Wayfarer Ambassador Program
NianticTintino-ING
Posts: 1,071Niantic › admin
Hello Explorers,
I’m incredibly excited to announce that we will be launching our very own Wayfarer Ambassador program! From Day 1, I’ve been looking forward to getting this up and running and now it’s here! Check out more details below:
What is it?
The Community Ambassadors program is for a group of Wayfarer Explorers who believe in Niantic Wayfarer and are active participants in the official Wayfarer Community. They’re passionate about exploration, excited to engage with other Explorers, and share Explorer best practices (nominations, reviewing, edits, etc). The Community Ambassadors believe in the Wayfarer Community’s Mission and Vision by collaborating with the Community Manager and lifting the voice of the community. All Wayfarer Ambassadors embody the following in their participation:
- Driven by Wayfarer’s Mission
- Lead by Example
- Respectful Towards Community Members
- Knowledgeable about Wayfarer
- Curiosity for Exploration
Who is eligible to be a Wayfarer Ambassador?
Any Explorer (18 years or older) that has demonstrated a strong commitment to Wayfarer, the Wayfarer Community, or the Niantic Mission and has a strong understanding of our product. Lastly, applicants must have a Wayfarer rating of at least Good.
What’s the time commitment?
Being a Wayfarer Ambassador is completely voluntary. While there are no set time commitments, actively participating and engaging with other Ambassadors to provide feedback to the Wayfarer team is how you can make a real impact on the Community’s Wayfarer experience. Participation can look differently from week to week. Active participation can look like joining group meetings, providing insights from the community, helping to clarify community concerns, etc.
Term Length
If selected to be an Ambassador, your term will extend for the calendar year for which you were selected. Regardless of when you start, there will be a new cohort of Ambassadors at the beginning of the new calendar year. This is meant to maintain a healthy amount of diversity and creativity.
Selection Criteria
The Ambassadors are chosen for their diverse representation of the Explorer Community. Explorer levels within Niantic products have limited impact on the selection process. Selection criteria does not require Explorers to be considered community leaders, although we recognize that some may be viewed as such already.
Explorers will be selected to become Ambassadors primarily based on their geographic location, knowledge of Wayfarer (both experts and novices), historical Wayfarer Community engagement, Niantic’s Mission, and their responses to the application questions. The ability to read, write, and communicate verbally in English is a requirement as the key updates and feedback requests will be in English.
Why would I want to become a Wayfarer Ambassador?
Becoming a Wayfarer Ambassador comes with its perks! You’ll have the opportunity to
- Pilot some of our upcoming features before anyone else
- Provide feedback on features, updates, and events to ensure they’re loved by Explorers
- Aid in making our community safe, welcoming, and FUN
- Community Voice - share your ideas and that of the community with the Wayfarer Team
- And of course, SWAG!
Ambassadors Relationship with Niantic
To participate in the Ambassador program, Explorers will have to agree to and sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). Violating the NDA may result in immediate removal from the program, legal action against the person, and the termination of the person’s Wayfarer and game accounts.
What are the limitations of an Ambassador?
Ambassadors are Explorer community members who volunteer to represent and advocate for other Explorers for the purpose of enhancing the overall Explorer experience. They are not Niantic employees and do not represent Niantic. They do not have access to Niantic systems, including personally identifiable information. They are not authorized to make any decisions related to Niantic or its games, including but not limited to help center tickets, nominations, appeals, or account bans.
Where and When can I apply?
Applications are open NOW and will remain open until the end of next week (1/12/2022 - 1/21/22). Please make sure that if you are interested, you submit your application before the end of the day (11:59pm PST) on 1/21/22. Application can be found HERE.
Check out the application for more information and feel free to ask questions HERE!
Comments
Hello Explorers!
A quick update! We are extending the deadline to 1/23/22 at 11:59pm PST! Two additional days in case folks need the weekend to apply.
Thanks!
Hello Explorers,
What an amazing last two weeks. Watching the applicant pool grow was very affirming that a program like this is very much needed and welcome by the community. As of last night midnight, the Wayfarer Ambassador Program Application has been closed. We got a whopping, ready for it…. 579 applications! It brings me a lot of excitement to see such a big interest in the Wayfarer Ambassador Program and I know we’re going to do some amazing things together!
So What’s Next?
In the next couple of weeks, the Wayfarer team will be reviewing all applications 1-by-1, manually, reading all of your responses, and selecting our top candidates. Once we have selected our top candidates, we'll be emailing invites to them in hopes that they'll be a part of our very first Wayfarer Ambassador Program group. Once we have all of our Ambassadors confirmed we’ll make an announcement here in the community.
Until then, Safe Exploring!
Hello Explorers,
It’s been some time since our last Wayfarer Ambassador Program update. First off, thank you to every single one of you who took the time to apply, and yes, we went through every single application submitted. We have been hard at work as a team narrowing down to our top applicants. We are currently working on selecting our finalists and will be announcing the first ever Wayfarer Ambassadors next Friday (2/18/2022)!
Lastly, I know there’s been a bit of chatter about how many applicants will be selected. This was a conversation we had at great lengths and decided that for our very first group of Ambassadors, we’ll be selecting 12 ambassadors. This will ensure that we grow the Wayfarer Ambassador Program at a healthy rate, see what works and doesn’t work, and ensure that we provide the best for our communities. As a reminder, we are committed to rotating our ambassadors every year, so please do not be discouraged if you are not selected this year.
With that being said and to end it on a great note, I am very excited about how diverse our group is turning out to be. We will be bringing you all so many great perspectives and experiences!
Until then, Safe Exploring!
Hello Explorers,
Wayfarer Ambassador invitation emails have gone out. Please make sure to check your emails (including spam). If you do not respond by the deadline outlined in the email, we will be moving on to the waitlist.
Thanks!
Hello Explorers,
We have sent a new batch of Wayfarer Ambassador Program invitations! Make sure to check your emails (those used to apply with) and don't forget to check the spam folder.
Safe Exploring!
Hello Explorers,
A quick update regarding the Wayfarer Ambassadors. We have decided to extend the acceptance deadline to ensure all those invited have enough time to consider their invitation. As you know, we made some invitations from our waitlist earlier this week so we want to make sure that they have an equal amount of time to accept. We will now be making the New Ambassadors announcement on Monday (2/21/22). Thanks for your patience and understanding as we are trying to make sure this is a fair process for all.
Safe Exploring!
Hello Explorers,
Apologies for the delay. We are still working on confirming the final ambassadors. Believe me, I'm as excited to announce as you all are.
-NianticTintino
Hello Explorers,
I know you’ve all been waiting for this moment with great anticipation and believe me, the feeling is mutual. Since the early stages of planning for the Wayfarer Ambassadors Program, I’ve been filled with excitement for all of the amazingness that will come to us (you and the Wayfarer Team) through this collaboration. So, without further ado, please help me give a big warm welcome to our very first, global group of Wayfarer Ambassadors!
Tntnnbltn
Hey, I’m Tntnnbltn from Australia. I first got involved in Wayfarer back in the Operation Portal Recon era, and have been submitting and reviewing for four years now.
Tehstone
I'm tehstone in Ingress and Pokémon GO. I've been nominating waypoints since 2014 and reviewing since 2017. For the past few years the Wayfarer community has been my online home and I'm excited to have a small role in shaping its future!
Gendgi
Hello all, Gendgi from the USA.
Quartzleo
I'm a long time Pokémon GO fan and urban explorer based in Panama. Over time I've grown to become a fan of Ingress as I learned more about the Wayfarer platform. Wayfarer has made me visit new places and meet all kinds of people which is why I want to keep exploring.
fr34kz
Hello, I am fr34kz, I am Indonesian and currently reside in Bali. My first encounter with Niantic games was on the early release of Ingress back in 2013. I got the invite to the game from my boyfriend back then. At first I'm not really interested in the game but I always accompany him when he is playing, and just play as it is. That is until I joined Ingress in Bali back in 2017, it was 13Magnus Reawakens. I met so many agents from around the world, got to hang with them, planning, involving, executing the game play during that Anomaly, it got me hooked. My main game has and will always be Pokémon GO, it is more of my comfort zone, but I still hold onto Ingress and play it casually.
AgentMAenlight
Hello, I play Ingress, Pokémon GO, and Pikmin Bloom. I am Japanese and live in Japan. I've loved to travel, and playing Niantic games and joining Niantic Wayfarer has accelerated my love of travel even more.
DanielGuco
Hola, DanielGuco from Mexico!
BrightonDragon
Hi, I live in Brighton and Hove, a city on the South coast of England which is a vibrant place with two universities and plenty happening. I also spend time on the Gower which is in a rural part of South Wales and in Murcia in Spain. I am retired, having worked as a senior manager in publishing and mobile phone technology in London. I enjoy exploring our historic city and am forever discovering new places both here and elsewhere in the UK and abroad. Sadly not much abroad for the last two years due to COVID! I enjoy playing Pokémon GO and Ingress.
MaestroTino
Hello, I’m MaestroTino from Mexico and some of my hobbies are video games, design, music, and photography.
Akceptor
My name is Akceptor. A software engineer from Ukraine with a faith that software can make people's lives better. And computer games are software too :) I started playing Niantic games from Ingress in 2012 I guess. You probably remember those old fancy Motorola Droid phones which came with the Ingress pre-installed. One of my reasons for me to join Wayfarer Ambassadors: helping people to create content for other people so that the next generation of gamers will have new places to explore. Ukraine is developing really fast, we got a lot of new interesting places both in distant locations and just in the neighborhood. What I want to do is just help to discover them.
Traxi25
Hi I’m from Queensland, Australia.
We are all so very excited to kick start our first meeting where we will start planning for the year, setting community goals, and collaborating on how to best support you all, our Explorer Community! You may be wondering about the last two spots and in full transparency, some folks we were hoping to get a response from did not get back to us and we must continue moving forward. What this means is that we will continue to invite applicants to fill those two spaces until the end of this week and then close it for this round. We will let you all know about the status once we have more to share.
Lastly, in the next couple of weeks you will see the Ambassadors will have a special identifier in their name here in the community similar to the admins, see them sharing their previous and newly gained knowledge of Wayfarer, and in the next month, an announcement about some exciting project they’ll be leading to support our community! In the meantime, we ask that for the next couple of weeks, please allow them time to settle in and get ready for an exciting year!
Safe Exploring!