Gnars

What’s gnarly about me

Aloha! Call me Mari, aka @marinioac or @mari.salles_ , I’m not a pro athlete but a gnarly one.

I surf, I fly and I ski. I live and breathe gnarly sports.

I’m partner of Surfguru, the best wave forecast website of Brazil. Surfguru has more than +250K users per month and +1MM access per month.

I’m a web3 enthusiast and I’m totally in love with all the Nouns ecosystem. I bought my first crypto early 2020, I became part of a DAO late 2021 and I bought my first NFT mid 2022. During this year, I was part of the codesign of Surflimpo/Surfhive communities and Drop, a social currency for beach cleanups. I’ve been in the Gnars community for about 3 months and I have 7 Gnars. I Know I’m a newbie in the Web3 world. But I’m for sure a believer that Nouns and Gnars are here to stay.

I’ve gotten 2 proposal approved so far, one by LilSisters (1eth) and another one was a subDAO collab by Gnars (2.5eth) , Lil Sisters (0.5eth) and NounsBR (0.5eth) to sponsor children to surf from TPM NGO in Maracaípe, Brazil. We have just started onboarding and nounifing TPM. We have been making content on Surfhive, twitter and Instagram about it.

I have a BS in Industrial Design from MSU Denver and I graduated with Magna Cum Laude Honors and an Outstanding Student Award at the worst possible time during the US economic crisis in 2010. So in 2011, I quit looking for jobs and I decided to fulfill my dream to make my own ski. Thus I learned the process by myself researching all over the internet. There were very little info at the time, so I decided to give back to the community a video of the whole process, also because:

• I knew no one would ever believe a Brazilian female could make a pair of really good skis.
• There weren’t any decent female skis on the market at the time. They were designed for very strong women. So I made a pair to fit my size (5’3”, 110 pound female) inspired by a Dynafit backcountry all mountain design. Four years later, Faction Skis made a pair pretty similar to my design for women.
• While I was researching, I had to stitch a bunch of incomplete information from YT and forums. Therefore I decided to make a video about the entire process to give back to the community one full content with all the necessary info to DIY a pair of skis. This video it’s one of the most watched DIY ski videos on YT until today.

Four years later, I was invited to host 14 episodes of a Brazilian TV series from Canal OFF about backcountry skiing in New Zealand. I got the spot because of my DIY ski video.

In the meantime, I went back to Brazil and I founded 2 companies (Bolei and Vrum Vrum) focused on recycling, upcycling, rethinking product design creation, fabrication and usage. But I never liked to sell products, then, I changed directions and I decided to work with tech and education. I pioneered the Maker Movement (DIY) in Brazil (2011) and later I started to teach Product Design and STEAM at a High School and a social project (2019-2021). Some of my students made a skateboard quarter pipe at a school that never allowed skateboarding inside, until then.

During the Pandemic, I designed an open source (CC0) face shield to donate to public health institutions. We donated more than 8k face shields around Brazil and my project was used in Ireland and Iran.

Meanwhile, I’ve been a partner of 3 tech start-ups: 1st) OHMS (2014-2017), the first Makerspace of Rio. We developed hardware and software for artists, engineers and children in the autistic spectrum disorder; 2nd) GreenAnt (2014-2021), an AI software developer for the renewable energy trading market; 3rd) Surfguru (2021 - present), the largest wave forecast website of Brazil.

Of corse I’m a feminist. I’ve also pioneered women’s surfing and flying movements in Brazil. I was part of a Canal OFF documentary about the first Women Paragliding Festival of Latin America, Saia pra Voar (2015).

Today I manage Surfguru’s tech, design, impact and community areas.

Since 2020, I’ve been living in the most iconic surf town of Brazil, Saquarema, which is the host of WSL main events: Championship Tour, Challengers Series and Qualifying Series 5000. Saquarema is an awesome place to proliferate the meme to be seen by the world.

But what about Gnars?

As a Gnars Athlete, my goal is to collab on developing Gnars brand, athlete merch and merch for the community. Creating and making it IRL. I also want to spark attention with gnarly photos and videos surfing and flying wearing gnarly merch made by me. Last but not least, I will make some weird pixeled gnartwork like these (collab with XMPNK):

As a community builder and a Surfguru partner, I’m gonna be creating Gnars content on Surfguru’s media, such as #gnarswave of the month inspired by Skatehive to keep building Surfhive and Gnars web2 community.

Data from Surfguru’s Instagram

I also want to make meaningful connections for Gnars. I’ve been introducing Gnars to female surfers, paragliders and designers around Brazil. I started onboarding female athletes to Lil Sisters and soon to Gnars.

Some examples that I can design for Gnars:

• CC0 3D print wearable Gnarggles (I’m already prototyping)
• Upcycled Gnars fivepanels caps and buckets made of Sol Paraglider’s fabric production residue and made by the skateboarders from WayWardCaps (It’s on it’s way)
• Gnars NFT buttons (done)
• Gnars Flag to fly
• Gnars see through stickers for ski/fly goggles lenses
• Connect small and interesting brands to make Gnars Merch and onboard them to take eth
• I can provide CAD work (blueprint) to replicate Gnarly sculptures.
• And who knows what

I hope this opportunity is just a kickoff for a long term relationship as a Gnars Athlete and builder.

Cheers and thanks for reading it all ✨❤️ Let’s get gnarly!