With the sudden success of Aurora (even it if is a bubble), it is apparent that crypto needs to have an impact in the physical world.

From this, one idea is to donate NEM to start a cooperative village where people use NEM in their daily lives. This should be a remote area that is self-sufficient. Even if there is not internet access, we might be able to set up satellite internet infrastructure. I think that would be an amazing demonstration of how crypto could be used anywhere for secure, decentralized transfer of money.

Another thing to keep in mind is that we wouldn't want to interfere with the local culture of the area. I envision setting up some NEM access points (places with internet) and then people can go use those, with minimal interference into their language and culture.

The question is, where could we do such a thing? It should take a lot of time and dedication from people working locally in an area.

Some ideas are:

1) Bhutan. I think I have seen users from Bhutan on bitcointalk. We could set up solar satellite internet access in some remote village and have everyone in the village conduct transactions in NEM using iPads or something similar. There are some villages that are quite a few days walking from any large city and people are mostly self-sufficient. We would need to have someone local there to run things.

2) Japan. With so many people moving to big cities, there are places in the countryside that are extremely secluded and people grow their own food and make a lot of things themselves. Even in the countryside, though, there is ample electricity and cellular infrastructure, so people would be able to access a P2P network. Also, the government here does not consider crypto to be money and it is currently not regulated.

3) Ukraine. I know people that I definitely trust in western Ukraine near Poland (Lviv). There are some small villages in the Carpathian mountains that are fairly secluded from outside influence. The people I know in Lviv would probably be willing to help or maybe run this full time for us if we provided the resources.

These are some ideas, but as a community, it would be great if people could come up with ideas on how to establish a NEM co-operative. If done right, NEM could make all the major news networks and generate some great publicity. The more important thing, though, would be that we could help real people improve their lives, while respecting their culture (for example, people in a remote village could sell goods online using NEM).