Open Source Experiential Learning

Create open source learning experiences to be implemented in local communities to build broad understanding of what is possible on Cardano.

As an educator, my mission is to help more people have greater agency to solve problems and more opportunities to thrive.

Workshop Maybe is a community-centered organization driving Cardano adoption via open-source experiential learning. Our work and value proposition is centered on three goals:

• Developing a framework for open source, experiential learning that will support aspiring developers and business owners to build with Cardano.
• Cultivating an example of local, community-based Cardano education and adoption that will provide a place to test new ideas and to learn what works best.
• Contribute to building a platform for global community members to share open source learning resources in order to simplify on-ramps to the Cardano ecosystem.

I am preparing open source "starter kits" that consist of a combination of smart contract code, voting apparatus, guided learning materials, and implementation tips. Starter kits will support new users to learn about Cardano while also producing some real-world outcome, and will vary in complexity, for everyone from beginners to experts. It may be a good idea to combine this idea with some sort of education/training credentialing system.

Starter kits will not be "grab and go". Users will commit to learning about how smart contracts and voting work on the Cardano platform. For one example, a beginner-level pack might involve a fundraiser in which stickers or t-shirts are sold, with a few artists submitting designs that are voted on by a community. The learner-entrepreneur using the resources would have to open the smart contract code to tweak different parameters such as the price of participation, the cost of each item, the reward for a winning designer, the proportion of funds going to some cause, and more. Keep in mind this is just one example. The idea is to create a platform for sharing a variety of use cases, and to build a project-based education platform in which the "curriculum" might consist of one or more starter kits, pre-requisite skills, and community support. An expert-level starter pack might involve city-wide event planning and the community funding of small businesses, and my agenda is to build to the point where big projects like this are possible.

I am launching Workshop Maybe on the belief that Cardano is the platform best suited to fulfill the long-term promise of introducing blockchain use cases to mainstream users. My goal is that as many people as possible understand the new opportunities opened up by Cardano. We will draw connections between local engagement and ecosystem-wide development work, and it is a responsibility of this project to demonstrate how bottom-up movements can work alongside large-scale global efforts. We will work to ignite the public imagination about what is possible on the Cardano platform through highly accessible, understandable use cases, especially those that foster community engagement and improvement. Even for non-developers, when these projects are implemented locally, we want to get people to ask, "How did you do that? Can you tell me more?"

For full details of this plan, please see the Workshop Maybe Fund1 Proposal document, attached.

~90,000 ADA: To facilitate my work on this project, I am requesting $5000 USD per month that will cover web hosting and paying me enough to make a full-time work commitment. In thinking about this funding request, I recognize that I do not have a reputation to back my plans. Of course, I'd love to ask for 6 or 12 months of runway. For the sake of our shared Fund 1 experiment, I am requesting a total of $10,000 USD to support my first two months of work. During these two months I'll build a reputation and the scaffolding to ask for more in an upcoming funding round, at which point I will make a proposal to grow the team and to fund further development work. Related to this approach, please see the "Release of Funding" proposal I have submitted under the "Improve Catalyst" challenge.