PRISM ecosystem website - the missing hub to digital identity on Cardano

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Björn Sandmann

[GENERAL] Email address of main applicant

sandmann@codedata.solutions

Additional applicants

Ed Eykholt

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

12

[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?

No

[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.” .

No dependencies.

[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

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

The PRISM ecosystem is not easily navigable or comprehensible due to a lack of an overarching overview. Who is doing what? Which projects have been funded, and what is their status? How does one begin integrating digital identity into their projects? What can one currently use? What is in the prototype stage and what is production-ready?

We (blocktrust) have been active in the PRISM ecosystem, building for about 1.5 years. Many aspects are clear to us since we interact with a range of projects on a regular basis. However, it can be difficult for newcomers to understand. The Atala PRISM team is focused on building infrastructure but doesn't provide comprehensive information about all participants in the ecosystem.

This project is an attempt at a community initiative aiming to enhance visibility for the multitude of exceptional projects currently under development. It will provide links, showcase demo videos, offer comparisons between different offerings, and supply guides to help beginners get started.

We intend the project to be a relatively simple website, maintained by us, but with authoring rights for all the main participants in the ecosystem: RootsId, Proofspace, Snapbrillia, Continuum Loop, IOG and anyone else who wants to contribute and is building on/around PRISM. While doing this, the explicit goal is to offer a friendly and objective place to share news, links and new projects without any marketing speech and branding, neither from us as from other parties.

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

The proposal is squarely at the heart of the challenge's idea: to aid the growth of the ecosystem and assist both veterans and newcomers in navigating the world of digital identity on Cardano (and beyond).

This will therefore bring new participants into the ecosystem and increase the adoption and SSI integration efforts.

After a certain ramp-up period, it is reasonable to expect approximately 100-500 page visits per day. While this might not seem like a large number, we anticipate that many of these visits will be from professionals in this field seeking specific answers. Moreover, this will generate traffic and potentially direct customers to all listed vendors and projects.

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

Success could be gauged by the number of monthly visitors, as well as the number of contributing authors from other projects, or entities like IOG, the Cardano Foundation, or EMURGO.

We plan to make user statistics publicly available. All other metrics, such as interactions (including comments, sharing, and tweets) and external contributions, will be directly visible on the site.

To maintain transparency and accountability with the Catalyst community, we'll publish a blog post each month, reporting these interaction numbers.

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

The outcome will be a hosted website (the final name and domain are yet to be discussed). The GitHub repository will be open source. We will provide at least bi-monthly updates to the website, reflecting the current state and new developments in the ecosystem. We warmly welcome other authors to join, as this is intended to be more than just a single-party effort. We believe that all participants will greatly benefit if we can reach a broader audience.

As already exlained, we'll also share the interactions statistics of the projects with the Catalyst community.

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

Blocktrust has been an active participant in the Cardano ecosystem since early 2022, developing SSI solutions using Atala PRISM from the start. Over the last year and a half, we have been building projects and libraries based on PRISM. Many of these are open-source and all of them provide value. Some notable ones include:

• Identity Wallet for the Browser (https://blocktrust.dev/identitywallet)
• Analytics Platform (https://analytics.blocktrust.dev)
• Credential Builder (https://credentialbuilder.blocktrust.dev)
• DIDComm Mediator (https://mediator.blocktrust.dev)
• Plus a collection of open-source libraries for use with PRISM, which can be found here (https://github.com/bsandmann)

This experience has given us a deep technical understanding of PRISM, and we've been following the progress of different projects for some time. This has allowed us to build numerous personal relationships with the various developers and teams within the ecosystem. We'll leverage this experience and the many contacts to make this project hopefully a big success.

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

• Initially design and develop a website (most likely outsourced to a third party)
• Supply initial content (videos, vendor list, project list, links, etc.)
• Publish posts with summaries and links at least on a bi-monthly basis covering:Atala PRISM
• Updates from the participants in the ecosystem
• General updates from SSI (DIF, Hyperledger, ToIP, etc.)
• Establish contact with all the main participants in the ecosystem to secure their involvement
• Get them to post updates about their efforts in the identity ecosystem
• Carry out technical maintenance of the site
• Achieve a steady growth-rate in terms of page views per day. After some run up time the goal is to get between 100-500 views per day.

[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.

Milestone 1: Finding common ground (1 month)

Activity: Planing, Preparation

Planned Finishes: 2023-11-01

Cost: 20,150 ada

Milestone 2: Design, domain/name selection, website building (1 month)

Activity: Development

Planned Finishes: 2023-12-01

Cost: 20,150 ada

Milestone 3: Initial content generation (1 month)

Activity: Authoring

Planned Finishes: 2024-01-01

Cost: 30,150 ada

Milestone 4-12: Authoring and maintaining the website (9 months)

Activity: Authoring, marketing and maintaining, providing blog-post with user statistics

Planned Finishes: 2024-10-01

Cost: 46,350 ada

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

Obviously this project is not a full time job and shouldn’t be. But the initial setup and content generation will take some non-trivial amount of time.

Milestone 1: Finding common ground (1 month)

• Ideas for strategy, proposing a name, defining content outline (60 hours)
• Getting in touch with all major players and projects (20 hours) 

Milestone 2: Design, domain/name selection, website building (1 month)

• Selecting CMS, choosing template for modification (20 hours)
• Development of not yet existing features / adjusting template (50 hours)
• Selecting / setting up infrastructure for hosting (10 hours)

Milestone 3: Initial content generation (1 month)

• Page for all major participants (20 hours)
• Collecting information about all PRISM related projects and proposal (40 hours)
• Creating getting started guide (20 hours)
• Marketing / Linking / Connecting / building social media presence (40 hours)

Milestone 4-12: Authoring and maintaining the website (9 months)

• Content generation (14 hours)
• Marketing / Linking / Social media maintenance (3 hours)
• Technical maintenance (2 hours)
• Blogpost: Accountability-updates for the Catalyst community with interaction statistics (1 hours)

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

Planing, development and initial content generation within the first three months: 70,000 ADA

Content generation and maintenance over the following 9 month: 45,000 ADA

Expected hosting costs: 150 ADA per month = 1,800 ADA for the complete year

Total: 116,800 ADA

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

While the cost of the project isn't insignificant, developing a professional-looking website, generating content, and keeping up with all the information requires substantial time. Perhaps costs could be reduced if someone else were willing to take on this project for less. However, all other knowledgeable participants in the ecosystem likely have a multitude of other tasks to handle.

Ideally, it would be best if the community came together to do this for free. However, this approach has been attempted in the past and sadly was unsuccessful. It appears that some form of obligation is necessary to ensure the project's success.

[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