In order to keep or community engaged, we need to consider having our nation enriched with the 4th power of a nation: independent Media. We need to remind ourselves daily that we are Asgardians and we need to stay in touch with the affairs of our community.

As such, I believe it is essential that we start talking about having our online news, independent of Facebook and our own radio station with talk-shows and topics of general interest being debated.

People with experience in media are more than welcome to jump in and guide the nation in this direction.

Dear Asgardians,

I would like to draw your attention to 3 major things I believe we need to accomplish shortly after the elections:

1. Sustainable financing. We all need to remember that most of the expenses are now covered by the current Head of the nation and that will soon stop. Donations are not enough to support a community. We need actual mechanisms of generating revenue. And since our presence is in the online environment, that is where our opportunities also exist. This means we need to consider online marketing on our platform (and yes, accepting some advertising, at least for the products we believe in), routing some of the acquisitions through our platform so that some of our spending makes money for Asgardia as well (this can mean: Antivirus subscriptions, VPN, software, games etc.). If we buy something, we buy it through Asgardia and Asgardia makes a %. We have the advantage of a large community and that gives us some leverage.
2. Legal status. While we wait for the UN to rule on whether the existence of a satellite in space is enough to qualify as “territory”, we also need to consider the possibility that it will not go through right away. We need to have a Plan B. It will be difficult to finance ourselves externally if we don’t have legal existence. There are alternative ways for us to ensure a lawful presence of Asgardia, which may also mean operating as an NGO until we find the proper way of existing as a nation.
3. Raising the level of engagement of the internal community and establishing rules for maintaining citizenship. We may have a large number of citizens but my observations so far indicate only a small fraction are active. This can be seen in the voting % for example. In order for our community to thrive, there needs to be engagement. The Parliament will need to establish the law based on which citizenship and associated right are granted or lost but it will be the Government role to maintain and raise the interest of the community. The more active the community, the better the chances of us ensuring the first 2 objectives.

Thank you

Humans are explorers. We belong out there among the stars. Setting aside our differences, learning to compromise and building on what unites us is our first and most important step. A technology based democracy making use of the latest innovations in blockchain, robotics and sustainable energy is our second step.