The Heart Connectors Book and The Heart Connectors Community

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Hoang (Harrison) Nguyen

[GENERAL] Email address of main applicant

harris.mindful@gmail.com

Additional applicants

heartconnectors23@gmail.com

[GENERAL] Please specify how many months you expect your project to last (from 2-12 months)

6

[GENERAL] Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated into English from another language.

No

[GENERAL] Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?

Yes

[GENERAL] If YES, please describe what the dependency is and why you believe it is essential for your project’s delivery. If NO, please write “No dependencies.”

I am currently using Asciidoc to write the book and Asciidoctor to compile the book into user-friendly formats including pdf, epub, and HTML.

Conversion from epub to mobi is done using Calibre.

All are open-sourced.

[GENERAL] Will your project’s output/s be fully open source?

Yes

[GENERAL] If NO, please describe which outputs are not going to be open source. If YES, please write “Project will be fully open source.”

Project will be fully open source.

[METADATA] Category of proposal

Education

[METADATA] SDG rating

I have actually read and checked to make sure that the book could help with the following SDG Goals.

SDG Goals

3 - Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

12 - Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

13 - Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

16 - Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

17 - Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development

SDG Subgoals

12.2 - By 2030, achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources

12.6 - Encourage companies, especially large and transnational companies, to adopt sustainable practices and to integrate sustainability information into their reporting cycle

12.8 - By 2030, ensure that people everywhere have the relevant information and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles in harmony with nature

13.3 - Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning

16.1 - Significantly reduce all forms of violence and related death rates everywhere

16.10 - Ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms, in accordance with national legislation and international agreements

16.2 - End abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children

16.6 - Develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels

16.7 - Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels

16.8 - Broaden and strengthen the participation of developing countries in the institutions of global governance

16.9 - By 2030, provide legal identity for all, including birth registration

16.a - Strengthen relevant national institutions, including through international cooperation, for building capacity at all levels, in particular in developing countries, to prevent violence and combat terrorism and crime

17.13 - Enhance global macroeconomic stability, including through policy coordination and policy coherence

17.15 - Respect each country’s policy space and leadership to establish and implement policies for poverty eradication and sustainable development

17.19 - By 2030, build on existing initiatives to develop measurements of progress on sustainable development that complement gross domestic product, and support statistical capacity-building in developing countries

17.7 - Promote the development, transfer, dissemination and diffusion of environmentally sound technologies to developing countries on favourable terms, including on concessional and preferential terms, as mutually agreed

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

PROBLEM:

We often neglect the vital aspect of cherishing life's little moments together due to our excessive focus on standing out and competing with each other. How can we remind ourselves of this practice?

SOLUTION:

The Three Relationship Model could remind us of this practice.

• Refer to the GitHub Public repo to check out the whole early-access book for a limited-time-only review during the Catalyst Fund10 Review process.
• For a quicker reference, you could also download the demo of the early-access book here.

Allow me to briefly introduce The Three Relationship Model from some excerpts in the book.:

[...]

The Three Relationship Model posits that our lives have three most important types of relationships:

1. The relationship between one man and himself
2. The Human-to-human relationships
3. The relationship between humans and non-humans, such as the natural world, the Earth, the Universe, and other living beings.

These relationships all affect each other. When one is good, the other two tend to follow suit. On the other hand, if one relationship deteriorates, the others will too.

To help illustrate this concept, imagine a Tri-pan Balance Scale. Above each pan is one of the three relationship types.

The weight of each pan represents one’s concern for it. If all three pans have the same weight, indicating equal interest in all three relationships, the platform will be balanced and parallel to the ground. However, if the weight in any one or two of the pans is greater than the others, the platform will tilt, and the scale will be unbalanced. An unbalanced scale suggests that our distribution of attention to the three relationships is not healthy and requires attention. If the scale tips too heavily towards one or two relationships, it will collapse.

In the current state of affairs, it seems that the scale is tipped heavily toward the relationship between us and other human beings. We care too much about the relationship between us humans that we have forgotten the relationship between us and the natural world, the relationship between us and ourselves.

To bring back this balance, we need to focus on all three relationships equally, which means we must improve our relationship with ourselves and the natural world around us.

[...]

The Heart Connectors are the ones who strive to keep their three relationships balanced. Their commitment to this lifestyle serves as real-life examples to inspire others to do the same.

The Heart Connectors is also the title of the book.

The Heart Connectors Book is a non-fiction novel that introduces the Three Relationship Model (TRM). The book is about 50% complete, with TWO early-access versions available in English and in Vietnamese (Tiếng Việt). The main intentions have already been laid out clearly.

There is no better method to share ideas than writing. It is simple and straightforward.

Currently, I am the sole author of the book. With the help of Catalyst Fund, I can promote the book and find other authors to co-author the book and make it an open-source book.

While The Three Relationship Model is still being developed, the final goal I want to strive for is establishing The Heart Connectors Community as a real-life example showing the validity of The Three Relationship Model.

The Heart Connectors Community will be a privacy-first, decentralized community utilizing Self Sovereign Identity to allow members to voluntarily submit their overall happiness level according to the Three Relationship Model. This will allow the community to develop TRM together providing solid evidence for its validity and influence. It will also be a place for Heart Connectors to gather and get to know each other.

The Heart Connectors Community, if established successfully with Cardano Blockchain and its infrastructures, has the potential to become the world's first privacy-first, trustworthy, and global data source on happiness.

This book is important to the world because it has the potential to offer everyone, especially the younger generation, an accessible tool to be aware of the obstacles that are separating them from their definition of happiness in our very chaotic and competitive world.

This book is also very important to the Cardano Community because:

1. It aligns with the Cardano Community's core value of fostering human collaboration.
2. It will help increase the exposure of Cardano's blockchain, Cardano Community and Catalyst Fund.
3. The Heart Connectors Community can be built on Atala PRISM decentralized identity infrastructure.

[IMPACT] How does your proposed solution address the challenge and what benefits will this bring to the Cardano ecosystem?

The project is submitted in Catalyst Open, meaning it is:

• small (maximum ₳ 75,000). We ask for ₳ 65,000
• short (up to 6 months long). Our project is 6 months long
• open-source. Our project will be fully open-source
• unable to fit into any other Fund 10 challenge. It is first and foremost, a book on happiness. It will also mention about and how we can use the Cardano blockchain SSI infrastructures, namely Atala PRISM to build reliable, privacy-first global dataset on happiness.

Benefits to Cardano Ecosystem:

• The project hopes to promote Cardano Ecosystem to the world as one of the many bodies that put human collaboration as its highest priority.

• If this project receives funding from Catalyst, we will display "Funded by Project Catalyst Fund10" at the top of the GitHub and anywhere applicable in the book.

• We also intend to build our Heart Connectors Community on Cardano using its SSI infrastructure.

Therefore, upon funding, the Cardano brand would stick with the book as well. The success of the book and the community will also mean the success of the Cardano Ecosystem.

• The book can reach the following communities: Circle Way Practitioners, Healing Circle Practitioners, The global Plum Village Community, people interested in inner healing, well-being, mental health, meditation, spirituality, Zen Buddhism, Religion, Ethics, Morality, climate change, environment healing, humane technology, mindful technology, people interested in consciousness and neuroscience...

These communities also have values closely align with the Cardano Community.

[IMPACT] How do you intend to measure the success of your project?

It is hard to quantify the progress and success of an ongoing book. The final, conventional goal of a book is of course sales figures and citations. However, it won't be the case for this project as we do not intend to sell this book within the scope of funding from Fund 10. Rather, it will focus more on finalizing it to become readable, interesting, and make sense.

The project is currently closed-source, with a private GitHub Repository. However, I have created a public repo with everything inside except for the full pdf, epub, and HTML compilation (to prevent piracy and plagiarism intentions). However, the full book is still fully readable on the newly created Public GitHub repository.

If this proposal is funded, I will update latest reviews and the project will become fully open-sourced on that Publid GitHub Repository.

This is still a highly experimental project but carried out with great passion. A few possible KPIs for this open-source project include:

1. Number of GitHub collaborators
2. Number of Public GitHub repo Stars, forks
3. Early-access book downloads - the number of downloads will be tracked and displayed once the heartconnectors.org migrated to WordPress
4. An experimental rating Score from 0 to 10 on GitHub or a custom rating scheme right on https://www.heartconnectors.org
5. Positive Reviews from readers.

Future Goal: Published on a renowned platform such as JSTOR, Google Scholar

Some key metrics of the Project's Benefits for the Cardano Ecosystem:

• If this project receives funding from Catalyst, we will display the sentence "Funded by Project Catalyst" with Project Catalyst Logo and Cardano Logo at the top of the Public GitHub and anywhere applicable in the compiled version of the book.

• We also intend to build our Heart Connectors Community on Cardano using its SSI infrastructure.

• Therefore, the Cardano brand would stick with the book as well. The success of the book and the community will also mean the success of the Cardano Ecosystem.

• As mentioned above, the book could bring Cardano Community to the following global communities: Circle Way Practitioners, Healing Circle Practitioners, The global Plum Village Community, people interested in inner healing, well-being, mental health, meditation, spirituality, Zen Buddhism, Religion, Ethics, Morality, climate change, environment healing, humane technology, mindful technology, people interested in consciousness and neuroscience...

-> This could be measured through interactions with such communities on mostly Facebook and Twitter

[IMPACT] Please describe your plans to share the outputs and results of your project?

We plan to spread the project's outputs over 6 months. We will make sure that we could work mindfully and sustainably. Therefore, our outputs will ensure that we don't have to rush in our editing and development process.

People who will be shared about the output of the project:

• Cardano SWARM Catalyst After Townhall meetings on the closest Wednesdays after each milestone at 18:00 UTC
• Everyone. The GitHub Repo will be public.

Opportunities that will arise as a result of the completed project:

• We could talk with publishers and plan on publishing the book, bringing revenue to the project and the community.

How results generated from the project are used in further research and development activities:

• We could help others how to collaborate on writing and printing a book for free using GitHub, Asciidoc, and AsciiDoctor.
• The foundations of The Heart Connectors community will continue to be developed.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability?

I have been a mindfulness practitioner, serving the mindfulness community globally for over three years, with three years of experience researching and building for the Blockchain Community as well.

Currently, I am the sole member of the project. So far, I have invited three friends to help me review and proofread the book.

My wife reviews and proofreads the Vietnamese Version; my friend Chase reviews and proofreads the English version; another friend of mine, a Buddhist Monk in Plum Village Tradition (founded by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh) reviews and proofreads information regarding Buddhism.

I worked on the book by myself, full-time for over 4 months to lay the foundation for the book using my savings before stopping in early July due to lack of financial funding. I also translated the book from English to Vietnamese during this period. The project was set up without any infrastructure cost, using open-sourced tools and free tools.

If this project gets funded, I will find a co-author to write with me and move the project media outlets to a more professional and premium provider.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What are the main goals for the project and how will you validate if your approach is feasible?

Proposed objectives for the project:

For now, the main goal is set on finishing the book. We don't think measuring the exposure of the book would be the main thing in this proposal. So the key metrics here are to finish the book based on its outlines, improve its trustworthiness with good evidence and references, make sure that it is fully open-source, and last but not least, make sure that it is fun to read.

In details:

Goal 1: Devise a good way to make the book an open-source book. Free to read on GitHub.

• Set up a user-friendly way for anyone to submit issues, discuss on GitHub and send requests to become a Collaborator.

Goal 2: Finish researching and developing The Three Relationship Model with careful references, and intriguing to read.

• Find dedicated and committed co-authors to help with unfinished chapters, improving evidence and referencing.

Goal 3: Prepare the book to fit the criteria for submission on Trusted and Respected Journals such as JSTOR, and Google Scholar.

Goal 4: Lay the foundations for The Heart Connectors Community as a decentralized, privacy-first and non-profit organization.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed breakdown of your project’s milestones and each of the main tasks or activities to reach the milestone plus the expected timeline for the delivery.

Project Milestones: The project will be carried out in a span of 6 months

The development will be simple and linear.

To allow editors and authors some space to work on the book and report, we have divided the project into 4 Milestones:

Milestone 1 (2 months): 01/10/2023-> 01/12/2023: The Setup Phase - ₳19,500 - 30%

• Co-author, Proof-readers, Reviewer Onboarding
• Migrate website to better hosting and web building platform (Currently hosted for free on Google Sites).
• Finish Chapter 6 from current progress to 80%
• Finish Chapters 7-8-9 from current progress to 50% (Agree on the main outline, main points)

Milestone 2 (2 months): 01/12/2023 -> 01/02/2024: The Sprint - Extensive Editing and Writing - ₳19,500 - 30%

• Finish everything to 80% (Main points with sufficient evidence)
• Inquiring foreword from a renowned reviewer.
• Lay the first foundations for the Heart Connectors Community
• Mock-up designs for

Milestone 3 (1 month): 01/02/2024 - 01/03/2024: The Final Review - ₳13,000 - 20%

• Finish everything to 90%
• Extensive reviewing and editing before book submission to academic journals

Milestone 4 (1 month): 01/03/2024 - 02/04/2024: The Final Touches and Submission - ₳13,000 - 20%

• Finish everything to 99%
• Submission to academic journals for peer review.
• File for copyright licenses in US, EU and Vietnam.
• Design early infrastructures for The Heart Connectors Decentralized Community
• Preparing for publication

Final Delivery: April 2nd, 2024 (To avoid April Fools)

• A licensed pdf, epub, HTML and mobi version of the completed book in English and in Vietnamese titled: "The Heart Connectors" and "Người Kết Nối Trái Tim"

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please describe the deliverables, outputs and intended outcomes of each milestone.

Project Current Progress Report

In terms of word count, the book already surpassed 80,000 words.

The book is about 49% complete, which means, the final product will reach roughly about 160,000 words or more.

Progress Public Reporting After Each Milestone:

• Online Report with video/audio on Zoom, Community Call:
• SWARM After Town Hall on the closest Wednesday after the end of a Milestone 18:00 UTC
• Or, Catalyst Town Hall on the closest Wednesday after the end of a Milestone 17:00 UTC
• Dedicated Community Calls on Zoom Pro every Thursday at the end of the month
• Public GitHub

Both the English and Vietnamese versions are currently sharing the same progress.

Overall Progress (Subjective estimation by Author): 49%

Early Access Preface: 95%

Preface: 0%

Foreword: 0%

Chapter 0: 80%

Chapter 1: 60%

Chapter 2: 50%

Chapter 3: 60%

Chapter 4: 80%

Chapter 5: 80%

Chapter 6: 70%

Chapter 7: 2%

Chapter 8: 4%

Chapter 9: 2%

Afterwords: 1%

Details about the deliverables and outputs for each Milestone.

For this fund, the focus will be on the English Version. It is more efficient to start with English and then translate it back to Vietnamese. The use of Google Translate can be helpful here as Google's English -> Vietnamese are quite reliable. Afterward, editors will fix the translation mistakes of Google Translate. Google's Vietnamese -> English is quite bad though.

Milestone 1:

• Have at least another author to help with Chapter 7: The Relationship Between Man and the natural world and Chapter 9: Mindful Technology for a Sustainable Economy
• Successfully migrated heartconnectors.org from Google Site to WordPress with a minimalistic and clean design
• Set Up GitHub Teams
• Set Up Periodic Community Calls Schedule via Zoom
• Set Up Google Analytics
• Chapter 6 from 70% to 80%
• Chapter 7 from 2% to 50%
• Chapter 8 from 4% to 50%
• Chapter 9 from 2% to 50%
• Nov 1st, release v0.2 and get feedbacks from readers (periodic interim releases not included)
• Dec 1st, release v0.3 and get feedbacks from readers (periodic interim releases not included)

Milestone 2:

• Preface to 50%
• Chapter 1 to 80%
• Chapter 2 to 80%
• Chapter 3 to 80%
• Chapter 7 to 80%
• Chapter 8 to 80%
• Chapter 9 to 80%
• Afterwords to 50%
• Contact some renown reviewers to get feedbacks
• Jan 1st, release v0.4 and get feedback from readers (periodic interim releases not included)
• Feb 1st, release v0.5 and get feedback from readers (periodic interim releases not included)
• Decide on the mission and vision of The Heart Connectors Community

Milestone 3:

• Final edit every chapter to 90%
• March 1st, release v0.6 and get feedback from readers. (periodic interim releases not included)

Milestone 4

• Continue editing to fit with academic journals' criteria for submission for peer review
• April 2nd, assess the book and see if we could release v0.6 or release v1.0 (periodic interim releases not included)
• Submission to relevant academic journals: JSTOR, NCBI

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown of the proposed work and resources.

The first proposal is designated mainly for the development of the book. Therefore, promotions and community engagement are not yet the main focus.

Project duration:

• 6 months, or 26 weeks, from October 1st, 2023 until March 31st, 2024.

Budget Breakdown:

• Total ₳65,000

For reference, we will use the ₳1 = $0.25 exchange rate as the minimum exchange rate upon receiving the fund on October 1st, 2023.

This budget is ideal when ADA Price fluctuates around $0.25 - $0.35.

Contributors will receive payment in ADA. Distribution will be linear, with monthly payments right after fund reception for all contributors.

Writing, Editing and Development Cost - ₳60,060 (Divide by tasks, not by people)

• Main contributors' payment: ₳80 ~ $20 per hour. Weekly cost:
• Writing and Editing: 25 hours per week.
• Miscellaneous work: about 2 hours per week:
• Setting up and Designing Website for https://www.heartconnectors.org,
• Setting up and Maintaining GitHub Repo,
• Designing Book Cover
• Applying for US and VN copyright license

-> Total 27 hours per week for 26 weeks: ₳56,160

• Reviewer, ProofReader compensation: ₳60 ~ $15 per hour.
• Proofreading and reviewing take about 10 hours per month, after each month and after each Milestone.

-> Total about 2.5 hours per week for 26 weeks: ₳3,900

Community Engagement and Meeting - $0

Promotion - $0

International Intellectual Property Copyright Licensing - ₳400 - $100

US $35-$55

EU $0

Vietnam $50

Software and Infrastructure Purchasing: ₳1200 - $300

Zoom Pro: $100/year

GitHub Team (Prep for Heart Connectors Community): Team of 2 admins: $90/year

WordPress Premium for https://www.heartconnectors.org: $96

Risk Management: ₳3340

Donation: The rest of the extra ADA at the end of the project not used for Risk Management

100% To The Hearts Connectors Community Development Fund.

Detailed Budget According to each Milestone:

Milestone 1: 2 months = 8 weeks with ₳19500 in funding

• Writing, Editing, and Development (including Miscellaneous work) ₳17280
• ₳80 x 27 hours x 8 weeks = ₳17280
• Proofreading and Reviewing: ₳1200
• ₳60 x 2.5 hours x 8 weeks = ₳1200
• Purchase of Software: ₳1200
• Zoom Pro: $100/year
• GitHub Team (Prep for Heart Connectors Community): Team of 2 admins: $90/year
• WordPress Premium for https://www.heartconnectors.org: $96

Total: ₳19680

Milestone 2: 2 months = 8 weeks with ₳19500 in funding

• Writing, Editing, and Development (including Miscellaneous work) ₳17280
• ₳80 x 27 hours x 8 weeks = ₳17280
• Proofreading and Reviewing: ₳1200
• ₳60 x 2.5 hours x 8 weeks = ₳1200

Total: ₳18480

Milestone 3: 1 month = 4 weeks with ₳13000 in Funding

• Writing, Editing, and Development (including Miscellaneous work) ₳8640
• ₳80 x 27 hours x 5 weeks = ₳10800
• Proofreading and Reviewing: ₳750
• ₳60 x 2.5 hours x 5 weeks = ₳750

Total: ₳11550

Milestone 4: 1 month = 5 weeks with ₳13000 in Funding

• Writing, Editing, and Development (including Miscellaneous work) ₳10800
• ₳80 x 27 hours x 5 weeks = ₳10800
• Proofreading and Reviewing: ₳750
• ₳60 x 2.5 hours x 5 weeks = ₳750
• 
  

Total: ₳11550

• If ADA Price dives below $0.2:
• Tentatively, we would still continue production regardless. Any amount of funding is precious as previously we worked on it for free.

• If ADA Price rises above $0.5:
• Tentatively, the payment for contributors will cap at $0.4 and the surplus over $0.4 will be reserved for the development of The Heart Connectors Community.

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

Why the costs of the project:

Most of the requested ADA is designated for human labor.

According to Upwork , the average freelance rate for the 27 featured Vietnamese Translator is $20.5, with freelance rates ranging from $15 to $45.

With an hourly rate of ₳80 for the writers, this aligns with the budget breakdown above when the price of ADA price fluctuates around $0.25 - $0.45.

[IMPORTANT NOTE] The Applicant agreed to Fund10 rules and also that data in the Submission Form and other data provided by the project team during the course of the project will be publicly available.

I Accept