To celebrate the milestone of 1000 teams building on NEAR, we reached out to a number of them to shed some light on the people behind the projects.
Over the course of 10 weeks, you will read some personal insights of these NEAR Ecosystem leaders.
Today’s question (answers in random order):
INFRASTRUCTURE
Illia Polosukhin - Co-Founder @ 
NEAR Protocol
Involved in too many :)
Alex Shevshenko - CEO @ 
Aurora Labs
Astro DAO / Sputnik DAO. The importance of the canonical DAO framework on NEAR can be hardly overestimated. It’s both cheap, versatile and convenient to use. I’m looking forward new features and FE improvements.
Louis Liu - Founder @ 
Octopus Network
Octopus Network relies on Rainbow Bridge to transfer OCT and all appchain token between Ethereum and NEAR. We deeply appreciate the Aurora team's work that keeps Rainbow Bridge usable and secure.
Bowen Wang - Head of Protocol @ 
Pagoda
Near Social. There is so much potential to what Near Social could become and also, it feels cool to be on a Web3 social app!
Sandi Fatić - CEO @ 
Calimero Network
NEAR Social. It’s a programmable social network based on NEAR. The users hold control over their data, they can customize their feeds and the content they consume. The social apps have been a cornerstone of the Web2 period, but the social aspect hasn’t really been “solved” yet in web3. So it’s really interesting to see how it’s going to develop. I have really high hopes from the NEAR Social because of the team behind it, the vision and the execution.
I believe there is a big synergy between NEAR Social and what we are building with Private Shards. I can see a future where certain interest groups will be running them for better privacy systems in Web3 and social in general.
DEFI
Claudio Cossio - Co-founder @ 
Meta Pool
I have been testing a bunch of the new wallets that have launched on NEAR and in no particular order they are:
- HERE Wallet, I have two phones and this is a must on my iPhone.
- Nightly is the wallet I use for my desktop for my Firefox browser
- Meteor is the wallet I used for my Chrome browser
I have recently started to get into Aurora+ since we want to start building on their platform.
Evie - Business Development Manager @ 
Trisolaris
A must follow project in the Near ecosystem is Near Week. The web3 space moves so fast and it is impossible to catch up with all the news across all projects. A news aggregator that has deep ties to the chain and community is priceless. The team doesn’t also stop at news as they keep innovating and have the ethos of decentralization.
Fauve Altman - Marketing Lead @ 
Ref Finance
Awesomenear to discover all the other projects!
And as an art lover, Paras.id.
Marko - CEO @ 
Tonic DEX
HERE Wallet. They are doing a great job improving the user experience for NEAR by making an easy to use mobile wallet. Most day to day transactions outside of crypto occur on mobile, and the ecosystem will not grow quickly until we have smooth mobile experiences.
Ran Yi - Co-Founder @ 
Orderly Network
Stader is a really cool decision for staking.
Uladzislau Dziarkach - CPO @ 
Roketo
Nearcon 2022 was the great place where we have got 4 partnerships and started integrations with the other projects.
NFT
Carolin Wend - COO @ 
Mintbase
I love NEARWEEK and NEAR Social. Both projects help me to stay up to date in the ecosystem and the founders are great humans.
Chris Gale - Co-founder @ 
Few and Far
It has to be Ref Finance. They are the backbone of the NEAR ecosystem today when it comes to trading and liquidity provision.
Riqi - Founder/CEO @ 
Paras
Metapool! They have liquid staking, now they are launching crowdfunding for projects to bootstrap their capital. Definitely, a great ecosystem for you to join.
GAMEFI/GAMING
Oleg Fomenko - Co-Founder @ 
Sweat Economy
I am really intrigued and excited by the BOS (Blockchain Operating System) project kicked off by the Near Foundation and by the elements of it - Near Social, NearCrowd, etc. It has big vision and a big ambition - and I like the sound of things that try to change the way we think about blockchain.
Jon Hook - Co-Founder @ 
PlayEmber
This is a tough one, so many amazing builders on NEAR I mean Im a coffee lover so its hard to look past El Cafe Cartel, and excited for what the team are doing with Bodega. And then a future facing one, very excited about KeyPom, NearSocial and Few and Far.
ECOSYSTEM
Blaze - Champion @ 
NDC (NEAR Digital Collective)
NEAR Social is both my fav project and the one I use and is actively developing with the GWG team. NEAR Social as a platform provides the ability for easier discovery and utilization of dApps in one place with social interaction. In 2022 my most memorable moment was when we officially launched Cheddar with an NFT, yield farming, and games.
Sasha Baksht - Founder @ 
Learn Near Club
Since day one I heard about NEAR protocol I personally believe that NEAR's major potential is social economy - like it fits the best to power small collective internal economies and their external interactions. Human readable accounts, on-protocol royalties, sharding - all those foundational architectural blocks are the major reasons for that.
So NEAR Social is the project that must-follow-and-use.
Aliaksandr Hudzilin - Co-creator & DAO member @ 
Human Guild
Most recently, I was enjoying using HERE Wallet for mobile sign in and signing transactions. It really opens up possibilities for mobile enabled applications on NEAR. It has great UX and team focused on user growth. I think everyone should give it a try.