Incentivized Onboarding & Identity in Africa - Leveraging Atala PRISM

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

[GENERAL] Email address of main applicant

Additional applicants

Darlington Kofa

Sallyanne Atieno

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

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

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

[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.” .

We will be using ATALA prism DID solutions, which are in early days of development and adoption. For this reason we are allotting a generous timeline for research and building of this critical, central element of the solution!

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

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

In the future, open-sourcing our learn-to-earn solution might make sense, but that is not the focus of this project. Instead, the objectives of this project are developing and refining the technical solution, deploying a Decentralized Identity pilot project using ATALA prism, and extending the reach of Cardano education and community in Swahili-speaking Africa.

[METADATA] Category of proposal

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Background

Funded by Project Catalyst Fund 9, Lido Nation ran a successful "Swahili Learn to Earn" program. As part of that project, we translated 75 educational articles about Cardano into Swahili, wrote and translated 75 corresponding quiz questions, and developed a "Learn to Earn" platform where Swahili-speaking students could log in, create a Cardano wallet, connect it to the program, read daily articles/quizzes, and earn up to $25 dollars worth of ADA, plus NFT achievement badges. The budget of that program allowed us to reach almost 500 Swahili speakers in Kenya and Congo (mostly), who were opening Cardano wallets and learning about Cardano for the first time. We had to cut off registrations due to budget constraints, but we allowed potential users to continue registering for a "Wait list". We already have 70+ people in the wait list, and it has only been a few days.

What we learned:

• Success: Incentivized learning is extremely effective for attracting new users and getting committed, ongoing engagement with hands-on, educational Cardano blockchain tools in Africa. Thanks to the program, there are hundreds of new Cardano wallets and Users across Africa, and that new community is discovering what it means to them, locally - for example, our community researched and published two solutions to off-ramping to fiat in Africa -- something that previously was not well known or documented at all for that geographic region.
• Challenge: Without an identity solution, tracking users who tried to register multiple times to earn extra rewards was difficult, tedious, and in some ways impossible. We could easily ban users who registered with blatently similar names, emails, and wallet addresses, but if a potential double-dipper knew what we were looking for, it would still be possible to abuse the system.

We want to expand on the notable successes of this program by implementing an Identity solution that will add a layer of trust, security, and scalability.

This project will launch an updated version of our Swahili Learn to Earn program:

The foundational elements of the program are similar:

• Swahili-speaking users can register at Lido Nation
• Following educational how-to articles, users open new Cardano wallets and connect to the site.
• Users read articles and take quizzes to earn ADA
• Participants are limited to 1 article+quiz per day as they earn, to encourage their learning and engagement with Cardano over a period of time.

Based on what we have learned, we will implement the following updates:

• We will implement a Decentralized Identity solution using Atala PRISM for all program participants to increase trust and scalability
• We will denominate all rewards in ADA, rather than dollars, for easier budgeting and audibility
• The reward scheme will be updated: learners can earn up to 50 ADA, 10 Million $HOSKY, and 1 Achievement Badge NFT. This update to include other network tokens gives users the opportunity to learn more about the breadth of the ecosystem.
• We will add an incentivized referral program so that users are motivated to share knowledge and build community
• We will add new educational and community building activities to the program. Users will still read articles and take quizzes, but they can also record articles in Swahili to help build the audio library, and stake their wallet to any Stake Pool, for example. These actions will also be incentivized and be factored into the total amount of ADA that a participant can learn.
• We will update and refine the educational curriculum to include more recent articles translated into Swahili to make sure the material is fresh, correct, and relevant.

In support of these efforts, this project's leadership team have already enrolled in the Atala PRISM Pioneer Program. If we are funded, we will be following the processes laid out in the Pioneer Program for completing a Governance Framework Workshop, establishing a meeting cadence for governance stakeholders, and publishing reports on our progress and results on a Governance Framework.

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

Looking at the whole of the campaign brief, four themes emerge:

• Getting stakeholders in the ecosystem to work together on identity projects
• Expanding participation in established Atala Pioneer Program & Governance Framework workshops
• Increasing adoption via implementation of Identity solutions in the real world
• Publishing reports about results of this work

The core problem this Campaign is trying to solve is the same problem our Swahili Learn to Earn project uncovered: Decentralized Identity Solutions are key to unlocking the full potential of blockchain technology!

This proposal answers all these questions head-on, and has the potential for great impact both for the end-users, and for Cardano.

Getting stakeholders in the ecosystem to work together on identity projects:

LidoNation has a clear track record of working well and productively with other builders in the community. This project will require us to work in the same way, by identifying and working with other people, projects and products (aka “Stakeholders) who have already paved the way, and whose goals are naturally aligned with ours.

Expanding participation in established Atala Pioneer Program & Governance Framework workshops:

Project Co-Leads Stephanie & Darlington are already enrolled and progressing through the Atala Pioneer Program. As part of this project, we will lead a Governance Framework Workshop to help guide and shape our project. As always, we will share about what we are learning on LidoNation.com via our weekly articles, on Twitter via tweets, Twitter Space leadership, and at Town Halls and other community events.

Increasing adoption via implementation of Identity solutions in the real world:

This project is entirely practical and results-oriented: we will implement an identity solution in support of a popular Cardano Education program in Africa - a key impact area for the Cardano Community. From our first project, we have more than 450 users who will be likely first-adopters of the solution; we also have a growing list of folks who have not been able to participate yet on a waitlist. Based on language and site traffic reports, we know that most or all of these users are in Africa (Kenya and Congo primarily, with some traffic starting from surrounding areas). In our pilot project, we learned that word spreads quickly and people are motivated to participate. Based on the budget we are requesting, we know that we can reach at least 1000 users in Africa to onboard onto an Atala PRISM based identity solution and learn more about Cardano.

Publishing reports about results of this work:

Published reports about our Governance Framework workshop, and of course about the results of this project, are built into the deliverables of this project. To sweeten the deal, our website LidoNation.com is already a popular destination for news & insight articles about Cardano.

Benefits to Cardano:

The above points address the campaign brief specifically, and its aim to onboard new projects and users to Atala PRISM solutions. Beyond that we will highlight these additional benefits for Cardano:

Users: This project aims to onboard 1000+ users onto a Decentralized Identity Solution. We estimate that 1/3 of these users will be the learners from our first project, who will return to continue their Cardano journey. We need an appreciate these experienced users to be our core group of early adopters, and to be the first to try the "Referral" system to invite new users! We expect that of the remaining 2/3, most will be brand new, first time users of Cardano. This is huge!

Africa: Time and again the community has shown its interest in growing Cardano in Africa. Since this program is only offered in Swahili, and the vast majority of Swahili speakers are in Africa, we know that the impact of the program is localized in Africa (and site traffic supports this claim.) Not only will we be bringing 1000 new users onto a DID solution on Cardano, but we know that all or most of these will be in Africa.

Content: Having good quality educational content is critical for the ongoing health of Cardano and it's mission to become a new financial operating system for the world -- but creating and disseminating good content is skilled, time-consuming work. This project pays for new and updated content in both English and Swahili, to be published on lidonation.com along with our library of 100+ articles that are already one of the best libraries of Cardano content on the web.

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

The leading success metric of this project is the launch of a meaningful Decentralized Identity solution leveraging Atala PRISM that allows Swahili speaking users to onboard into Cardano and earn ADA in a way that is secure, trustworthy, auditable, and scalable.

The other high-impact measure of success is that we will onboard 1000 users in Africa onto a DID solution on Cardano. These users will all earn some ADA, learn the basics of Cardano and Blockchain, and learn about Project Catalyst.

These user wallets will be seeded with 50K ADA, 5 Trillion HOSKY, and hundreds of Achievement Badge NFTs; with these native tokens in hand, these new users are equipped to start participating in the ecosystem: by exploring on & off ramps for crypto-fiat in their local jurisdiction, by staking to a Cardano pool to earn ADA rewards, by using other DApps or DeFi solutions, and by participating in Project Catalyst.

The Lido Nation team will have developed a Learn to Earn educational platform that is trustworthy and scalable, and can be repurposed to deliver incentivised learning for other purposes, or in other languages.

The direct and immediate impact for Cardano is measured in community growth and spreading knowledge in Africa. The longer term impacts that arise from this are hard to predict, but will be exciting to see!

The indirect, but highly important impact, is growing our knowledge as builders and as a community about how to deploy DID solutions in the real world, and at achievable sizes. Someday soon we hope to see more governments, Universities, and other large institutions leveraging DIDs. But we also hope to see more small projects being able to deploy DIDs, so that the knowledge about DIDs and how to use them becomes common among blockchain developers and end users.

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

Our “Learn to Earn” pilot project took 8 months to complete, which included time to:

→ write and translate articles, quiz questions, and site content.

→ build and test technical solutions, including learner registration, wallet connectors, curriculum tracking, quiz functionality, and reward distribution.

→ Soft launch & solution iteration.

→ Full launch, learner onboarding, and solution support.

For this project we are planning for a full 12 months.

First: creating quality content, curriculum updates, quizzes, and translation tasks are thoughtful and time-consuming work.

Second, the crux of this project is implementing a decentralized identity solution. This part of the project entails

• training for the team via the Atala Pioneers program.
• research and coordination with identity solution providers.
• leading and documenting a Governance Framework workshop and a cadence of governance meetings.
• building the front and backend solutions to integrate identity with our Learn to Earn program.
• onboarding and supporting 1000+ students.

The work is broken into 10 milestones, which will equate to milestone reports roughly every 5 weeks over the course of the Project's 1 year timeline. All curriculum articles and quiz questions will be available on LidoNation.com. The DID solution will be available in Swahili, but English speakers will be able to view the solution in action via YouTube demo and training videos that will be availalbe in both English and Swahili. Our project dashboard will be shared via milestone reports, project update articles, and twitter, showing up to date totals of learners registered, Cardano wallets connected and staked, and ADA and HOSKY rewards earned and distributed.

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

The Lido Nation team has delivered 8 Project Catalyst projects, and is fully invested and involved in the community, at both virtual and in-person events. Both project leads are Cardano Ambassadors. Darlington is a full-stack developer with experience running his own company. Stephanie was trained as a teacher and linguist, and works as a software consultant. Sallyanne has worked with Lido Nation for 1.5 years at the Ngong Road lab, doing translation work, community training, marketing, and customer support; she is an invaluable liaison to the local community in Kenya.

Most parts of this project are areas where we have already demonstrated excellence and success: Writing educational articles, writing quizzes, leading our teams of translators and developer apprentices, developing complex software, and running a successful pilot of the Swahili Learn to Earn program.

We use salesforce.com CRM platform as our project tracking and reporting tool. Those who have followed our project reporting from earlier projects may have seen our reporting outputs from this system. The project plan will be inputted into Salesforce as a full set of User Stories and Requirements. These records can be assigned to the members of the project team, given due dates, and marked as Complete when they are done. These records can be assigned to “Epics” that correspond to our documented Milestones, so that it’s easy to know what needs to happen to deliver each Milestone.Thus we always have an easy pulse check to see if we are on-track with our plan. As with previous projects, these reports will be shared with the community at Milestone checkpoints (project reports) along the way.

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

Goals

• Build a Decentralized Identity solution using Atala PRISM tools, which is relevant and useful to users who speak Swahili and are geographically located in Africa.
• Onboard 1000 users in Kenya to the Identity solution.
• Write 10 new educational articles about Cardano.
• Translate 20 new articles into Swahili, along with audio recordings.
• Write and translate 105 new quizzes into Swahili.
• Seed 50,000 ADA into 1000 new unique-user Cardano wallets in Africa via program rewards.

All of our goals are quantified and easily verifiable. Articles and quizzes will be available in English and Swahili on Lidonation.com, as is the Swahili Learn-to-Earn program.

The new and untested element is of course the driving motivation for this program: Decentralized Identity. We have not done this yet - very few projects have! We are already working toward this goal by embarking on the Atala PRISM Pioneers program, and setting up an office-hours meeting with one of the leaders of this program to validate our approach. We are in touch with staff at IOG and we have cooperated with many other numerous projects - both as expert advisors, as peers and co-collaborators, and as mentees learning from what others are doing. We know that success with this kind of work means asking for help when you need it, and working with others in collaboration.

[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.

Atala PRISM Did Research & Groundwork

To include completion of Atala PRISM Pioneers training program, holding a governance framework workshop

• Timeline: 2 Months (Estimated Delivery: January 2024)
• Cost: 20K ADA

Write and Translate 10 Articles into Swahili

• Timeline: 4 months (Estimated Delivery: March 2024)
• Cost: 15k ADA

Development of Decentralized Identity solution: proof of concept

To include initial development and testing of the software solution, sign up for Proof Space account

• Timeline: 3 Months (Estimated Delivery: April 2024)
• Cost: 40K ADA

Write and translate 105 Quiz Questions, Update and refactor learning curriculum

• Timeline: 2 months (Estimated Delivery: May 2024)
• Cost: 10k ADA

Full launch of Decentralized Identity Solution

To include back end build, front end UI, user documentation, and soft launch with users at the Ngong Road Lab in Kenya

• Timeline: 1 month (Estimated Delivery: May 2024)
• Cost: 35K ADA

Learn to Earn Platform updates (development)

To incorporate new curriculum updates, new incentivized participation tasks and reward schema, and seamless DID, NFT achievement badge NFT Design.

• Timeline: 1 month (Estimated Delivery: June 2024)
• Cost: 30K ADA

First 250 Users onboarded to DID solution and Learning platform

To include reward delivery, developer bug/fix, and customer support for users

• Timeline: 1 month (Estimated Delivery: July 2024)
• Cost: 30K ADA

Second 250 Users onboarded to DID solution and Learning platform (total 500 users)

To include reward delivery, developer bug/fix, and customer support for users

• Timeline: 1 month (Estimated Delivery: August 2024)
• Cost: 20K ADA

Third 250 Users onboarded to DID solution and Learning platform (total 750 users)

To include reward delivery, developer bug/fix, and customer support for users

• Timeline: 1 month (Estimated Delivery: September 2024)
• Cost: 20K ADA

Fourth & Final 250 Users onboarded to DID solution and Learning platform (total 1000 users)

To include reward delivery, developer bug/fix, and customer support for users

• Timeline: 1 month (Estimated Delivery: October 2024)
• Cost: 20K ADA

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

10 New articles added to the Lido Nation Library of educational material.

Lido Nation has been publishing new articles about blockchain and Cardano every single Monday for more than 2 years. We are committed to continued publishing fresh content into the future. This line items funds 10 articles to be written with a specific eye towards our onboarding curriculum. These will include 1 or more articles about Decentralized Identity solutions and Atala PRISM, updated articles about participation in Project Catalyst to reflect changes in Fund 10 and beyond, and more. These articles will be published first in English, then translated to Swahili.

20 new articles translated into Swahili.

We already have 80+ educational articles about blockchain and Cardano in Swahili. The continued effort to translate new material ensures that Swahili speakers continue to have access to an updated and well-rounded library of educational Cardano materials.

115 new quiz questions translated into Swahili.

We already have 75 quizzes written and translated into Swahili. This line item allows us to more than double the number of quizzes, so that each educational article will have TWO quiz questions, instead of just one, plus new quiz questions for newly written/translated articles.

Decentralized Identity Solution

We will develop and deploy a DID solution using Atala PRISM that allows Swahili-speaking learners to get a secure digital identity, ensuring that each registered participant is a unique individual. This will guarantee reliable, quantifiable results that show our impact on real people.

Software Development

We benefit from our previous successful project in that the core elements have already been built, launched, and proofed in a live public project. Already-built elements include learner registration, wallet connectors, curriculum tracking, article+quiz interface, and rewards distribution mechanisms. New development for this project will allow us to launch an incentivized referral program, incentivized wallet staking, and incentivized audio recording tasks. We will also be working to refine the user interface and back-end code according to bugs and feedback that arose during the first run of the program.

New and Updated Program Content and Translation

Much of the website that explains the program and how to participate has already been written and translated and is reusable. But there are some significant updates to this program. Our content writing and translation teams will be writing and translating new text for website landing pages and help text.

Achievement Badge NFT

Participants in this program can earn a new unique achievement badge NFT, designed by artist Stephanie King.

Program Dashboard

We already have a program dashboard that tracks program participation metrics, including registered users, linked wallets, wallet staking, quiz accomplishments, and rewards distribution.

Progress Reports

We use Salesforce.com as our team platform to track all project tasks, assignments, and due dates. Each Milestone report will include an export of this master “to-do” list, showing our progress on project tasks, and reflecting which items are on-schedule or behind. This reporting mechanism has been used effectively in our past/completed Project Catalyst projects.

1000 new Cardano based digital identities

This project will fund 1000+ people in Swahili speaking Africa to open Cardano wallets and access an Atala-based Decentralized identity. We expect that some of our first cohort of learners will continue to participate in round two, but even if they ALL come back, we would still expect that more than HALF of this number

50,000 ADA seeded to new Cardano users in Swahili speaking Africa

5,000,000,000 HOSKY tokens and 1000 NFTs sent to new Cardano wallets in Swahili-speaking Africa

We want the experience of onboarding to Cardano to be educational, useful, and fun. The articles and quizzes are educational, and the real ADA rewards are useful, but HOSKY and NFTs are a cost-effective way to add some fun! When new users are telling their friends about the program, we think it will add to the fun if they can show them their wallet and admire their millions of HOSKY tokens, or a cool NFT!

Native Language Customer Support

Program Users can use our msaada@lidonation.com helpline email to reach Swahili-speaking customer support at the Ngong Road Blockchain lab in Nairobi Kenya.

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

ADA 6,000 ProofSpace platform fees

ADA 15,000 Content writing: Includes 10 new articles on Lido Nation, 105 new quiz questions, plus unique content needed for website landing pages, help text, tutorials, and instructional video scripts.

ADA 10,000 Swahili Translation of 20 articles and 105 quizzes, training videos as needed, and new & ongoing updated website content

ADA 20,000 Swahili Customer Support: this pays for a full year of staff availability for customer support, recording instructional videos in Swahili, team meetings, and group training sessions

ADA 200 to buy and distribute 5 Trillion HOSKY token (actual amount of HOSKY bought & distributed might flex one way or another if the price of ADA vs HOSKY changes)

ADA 1000 NFT Design

ADA 500 NFT Distribution

ADA 50,000 Rewards -- 100% of this budget amount is destined for the wallets of 1000+ new unique Cardano users in Africa

ADA 1500 Marketing: This involves Lido Nation team plus Ngong Road Lab team participation on Twitter, Twitter Spaces, Telegram, and Town Hall meetings.

ADA 20,000 Project Management: This pays for 4 hours of project manager time per week at a rate of $25/hour, for the project duration of 1 year.

ADA 40,000 Senior Developer: This pays for 140 hours of senior developer time at the local market rate of $75/hour

ADA 20,000 Ngong Road Developer Apprentices: Lido Nation works with a team of 4-5 developer apprentices in Nairobi, Kenya. We are able to do lots of work with their help, and at the same time we are helping train the next generation of blockchain developers in Africa. This budget amount pays for some of their time to be devoted to development of this project during the 12 month timeline.

ADA 5000 Ngong Road Lab internet & electricity: The Ngong Road Blockchain Lab in Kenya was funded and built in Project Catalyst Fund 7. It is a hub for our Cardano developer apprentices, translators, and community training programs. We rely on the hub to provide a safe, physical gathering place for the growing Cardano community in Nairobi. This amount allows us to keep the lights on and internet flowing at the lab.

ADA 50,000 DID solution research, design, configuration: This falls mainly under the purview of our senior developer and project manager, but will also involve other project team members. This includes research, Governance Framework workshop and reporting, solution design, build, deploy, and go-live support for our DID solution. We are budgeting for this item separately from basic development needs, since it is a unique, dynamic, and essential part of the project.

The dollar value of this project is estimated at about 70K USD, based on the price of ADA today.

20% of that amount is the reward budget, which is destined for the Cardano Wallets of 1000 new users in Swahili speaking Africa.

The rest of the budgets pays for significant time investments as detailed above from a Senior Software developer, Developer Apprentice team, Project Management, Atala Prism Governance Framework workshop and reporting, ProofSpace app subscription, Customer Support, and more. We think the value for money for the community is unbeatable!

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

Cost estimates for development projects are notoriously slippery, but the Lido Nation brings a wealth of experience to the table, both from our previous Catalyst projects, and from our combined decades of experience in related professional fields outside of Catalyst.

Senior Developer: A Developer with Darlington’s experience and expertise in the United States can expect to bill upwards of $100/hour. For this project, we have estimated for his time at a conservative $75/hour, which buys ~310 hours of senior developer time.

Developer Apprentices: We have between 3-5 Developer Apprentices who earn between USD $250-$900 per month, depending on experience and productivity. This represents a good wage for a junior developer where they are located in Africa. This project is one of several that the Apprentices would work on in 2024; in accordance, this project is equivalent to only 20% of what we expect to spend on Apprentice salaries during the year.

Content Writing, Project Management, Curriculum Design, Marketing, DID research & Support, Solution support, NFT Design: Stephanie wears a lot of hats in this project! In her day job doing similar work, Stephanie earns $75/hour. Considered separately, jobs in the roles she is performing would expect to earn between $20/hour-$75/ hour in her local market. Stephanie expects to devote ~8hrs per week to this effort over the course of 12 months, which works out to an hourly rate of $32/hour in the budget at the current price of ADA.

Translation Team: We have two people on our Ngong Road team, who work an average of 30 hours per week on translation, marketing, customer service, and localized training. We pay them between USD $250-$350 per month, depending on experience and expertise. This amount is regionally appropriate where they are located in Nairobi Kenya.

Rewards Budget: In our first “Learn to Earn” project, participants could earn up to $25 in ADA. Keeping track of equivalent dollar amounts while distributing ADA was a challenge! In this project, we are just counting ADA, and participants can earn up to 50 ADA, which at today’s price is just under $15 value. If the price of ADA stays steady or goes down a bit, we still think this will be a compelling incentive amount to get people to participate. If the price of ADA goes up, the value might reach equivalency with what we offered in the pilot program. This amount allows us to onboard 1000 humans to a new DID program, which we think is outstanding value for the money!

DID solution platform: We are planning to use ProofSpace, which is priced at $1200-$2000/year, depending which subscription level we need. There is also an added cost for using the Atala Prism protocol, which is rolled into this budget line item.

Lab Utilities: Project Catalyst launched the Ngong Road blockchain lab in Fund 7, and it has been a valuable community hub and resource for more than a year now. The developer apprentices and translation team both work out of the lab. An ongoing challenge for the lab is paying for internet and electricity. In the USA, I pay the equivalent of 2-3 days salary for my internet service for the whole year ($40-50/month) and maybe double that for my household’s electricity.. In Kenya, both internet AND electricity cost the equivalent of an average FULL YEAR salary (EACH) (~$8000/year for internet service, ~$1000/year for electricity). We have included 5000 ADA in the project budget to help defray the cost of utilities. At today’s prices, that’s about $1500, so perhaps enough to cover 1 month of utilities. A drop in the bucket perhaps, but every bit is important!

[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.