actually play a role in helping Good Dollar grow. It is crazy to think about, but being able to tap into audiences that these communities draw can potentially help people with nothing begin to grow wealth. I am genuinely excited about being able to work with this nonprofit.

I had a one-on-one with my madrich later that evening. We were going to get gelato, but I asked if we could walk to the shuk ha Carmel. It was a little bit of a far walk, but it was worth it. I convinced him to go and get hummus with me. We found a very interesting corner of the shuk. Stalls lined the streets, banisters blocked the light of the moon and cats were patrolling the nooks of the stalls. It was my first time having just hummus for dinner. Let me tell you, it was unlike hummus from the United States. Not only was the person serving us cute, but the portion of hummus was huge. Paired with lemonade and vegetables, it was a fun dinner!

James Mills, Northeastern University ’24, is an international business major interning at the eToro cryptocurrency trading platform through the Boston Onward Israel program. James’s great-great-great-uncle is Theodor Herzl. 125 students from schools across Massachusetts have professional internships in their fields of interest in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa this summer. Visit onwardboston.com for more info.

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