Creating a more equitable and economically rewarding recruiting ecosystem for job seekers and employers

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Hassan Michael

[GENERAL] Email address of main applicant

hmichael@dapp360.co

Additional applicants

Only one primary applicant

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

10

[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.” .

Several third parties components and contributions are vital to the development and success of the project. Rather than developing its own, it is more cost-effective and efficient for the project to integrate these external components. These critical components and contributions can be classified into two groups, namely the following:

Infrastructure & Software - Third parties provide external hardware and software to support the ecosystem. Some of these third-parties members include:

• Atala Prism - Decentralized identity L2 nodes and agents
• Atala Prism forms the foundation of the project's decentralized identification layer. It provides the decentralized identity infrastructure (agents for credential holders, issuers, verifiers, trust registry, APIs, etc.). Prism enables the core objective of the project's aim - it allows job seekers to own and self-manage their private information and career credentials.

• Identity wallet providers - examples include Lace, RootsWallet, etc.
• In the project's solution, an identity wallet is vital to job seekers, employers, etc., interacting with the various Atala Prism agent. The identity wallet is the vault that secures and safes personal, institutional, and career credentials. Given the high degree of expertise and high assurance security needed for identity wallet, the best (cost and expertise) alternative for the project is relying on the domain subject matter experts wallet like IOG's Lace, RootWallets, etc.

Recruiting Domain Collaboration - The project depends on employers, credential issuers, accrediting authorities, talents, etc., collaborating as a working group. The active group's primary objective is to create a digital recruiting trust framework and governance standard. This standard will form the blueprint for the digital recruiting ecosystem's protocol. This collaboration is essential to the project because it provides detailed recruiting domain rules, governance, and industry partners.

[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

Identity Solutions

[METADATA] SDG rating

SDG Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

SDG Goal 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries

One primary objective of this project is to remove inequities in the global online recruiting sector. The project explicitly targets racism, gender discrimination, age discrimination, stereotypical biases, and other unfairness. This project does not eliminate these inequities but mitigates the extent to which potential employers intentionally use them to disadvantage qualified talents. 

 

This project addresses SCG goals by implementing an anonymity layer in recruiting. The anonymity layer separates a talent's (job seeker) privately identifiable information (PII) from their career credential information. Using Atala Prism DID, this separation insulates the talent's skill and qualifications from who they are. Most inequities are based on or derived from a person’s identity. This project facilitates and guides employers to consider qualified candidates anonymously based on their credentials. This process makes it difficult for potential hiring managers or recruiters to inject these inequities early in recruiting. This way, the project helps enforce SDG Goals 5 and 10. 

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

At this solution's core is the fundamental and firm belief that job seekers must unilaterally own and efficiently manage their personal identity and career credentials. This belief underpins and guides the proposed solution. The foundational construct of our solution is the Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) implementation of the W3C standard for Decentralized Identity (DID). In addition to DID infrastructure, several protocol layers will encapsulate a decentralized web3 ecosystem that amalgamates a more comprehensive digital recruiting solution. These interconnected layers include (from top to bottom) Web3, Anonymity, DID, and blockchain.

• Web3 layer
• The Web3 layer is the top-level UI-facing part of the ecosystem that enables talents, employers, community members, etc., to interact directly with the various artifacts of the ecosystem. This layer’s primary goal is to create a user experience that offers convenience, ease of use, and one source of truth. It allows the ecosystem users to seamlessly interact with various Web3 components like their wallets, DID, rewards, etc. In terms of problem-solving, this layer attempts to solve the burdensome and bad user experiences in the current online recruiting model.  

• Talent Shield layer
• The Anonymity layer is the Talent Shield application protocol layer, immediately below the Web3 layer. All the necessary core and sub-protocols exist within this layer that manages the application’s business rules. This layer attempts to solve the problem of anonymous interaction for the talents and credential substantiation for employers. On the one hand, this layer would maintain the anonymity of talent by preventing identity leakage, collation, and exploitation resulting from repeated interactions. On the other hand, this layer would also enable employers to verify talents’ credentials upon talent's permission. In addition, this layer would provide the shield that enforces temporary (expirable) alias contacts and credentials to protect talents after specific recruiting engagements end.

• Career Decentralized Identity (CDID) Layer
• “Thanks to DID, users now have the tools to issue, hold and control their identifiers and attestations once again” (Decentralized Identity – Ethereum). DIDs are a trust framework that enables talents to securely manage and validate their PII without relying on a centralized or federated third party like Google, LinkedIn, LastPass, etc.

• The CDID layer is the recruiting trust framework that enables all the required parties to play their roles in substantiating a digitally reliable trust registry. Atala Prism agents will reside in this layer. This layer would provide the collaborative infrastructures that collectively allow the necessary individual parties to compose a digitally trustworthy recruiting model. In this DID layer, the players include:

• Talent (jobseeker) – the holder or owner of the career credentials and personal information. For example, Jane Doe is a person (with personally identifiable information) looking for a job who claims to have Law educational credentials, career experiences, and qualifications as a lawyer.

• Credential Issuers – legitimate institutions or entity that issues and asserts a talent’s credentials or claims as valid. For example, A university might assert that they gave Jane Doe, the holder, a Law degree diploma. In another instance, the credential issuers might be a former law firm, or former employer, who attests that Jane Doe has five years of work experience qualification as a former employee.

• Governance authority – Accreditation institutions, licensing boards, professional agencies, etc., that have the legal authority to oversee and grant legitimacy to credential issuers. For example, a state’s or country’s university accrediting board lends legitimacy to the credential issuer, the university issuing the law degree diploma. Another instance could be the BAR association that grants and revoke law license to lawyers like Jane Doe.

• Verifiers – third-party entities coordinating the validity and checks of the holder's (Jane Doe) claims and credentials. For example, the verifiers could be a potential employer (in the recruiting process) who wants the BAR association and the University to digitally sign (witness) that the holder's (Jane Doe’s) claims are valid.

• Employer – Another DID holder or owner without personal information. In this case, holders are institutions or entities interested in recruiting talents for a job vacancy. For example, it could be a new Law firm looking for experienced lawyers.

• Blockchain Layer
• The Blockchain layer attempts to solve the problem of lack of compensation and rewards to talents and other players for their roles in a healthy recruiting business model. For example, talent should be rewarded for access to their career profile, identity, and engagement in the recruiting process. The employer should also reap a discount or the cost benefits of a direct (employer-to-talent) business model. The verifiers, credential issuers, and accrediting institutions add value to this recruiting trust ecosystem. As such, they all should be rewarded for their contributions or work. The blockchain layer provides digital ledgers and cryptographic infrastructure that records the exchange of economic rewards for contribution to the recruiting trust framework. This layer also integrates autonomous smart contracts that provide transparency and audit of the ecosystem's meaningful assets (economic and artifact) exchange. This layer processes smart contracts, utility-token transactions, and a publicly decentralized blockchain ledger. This layer is the base layer upon which the entire application solutions rest.

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

To fully appreciate the potential impact of this proposed Web3 solution on the Cardano ecosystem, it is worth exploring a snapshot of the current web2 online recruiting sector. Research and Markets’ Online Recruitment Platform Market Intelligence Report states, “The Global Online Recruitment Platform Market is projected to reach USD 73.11 billion by 2027 from USD 39.04 billion in 2021, at a CAGR of 11.01% during the forecast period. ” The global online market sector focuses primarily on talents, career data aggregation, recruiting, staffing, and job placement. One of the major players in this LinkedIn alone has over 310 million monthly access users, according to Market.US. There are other big players like Indeed, Career Builders, Monster, etc. If the proposed solution is implemented and successful, it will directly compete to siphon job seekers and companies from Web2 recruiting platforms into the Cardano ecosystem.

Adoption of Cardano

The proposed solution can bring millions of job seekers and companies into the Cardano ecosystem. Based on the market size discussed above, let's assume the proposed solution conservatively captures a 1% market share of the online global marketing sector over a year after production release. Based on LinkedIn alone, the proposed solution would onboard at least 3 million monthly active users into the Cardano ecosystem via a Web3 ecosystem.

Showcase Atala Prism Scaling Potentials

This project implements Atala Prism's decentralized identity at its core layer. This implementation showcases a commercial use case for institutions—the project intends to implement Prism as L2 nodes, which embraces true identity decentralization. Using L2 Atala Prism's nodes has the benefit of scaling based on the growth of users' interaction. If implemented correctly, the Cardano ecosystem will have a use case that substantive informs commercial entities that Atala Prism and Cardano are scalable.

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

For this Fund 10 (F10) phase, the project intends to measure its success by tracking three primary and import metrics:

Growth of members in the Web3 Recruiting Trust Consortium

The project's success vitally depends on creating a Web3 Recruiting Trust Consortium (WRTC). This consortium will consist of diverse members directly and indirectly related to the online recruiting sector. Potential members include employers, recruiting firms, universities, talents, etc. The WRTC's working group members will collaborate to create a digital recruiting trust framework and governance standard. Measuring an increase in the membership of the WRTC is a sure way the project intends to measure success on behalf of the Cardano ecosystem. At a minimum, the WRTC should begin its initial work with 12 working members to include the following:

• three employers
• three recruiting firms
• three credential issuers
• three accrediting boards or institutions
• three talents (job seekers)

The Project Community's Growth

One of the project's primary goals in this F10 phase is to bootstrap its community. The growth of community members is an essential overall litmus test that determines if the project's idea is gaining traction among and contributions from a wider audience. An increase in the number of its community members is another key performance indicator that the project intends to measure its success. Over the next ten months, the frequency of measurement will be monthly.

Digital Recruiting Trust Framework & Governance Documents

The project also intends to measure its success by producing reports on the ongoing finds, conclusions, and results from the WRTC routine collaboration. As the WRTC members collaborate, they will be tasked with tackling recruiting domain issues and providing their finds or output. The project will capture these outputs in regularly published documents. Regularly producing these documents is a crucial performance metric measuring the WRTC's success.

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

The project plans to share its outputs from the WRTC, its operational results, and progress in the following ways:

Accountability & Advisory Board

The project will share its initial outputs, results, etc., with its accountability and advisory board. Initially, sharing with this board is the project's first checkpoint with a smaller subset of internal/external domain experts. This checkpoint aims to help the project gauge progress and solicit initial feedback on outputs and results. The board's objective is to serve as an internal oversight to which the project team can report monthly. The board's input and recommendations will be used to continue the course or redirect the project operations.

The Community

As an open-source project, outputs and results will be released to the community every quarter. These results will be based on the project's quarterly roadmap goals, finds, and research. The project intends to release its quarterly progress to its community via its website, social media, real-time Q&A sessions, direct contact, etc. Sharing our output and result with the community is to enable community members to provide the project with improvement feedback.

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

As a 14-year software developer experience, a business owner, and a 4-year Cardano ambassador/community manager, I can deliver this project from ideation to production. Over the years, I have acquired professional skillsets, management experiences, moral fabric, etc., that enable me to execute the project's responsibilities successfully and transparently appropriate its budgeted funding. In my many roles as, a professional career, an entrepreneurial, etc., my roles as a Cardano Ambassador/Community manager best exhibit Cardano community can trust me with funding for this project.

Cardano Community Manager

• Over four years volunteering as an aggressive and active Cardano ambassador/community manager
• Grew Cardano South Florida community from 2 members to over 1400
• Provided business development consultations that helped projects migrate from Ethereum to Cardano
• Procured, organized, and hosted several major Cardano community events in collaboration with the Cardano Foundation and IOG event team.
• Regularly provided free educational content, networking, and informational community events for community members
• Former Stake Pool Operator, as a community contributor, I owned and operated a Cardano stake pool from day one of the Incentivized Test Net (ITN) into the Shelly era.

Software Developer

• For more information about my software developer capabilities and blockchain certifications, please see my resume on LinkedIn. By profession, I am a software developer with over 14 years of experience developing enterprise resource planning (ERP) software for corporations. Over the 14 years, I have worked with many diverse software languages, including C#, JavaScript, SQL, HTML, CSS, Java, and more. I have also acquired several blockchain certifications, including Atala Prism Pioneer Program, IBM Foundation for Blockchain Developers, etc.

Entrepreneur

• I have owned and managed several businesses as an entrepreneur. Currently, I own and manage DApp360 Workforce, a blockchain recruiting firm. As a business owner and manager, I'm confident in my ability to manage, administrate, execute, and deliver goals based on a budget, deadlines, and objectives.

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

At this phase, the project's primary goals are:

Goal 1: Web3 Recruiting Trust Consortium

The project's primary goal is to create Web3 Recruiting Trust Consortium. The importance of the consortium is to have an active working group of domain stakeholders collaborating to develop a Web3 standard for trusted career credentials in online recruiting and recruiting standard players as recruiters, employers, credential issuers, talents, etc. Creating this consortium is feasible because the project needs to start with a manageable or minimal number of recruiting actors.

Goal 2: Bootstrapping the Project Community

The project needs to build a diverse community to support its ecosystem. This community will eventually serve as a pool of contributors, stakeholders, content providers, etc. Therefore, bootstrapping a community is essential to the growth and evolution of the project. Successfully bootstrapping a community requires active, enthusiastic, knowledgeable community managers and a well-organized project. The project anticipates this goal to be a very gradual and organic process.

Goal 3: Web3 Recruiting Protocol blueprint for a minimum viable ecosystem

During this early stage, a significant goal of the project is to convert the output or result of the WRTC into a working protocol for a minimum viable Web3 ecosystem for recruiting. The success of this goal is heavily dependent on the effectiveness of the WRTC's working group. To be successful, the working group has to meet as frequently as possible to produce a monthly requirement document.

[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.

For Fund 10 goals, more manageable deliverables include primary deliverables and output. These include:

 

Milestone 1: Release of the project's official whitepaper version 1

• Tasks
• Procuring the services of a professional proofreader/editor/content writer
• Proofreading current whitepaper draft in collaboration with the editor
• Getting additional peer review input and feedback
• Adding new and revising existing infographics
• Editing and formatting content
• Identify the official release endpoints for dissemination.
• Release whitepaper to the public

• Execution timeline
• six weeks

• Output
• Official live version 1 of the project's white paper

• Cost
• 2,000 Ada

Milestone 2: Release of the Project's Website

• Tasks
• UI/UX design
• Procurement of domain name, SSL, and web hosting
• Development of website content (images, text, links, etc.)
• Integration of MailChimp for early community building
• Internal & External SEO organic optimization for site content
• Contact forms.

 

• Execution timeline
• ten weeks
• Time may overlap with the whitepaper milestone.

 

• Output
• The project’s official website serves as a gateway to the ecosystem.
• A landing page for attracting and capturing contributors and community members.
• Cost
• 18,000 Ada

 

Milestone 3: Build the core team of contributors

• Tasks
• Identify the skillset and types of team members needed for the project at this stage.
• Define roles and their corresponding responsibilities.
• Network with Cardano community members to find qualified contributors.
• Host Twitter Spaces and YouTube Q&A session
• Solicit Cardano influencers' assistance in finding competent & worthy contributors.
• Host open call Zoom meetings for Contributor audition

• Execution timeline
• 8 - 16 weeks
• Time starts after the website is officially and publicly

 

• Output
• Core team that can launch a minimum viable ecosystem (MVE)

• Cost
• 5000 Ada

 

Milestone 4: Bootstrap the project's community

• Tasks
• Defining community culture, and code of ethics
• Defining roles, goals, and daily tasks for community managers
• Researching the best ROI platform to focus community building initial efforts
• Engaging the early community with initial posts and articles

 

• Execution timeline
• Two weeks
• Begins after the website is officially released

 

• Output
• three primary platforms for community members to congregate, contribute, and communicate with the project team and vice versa.
• Community manager(s)

• Cost
• 5,000 Ada

 

 

Milestone 5: Assemble accountability/oversight board and ecosystem development partner

• Tasks
• Researching potential suitable/appropriate legal counsel
• Researching and soliciting potential ecosystem oversight and accountability board members
• Consulting and partnering with Atala Prism cloud infrastructure provider
• Consulting and partnering with identity wallet providers
• Consulting with
• Identify and research Atala Prism Cloud Agent

• Execution timeline estimate
• 6 - 8 weeks
• Time may overlap

 

• Output
• A complete team for accountability, oversight, and guidance
• SMEs partners for consultations to create a minimum viable ecosystem

• Cost
• 35,000 Ada

 

Milestone 6: Build A Web3 Recruiting Trust Consortium (WRTC)

• Tasks
• Develop roles, tasks, and meeting templates for working sessions and meetups
• Research and identify potential recruiters, employers, credential issuers, job seekers, etc., to form a domain working group.
• Solicit selected members for their participation and collaboration
• Creating a roadmap, timetable, and schedule for working sessions and meetup
• Host working sessions and meetups for consortium members

 

• Execution timeline
• 8 - 16 weeks
• Milestone 6 start may overlap with milestone five timing

 

• Output
• A team of long-term collaborators that will produce the protocol governance

• Cost
• 10,000 Ada

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

The project anticipates each of the milestones (listed above) will have the following respective output/deliverables:

 

Milestone 1: Release of the project's official whitepaper version 1

• Output
• Official version of the project whitepaper
• Logo
• The project's mission and vision
• Complete scope of Beta 1 release
• Problem statement
• Propose solutions
• Ecosystem sustainability business model
• Identification of core protocols for the project
• Moral and social impacts for good
• Infographics
• Tokenomics
• Tracking Progress
• Progress of the whitepaper will be tracked on a weekly basis

 

Milestone 2 -The Project's Website

• Output
• The project’s official website.
• Domain name
• Official contact email address
• Links to all external social media channels
• Live and updated roadmap of the project status
• Team member bios
• A landing page for attracting and capturing contributors and community members.

• Tracking/Measuring Progress
• Weekly output using agile process

 

Milestone 3 - Build the core team contributors

• Output
• Core team of Contributors
• Chief Technical Officer/Project architect (CTO)
• Chief Communication/Community manager (CMO)
• Project Manager
• UI/UX designer/Branding
• Legal Consul

 

Milestone 4: Bootstrap and Lunch community

• Output
• Open Twitter, Telegram, Medium account
• Opening a MailChimp account for community building
• Community manager(s)

 

 

Milestone 5: Assemble accountability/oversight board and ecosystem development partner

• Output
• A complete team for accountability, oversight, and guidance
• SMEs partners for consultations to create a minimum viable ecosystem

 

Milestone 6: Building Recruiting Consortium for Digital Recruiting Trust Governance

• Output
• A team of long-term collaborators that will produce the protocol governance

 

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

The project asks for 75000 Ada to be allocated to 5 primary deliverables. The allocated Ada estimate per budgetary item is based on the USD price of Ada at writing this proposal. This allocation may change if the price of Ada significantly changes at disbursement time. A detailed budget breakdown for these deliverables and work is below.

• Release of Official whitepaper - 2,000 Ada

1. Content editing
2. Professional proofreading & formatting
3. Infographics & images
4. Release official whitepaper with landing page for maximum publicity

• Construction and public release of the project's website - 18,000 Ada

1. Procurement of domain name
2. UI Design & images
3. Site development
4. Hosting
5. SSL certificate
6. Mailchimp email integration for community building

• Bootstrap and launch a community - 5,000 Ada

1. Verified Twitter page
2. Telegram
3. Medium
4. GitHub & GitBook
5. Community manager
6. Meetups

• Building the core team for the project - 5,000 Ada

1. Organizing meetups & Twitter spaces
2. Social networking for contributors
3. Meetup workshops
4. Collaboration tools (Zoom, data space, and emails)

• Building accountability/oversight advisory board and development consultant - 35,000 Ada

1. Consult with legal consultant to adhere to regulatory compliance
2. Consult and partner with ecosystem subject matter experts (SMEs) for building identity governance and digital trust framework standards.
3. Partner with a DID wallet product

• Creating a recruiting trust registry framework working group for collaboration -10,000 Ada

1. Onboarding 2-3 employers
2. Onboarding 2 - 3 recruiters
3. Onboarding 2 - 3 credential issuers (local colleges, schools, etc.)
4. Onboarding 2 - 3 credential accrediting institution
5. Organizing, documenting, and data-gathering from various governance meetups
6. Collaboration workshops and meetups

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

The project asks 75,000 Ada to bootstrap the decentralized identity Web3 recruiting ecosystem on Cardano. For the money spent, the Cardano ecosystem will realize the following value-added benefits:

 

• Increase Revenue for Cardano treasury
• As explained earlier (above) in this proposal, conservatively capturing 1% of the current Web2 online recruiting market share will onboard at least 3 million job seekers into the Cardano ecosystem via the project's Web3 ecosystem. Onboarding these 3 million job seekers via our recruiting ecosystem involves millions of Ada transaction fees - a portion of which will be allocated to the Cardano ecosystem treasury. Given the money spent on this project, the Cardano ecosystem will gain a significant value of increased treasury funds from newly onboarded transaction fees.

 

• Seamless Mass adoption - Influx of job seekers and potential employers
• The project's overall objective is to provide secure, user-friendly, and economically rewarding Web3 recruiting solutions for the hundreds of millions of dissatisfied job seekers and potential employers in the Web2 space. Given these objectives, the Cardano ecosystem stands to gain significant value from the potential millions of web2 dissatisfied job seekers and employers who will migrate to the ecosystem via this project. When completed, the project will compete in online recruiting, including hundreds of millions of job seekers. 75000 Ada is a significantly low cost for the bootstrapping project to participate in this current Web2 online recruiting sector.

 

• Open-Source Contribution - Reduced cost of knowledge transfer
• As mentioned in this proposal, this project intends to develop its ecosystem with an open-source approach. All our primary research, explorations, and conclusions during the ecosystem development will be made public to benefit other Cardano projects and entrepreneurs. This way, the Cardano ecosystem can gain and maintain a wealth of knowledge in the recruiting space and the free transfer of knowledge for all at no additional cost.

 

• Cost reduction
• The project lead is a 14-year experienced software developer and a business owner with over nine years of experience. This experience offers the Cardano ecosystem a wealth of professional experience in procuring budgetary items at a reduced cost. For example, the proposed price estimate for the project's website is significantly lower than similar websites. This lower estimate is directly due to better negotiations because of the project's lead into how websites are created and the understanding as a business owner that lower cost of operation strengthens the project's viability. So, the Cardano ecosystem stands to gain significant value by having an experienced software developer and entrepreneur manage the funding of a Cardano project budgetary item. In this case, benefits to having lower-cost procurement for money spent on this project.

[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