Our latest challenge takes everything we have learned from our 500+ Atala PRISM Pioneers, Catalyst Funded Projects, and insights gained working with Trust and Governance Frameworks. We are revisiting our prior challenge themes and building upon them with an additional challenge: solve the business coordination and stakeholder challenge in parallel with the technology implementation effort.

Making the technology compatible and user-friendly is only half of the effort required in the mass adoption of blockchain technology; we must also be able to meet with and relay the information to the stakeholders and businesses that are involved. There are requirements for developing this technology for business uses, but other business-specific considerations to promote these systems for further and more inclusive uses include: creating incentives, interoperability, unlocking positive impact, and streamlining coordination in a decentralized ecosystem. 

The increased focus comes from a growing understanding that identity is the key to the mass adoption of blockchain technology while adding value to layer-1. The evidence is in the recent marketing announcement of "Web5," as well as the recent white paper considering Soul-Bound Tokens.

This challenge is to identify targeted stakeholders within the product concept, allocate funds for the developers to converse with stakeholders, convene or join a working group (i.e., Governance Framework Working Group at ToIP), consider and analyze a structured ecosystem, publish a report, and work on the next steps to develop the next feature of the intended project.

This challenge will sound familiar to anyone who has been through our Pioneer Program and is actively working on an SSI project. Convening the stakeholders of your ecosystem to talk through details of interoperability, credential schemas, and technology gaps is the key to any SSI project's success. 

Please review our challenge from Fund 7 to see the examples of the types of use cases in which we are interested. Do not let these limit your imagination. We are excited to see new projects and to encourage all projects to consider the critical importance of funding ecosystem development activities.

Why is it important?

Establishing a representative stakeholders working group for a decentralized ecosystem speeds up learning and building the right solutions.

What does success look like?

Establish key relationships and learnings early in the development cycle, leading to faster and more successful business outcomes.

Key Metrics to measure

In addition to having a great team, product roadmap, milestones, and execution plan we look for successful proposers to execute the following as part of the business plan:

• Complete the Atala PRISM Pioneer Program
• Complete a Governance Framework workshop
• Establish or join a Governance Framework working group at Trust over IP, or another host organization.
• Identify stakeholders including issuers, holders, verifiers, policy makers, and their business requirements
• Establish a cadence of meetings and contribution and convene a home for parties to adopt and participate in the Ecosystem and Ecosystem Governance
• Progress towards publishing a Governance Framework
• Develop a Proof of Concept, Pilot, or commercial launch