Nurturing Roots in Africa: The Evolution (Education)

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Wada Global

[GENERAL] Email address of main applicant

megan@wada.org

Additional applicants

Megan, Mercy, DITC (Wada Cameroon hub)

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

9

[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

Education

[METADATA] SDG rating

SDG goals:

Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

Reduce inequality within and among countries

SDG subgoals:

By 2030, substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship

By 2030, substantially increase the supply of qualified teachers, including through international cooperation for teacher training in developing countries, especially least developed countries and small island developing States

Facilitate sustainable and resilient infrastructure development in developing countries through enhanced financial, technological and technical support to African countries, least developed countries, landlocked developing countries and small island developing States

Key Performance Indicator (KPI):

Proportion of youth and adults with information and communications technology (ICT) skills, by type of skill

Proportion of teachers with the minimum required qualifications, by education level

Total official international support (official development assistance plus other official flows) to infrastructure

#proposertoolsdg

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

We are working to establish a three year path to independence for each of our hubs. Phase 1 of this proposal (Nurturing Roots in Africa) started us off with the first 6 months of support, and through this proposal we are looking to fund the next 9 months of support.

Our strategy for supporting hubs falls into three distinct phases as outlined below. Many of our hubs have already set up their basic infrastructure, so this round of funding will focus on providing Phase 2 support, emphasizing Education. The DITC team (Wada Cameroon hub) has completed their train the trainer program (as outlined in Spread Plutus through Africa) and is ready to assign a Haskell/Plutus developer mentor to each Wada hub. We are prepared to offer French and English support in addition to curriculum for the hubs to follow.

 

Phase 1: Emphasis on infrastructure

• Infrastructure (set up a physical space, furniture, utilities, generator or solar panel)
• Minimal personnel support (hub lead supported by Wada)
• Hub equipment (computers, webcam/other recording devices to enable audio/video streaming and conferencing)

 

Phase 2: Emphasis on education (goal--train one developer lead or up to 3 new developers at each hub over the next 9 months)

• Personnel support: Hub lead (to be supported by Wada)
• Developer trainees to be supported with small motivation
• Educational materials: Books, stationary, whiteboard
• Continue some support for infrastructure such as utilities, and space rental

 

Phase 3: Emphasis on dApp creation

• The hubs will have the resources and tools to be financially independent as they will now have the knowledge to create IT solutions to generate revenue
• In addition they will have a business plan in place to support local operations
• Hub’s business initiatives are able to support operation costs

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

Africa presents immense opportunity for Cardano blockchain adoption however, the continent's well-documented barriers to adoption could hamper the design of cutting edge digital solutions and the growth of Cardano in Africa. This proposal will Grow Cardano by ensuring the best solutions on the ground. We want to highlight Cardano's cutting-edge solutions in the Sub Saharan Africa region. With focus on:

1. Infrastructure
2. Education & Outreach
3. dApp Creation

How do we equip and support developers with tools and working infrastructure?

Wada has done a lot of work onboarding African students and entrepreneurs into the Cardano ecosystem. We are looking to target developers through this next phase by adding a focus of technical education to our Global strategy. At the local level, many of our hubs have been working in the background to boost their technical levels. Through this next phase of funding we will be able to support these hubs to share their own knowledge and offer more local training to bring even more developers into the ecosystem.

How do we make Cardano their first choice when it comes to building dApps, innovating and collaborating?

Our hubs are already very involved in the Cardano ecosystem and have been doing numerous outreach events educating on the opportunities with blockchain, highlighting Cardano in particular. By supporting our hubs with more technical knowledge and capability we will be ensuring that they stay here to follow up with their innovative ideas and are supported to actually build them on Cardano.

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

Community Engagement

• Wada membership portal activity (track number of users, number of posts per day etc.)
• Other Wada social media following and engagement
• Attendance of Wada monthly calls

Events

• Number of events (that are shared across hubs)
• Attendance at events (in-person and online)

Developer Engagement

• Developer discord activity (number of members, number of posts/day)
• Developers enrolled in Wada's education program
• Developers activity on GitHub

In addition to these measures used to track how many people we are engaging and reaching we will also follow up with each hub's timeline for setting up their physical space and their business plan development.

Infrastructure

• Ensure that basic infrastructure planned was secured and adequate

Education

• Hubs that have adequate infrastructure will have at least one developer lead who will begin training to become a Haskell/Plutus trainer
• Each developer lead will have regular (monthly) progress checks to ensure training is advancing

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

We plan to keep the community up to date about our progress internally by posting to our Wada membership portal, and encouraging engagement there.

In addition we will use our various social media accounts to keep the community involved in our progress.

• Status updates and event announcements to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn
• Youtube to post various recorded/live-stream events and technical educational content
• Other social media will be developed: TikTok and Instagram to attract more young people to our network

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

Past success of earlier phases of this initiative: Planting Roots in Africa and Nurturing Roots in Africa

Current Wada Hubs

Established hubs:

Ghana - Accra

Ghana - Nalerigu

Cameroon - Douala

DRC - Goma

DRC - Kinshasa

Cote d'Ivoire - Abidjan

Burkina Faso - Bobo-Dioulasso

Emerging Hubs

Senegal - Dakar

Sierra Leone

Ghana - Center

Cameroon - Dschang

Cameroon - Bertoua

Virtual Hub

Nigeria

Close-out report for Planting Roots in Africa: here

Close-out report for Nurturing Roots Part 1: here

Close-out presentation from Nurturing Roots showcasing each hubs' current status: here

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

The main goal of this next phase is to emphasize EDUCATION and how to spread that across our network of hubs. We want to make sure we are giving our hubs the tools to become independent so that they can develop their own products and services.

• Leverage the established curriculum by the DITC team and tailor it to this new audience.
• Implement a schedule for trainers to follow
• Assign DITC trainer to each local hub to act as mentor/teacher
• Monitor progress with monthly checks for understanding
• Final evaluation to certify trainee's completion of program

[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.

Below we will detail the milestones along with how the funding will need to be dispersed for us to be able to achieve our goals. I have listed them with the 9 months of our project on the left to add clarity.

month 1-Milestone 1: 20% of budget needed

New + Established Hubs:

• Introductory meeting with all hub leads present, sharing of project expectations and milestones
• Financial needs:
• Infrastructure up-front costs (3 month)
• Monthly support (coordination, marketing, hub leads, trainers, and developers) (1 month)

month 2-Milestone 2: Education 1 16% of budget needed

New + Established Hubs:

• Consolidate curriculum and training environment/tools
• Select developers who will follow the training (could be group of up to 3 for more established hubs)
• Assign DITC team members to each hub
• Create schedule for training program
• Financial needs:
• Monthly support (coordination, marketing, hub leads, trainers, and developers) (2 months)

month 3- no milestones to submit

month 4- Milestone 2: 27% of budget needed

New + Established Hubs:

• Developer(s) from each hub - Evaluate trainer progress
• Check we are on-track with schedule
• Graded assignments expect at least 75% success
• Financial needs:
• Infrastructure support (3 months)
• Monthly personnel support (coordination, marketing, hub leads, trainer, trainees) (3 months)
• Other support such as events budget and Wada overhead (30%)

month 5- no milestones this month

month 6- no milestones this month

month 7-Milestone 3: 22% of budget needed

New + Established Hubs

• Developer(s) from each hub - Evaluate trainer progress
• Check we are on-track with schedule
• Graded assignments expect at least 75% success
• Financial needs:
• Infrastructure support (2 months)
• Monthly support (coordination, marketing, hub leads) (2 months)
• Other support such as events budget and Wada overhead (30%)

month 8- no milestones to submit

month 9-Milestone 4: final 15% of budget needed

Education 3

New + Established Hubs:

• Developer(s) from each hub completes training with certification

Business model

New Hubs:

• Establish a specialization and name for Hub
• Outline path to independence (first draft of business idea that will make the hub self sustainable within 3 years)

Established Hubs:

• Produce an official path to independence with a business plan
• Present business plan including logo and branding strategy
• Financial needs
• Final infrastructure payment
• Final salary pay-out
• Final other misc support such as Wada overhead
• Final new hub discovery budget

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

By the end of this 9 month period we will have delivered on the following:

• One education trained per hub completes first module of Haskell training
• Applicable hubs (tbd) implement blockchain clubs with local universities
• Applicable hubs will identify devs to target for next round of Haskell program
• In-person meet-up across hubs to start and end the program

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

Wada through Nurturing Roots in Africa and now this next phase are providing the following support to hubs, based on their maturity.

Emerging Hubs: The main focus we will have with emerging hubs is to solidify a relationship with a hub lead on the ground, making sure we share the same vision.

• Events budget 
• Hub lead motivation (variable depending on level of commitment)

Deliverable: After 6 months of contact, we will have finalized a hub lead point of contact, and start to talk about the potential for a Wada hub and what it might look like to support them as a New Hub.

Year 1 Hubs

New Hubs: 0-6 Months: Our main focus is supporting the infrastructure of the hubs.

• Infrastructure
• Space rental
• Utilities (electricity, internet, and associated set-up costs)
• Electronics (computer, printer)
• Furniture (minimal)
• Hub lead motivation

Deliverable: Each hub by the end of 6 months needs to:

• Set up physical or virtual Wada Hub providing local access to Wada network resources and events
• Determine a specialization for their hub
• Outline path to independence (start working on a business idea that will make the hub self sustainable within 3 years)

Established Hubs 6+ Months: Still focusing on infrastructure, but now we will be able to asses more specifically each hub's individual needs such as what back up power source is most appropriate, and will add Wada and Cardano branding to the site. I

• Wada + Cardano branding @ physical hubs: $500
• Small additional budget for printing materials, business cards and flyers

• Infrastructure
• Space rental
• Utilities
• Electrical backup (generator/solar panel)
• Furniture
• Electronics
• Hub lead motivation

• Education (some cases)
• Educational materials (books, whiteboard, projector…)
• Trainer motivation

Deliverable: Each hub will produce an official path to independence with a business plan. Additionally, some hubs may have someone ready to act as educational trainer if not we leverage the network of hubs to start training a trainer in Haskell/Plutus.

Year 2-3 Hubs: We will continue to support hubs' basic infrastructure needs (although no more "set-up" costs), but emphasis will shift dramatically towards education. In this phase, we will support a local trainer lead that will be responsible for providing developer support to new developers locally.

• Infrastructure
• Space rental
• Utilities
• Hub lead motivation

• Education
• Educational materials (books, whiteboard, projector…)
• Haskell/Plutus trainer motivation

Deliverable: Each hub will have one lead trainer responsible for education and developer support locally. Also each hub will be implementing their business plans on the path to be self sustainable by the end of year 2.

Detailed budget breakdown => here

Please note this budget was calculated using an exchange rate USD to ADA of 0.25, the exchange rate at the time of drafting this proposal. In the possibility of ADA price fluctuations we plan to handle it as follows: if ADA price increases, we will look to extend the life of this project to support the hubs for an extra month for example, another option would be that we support more local events. In the case of ADA price dropping, we may choose to shorten the duration of this project.

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

The cost of this proposal 450,000 ADA to cover 9 months of support to Wada Cardano hubs across the continent in West and Central Africa is relatively small compared to the impact. We will be supporting 10+ hubs, which averages to less than 45,000 ADA per hub to cover a 9 month period. During that 9 months we will be making a huge step towards educating more developers across our hubs in Haskell and Plutus!

[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