Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO)
From Steem Center
A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) is an organization that is governed by rules encoded as computer programs called smart contracts maintained on a blockchain. It eliminates the need for documents and people in governing.
Some DAOs have already been launched on the Ethereum platform. In particular, “The DAO” is the name of a DAO launched by the team behind Slock.it startup and failed due to a smart contract attack.