Experimentation of Data Contribution Token Rewards for a future PositiveBlockchain DAO

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Sustainable ADA

[GENERAL] Email address of main applicant

sustainableada@gmail.com

Additional applicants

PositiveBlockchain

SustainableADA

Cole Bartlett

Razali Samsudin

Lucas Zaehringer

[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

DAO

[METADATA] SDG rating

PositiveBlockchain's project proposal connects to the following Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):

SDG 4: Quality Education -Aligns with SDG 4 by promoting education and knowledge sharing within participating universities and research organizations. By PositiveBlockchain incentivizes data contributions and encourages students to get involved. This initiative contributes to enhancing access to quality education.

SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure - PositiveBlockchain's Project Directory and its focus on impact blockchain projects directly align with SDG 9. By curating information about innovative blockchain projects, the association supports the development and deployment of new technologies for social and environmental impact. This proposal promotes sustainable industrialization, fosters innovation, and encourages the expansion of reliable and resilient infrastructure.

SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals - PositiveBlockchain's collaboration with various stakeholders in the blockchain and impact spaces demonstrates its commitment to SDG 17. The association's Project Directory serves as a platform for collaboration, enabling partnerships among different actors in the ecosystem. Additionally, the initiative to establish a PositiveBlockchain DAO in the future further emphasizes the importance of collective decision-making and collaboration to achieve the SDGs.

PositiveBlockchain's proposals to take the first steps in developing a DAO contributes to SDG 4 by promoting education and knowledge sharing, aligns with SDG 9 by focusing on innovative blockchain projects for social and environmental impact, and supports SDG 17 by fostering partnerships and collaboration within the blockchain and impact space.

PositiveBlockchain is strongly connected to the SDGs and think about them with all activities and project they implement.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

PositiveBlockchain is a non-profit association curating a Project Directory of impact blockchain projects, aiming to use the technology for social and environmental impact. This is used by various stakeholders in the blockchain and impact spaces for education, investment, collaboration, publications, academic research, benchmark, and others. 

This year, the association celebrates its 5 years of impact in the space. It has also co-launched the BC100+, a leading initiative under the UN Charter of values bringing organizations to sign a Manifesto in support of blockchain for the SDGs.

The database has been established by own researches, web scrapping, partner contributions or submission by project owners directly. Every submission or edit of a database is reviewed by a qualified member from PositiveBlockchain or a partner organization, which ensures high quality and consistency of the database. This is very important when it comes to writing report or doing academic and qualitative research. The system is working well but can have limitation in scale as there are low incentives for data contributors and verifiers - beyond their belief and support in the positive impact for the ecosystem.

Previously, a Project Catalyst fund has supported the revamping the database tooling of PositiveBlockchain: improved database search, web interface, new API, custom forms, download options. This was a great improvement for the administration of the database and also for users on the interface. We are now ready to scale the activity on the Project Directory and create the missing incentives.

To increase our impact, we would like to boost incentives and rewards for more Data Contributions for two categories of contributions 

1. From individual contributors, whether they are member of the PositiveBlockchain association of not
2. From Universities and researches which represents the main user group downloading our database on the website

This experimentation is the first stage leading to a possible future PositiveBlockchain DAO, whereby Data Contributors would receive governance tokens in order to participate in the DAO and make collective decisions for the evolution of the Project Directory. 

Stages of this granted Project:

Stage 1: Concept

• Finalize the reward concept, types of tokens in the reward pool, documentation and communication (Milestones 1-2)
• Research the design of the reward concept and create documentation and communicate with the PB community to receive support in this area.

Stage 2: Constitute a Reward Pool with different types of assets

• Environmental Credit Tokens which could be used for emission compensation, as symbolic reward generating a positive impact - rather than a pure financial reward. We are here considering carbon tokens issues by web3 players in the growing ReFi and carbon markets, especially those built on Cardano such as Block Carbon, Carboono, CarbonFi or Veritree.
• Tokens giving access to Vouchers for online education, courses, books or other resources relevant for students within participating universities.

Stage 3: Define Rules of Data Contributions:

• At least 20 projects added or edited with at least 5 data sets filled out per project
• Establishing mature contact with a university or research organizations interested to bring Data Contributors (eg students getting involved in this role) - we will come up with a clear process to verify/justify a meaningful contribution here.
• These contributions need to be “claimed” through a form and validated by a qualified member of the PositiveBlockchain association - avoiding false claims and bad quality contributions

Stage 4: Transferring token to Data Contributor claimees 

• Transferring tokens to the contributors for their contributions to the PB database via wallet transaction
• Finalise integration of tools to provide a seamless token claim process. We will look into possibility and potential benefits of using tools like Tosi Drop, and Drip Dropz.

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

This will help sustain and scale the effort of mapping the Cardano and overall impact blockchain ecosystem, creating incentives for knowledge capture and sharing through the open data platform of PositiveBlockchain.

It will also help mobilize more universities, researchers, and qualitative studies around the work and impact of the projects listed in the project Directory.

Finally, it will help understand how such reward system can be optimally design, focusing of a utility token reward (not a direct monetary compensation) as part of a DAO concept.

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

We will be looking to measure the following KPIs:

• Number of Individual Data Contributors
• Number of Data Contributors involved in creating relationships with universities
• Number of contributions done
• Number of new projects listed by Data Contributors
• Number of project edits by Data Contributors
• Number of data points on average Data Contributors add/update in the database

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

The project will directly engage communities, individual and universities external to PositiveBlockchain. The available fund in the pool will be visible for everyone, so will be the Data Contributions. 

The results and also feedbacks from the Data Contributors will be used to further refine this system as part of a possible future PositiveBlockchain DAO.

One of the learnings we are looking to develope, is to understand what would have the biggest impact versus effort ratio: incentivizing individual Data Contributor, or recruiting universities and research partners which could be in lower number but have a much bigger and more sustainable capacity to contribute on data. This is why we split the token pool in 2 categories (see above)

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

PositiveBlockchain has been around for already 5 years. We are an association registered in Paris, France and active globally. We have justed renewed our Board in July 2023 with 6 board members for the new one-year term. There is a great momentum around our work to make this project happen.

The Project Directory has been our core activity since the start. It is the most complete, neutral, high-quality database in this area, focusing on multiple chains.

All our work in open-source and in open data, under CC4 license.

We are currently finalizing a previous Project Catalyst grant project which has delivered its results.

Many organizations are recognizing the quality and role of the database in the ecosystem, hence its use as essential registry for the BC100 + initiative for example.

Sustainable ADA:

We have been a part of the Cardano ecosystem since 2020 and helping educate community members on the connections Cardano has to sustainability and social and environmental impact.

The Cardano Impact Report 2023 is a testament to how dedicated the Sustainable ADA team is to helping grow and expand the Cardano ecosystem.

https://sustainableada.com/cardano-impact-report

Sustainable ADA are a registered LLP in USA

Sustainable ADA is expanding under the framework of Impact Web3. Sustainable ADA will be an educational partner and key part of the Impact Web3 ecosystem.

Pre-funding activities: 

We have had a lot of success while growing Sustainable ADA over the last few years. We have been closely connected to the Cardano community through our Project Catalyst proposing experience. 

Learn more about all of our past funded projects here: https://sustainableada.com/catalyst/

Sustainable ADA has created: 48 individual stories on projects building in the Cardano community and making the world a better place.

More info here: https://sustainableada.com/news/

Sustainable ADA also created the Cardano Impact Report where they highlighted over 65+ Impact Project buildings on Cardano to make the world more sustainable and equitable for all. 

Free Version can be found here: https://sustainableada.com/cardano-impact-report/

More work we have taken part in:

Impact Measurement research: https://www.canva.com/design/DAFC7zRNrdg/em1s_yQDnNU6sPW6KJ8hnA/view?utm_content=DAFC7zRNrdg&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=publishsharelink

Positive Blockchain Cardano integration and Project Catalyst Support:

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

Our first goal is to create effective incentives for increased and more decentralized Data Contributions.

This results in Increased number of projects sourced, edited, reviewed on the database, improved quality and therefore better knowledge for all user of open data.

In fine, the Project Directory and knowledge created around this is essential to democratize and expand the use of decentralized technologies for a more sustainable world.

By doing this project, our objective is to validate learnings and designs of the reward concept, in order to prepare the implementation of further stages of the PositiveBlockchain DAO.

In the longer-run, the DAO is intended to function as a democratic, transparent, and incentivized data and rating “agency”. We seek to facilitate trust, foster innovation, and promote best practices across the board.

[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.

Month 1-2 Milestone #1:

Refinement of reward concept/protocol

Month 3-4 Milestone #2

Based on the concept: implement processes, missing forms and launch communication campaign

• Create missing forms
• Create documentation pages (eg. Notion, web pages) and training (eg. video recording)

Month 5-6 Milestone #3:

• Adapt PositiveBlockchain’s web interface or back-end system where required
• Launch communication campaign

Month 7-8 Milestone #4:

• Onboarding and training first Data Contributors
• Start of the program

Month 9-10 Milestone #5:

• Continuous program execution, verification of contributions and distribution of rewards

Month 11-12 Milestone #6:

• Final report based on KPIs and outcomes
• Recommendations for further implementation 

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

Month 1-2 Milestone #1:

Refinement of reward protocol:

• Finalized overall reward concept
• List of tokens constituting the reward
• Documentation with minimal requirements for rewards linked to data contributions 
• Onboarding flow of data contributors
• List of required Instructions and training materials for data contributors

Month 3-4 Milestone #2:

• Links of forms, trainings and documentation created 

Month 5-6 Milestone #3:

• Web changes completed
• Links of communication elements: social media posts, blog post..

Month 7-8 Milestone #4:

• List of Data Contributors
• Rewards distributed

Month 9-10 Milestone #5:

• List of Data Contributors
• Rewards distributed

Month 11-12 Milestone #6:

• List of Data Contributors
• Rewards distributed
• Final report based on KPIs and outcomes
• Recommendations for further implementation 

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

Budget:

• Web adjustments (for specifications and implementation in milestones 1-2: 5k ADA)
• Token Pool for rewards to be distributed in Milestones 3-6, and until all funds have been used by Data Contributors: 20k
• 10k for Individual Data Contributions
• 10k for Research institution incentives
• Contributors helping create partnerships with research institutions
• Universities and Researchers themselves for their Data Contributions

TOTAL: 25k

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

The cost of the project represents value for money as it enables the first stage in forming a DAO around the PB community. The DAO will allow for us to create a stronger relationship with the Cardano ecosystem and will also bring more visibility and recognition of impactful projects building on Cardano. By investing in the Positive Blockchain DAO.

The community will gain access to valuable insights, collaboration opportunities, and inspiration to drive positive change. 

The costs are justified and a modest ask given the average salaries for a graduate, and postgraduate researcher and Teacher in our sectors, and given our track record in and out of the Cardano community to date based out of USA (Salt Lake City), and western Europe (London and Paris).

[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