Women: The real drivers and implementers of DeFi / RealFi solutions and strategies in the local context of Africa. Let's put them at the front stage!

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Megan Hess

[GENERAL] Email address of main applicant

felicien.fotiomanfo@gmail.com

Additional applicants

Fotio Manfo Felicien

[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

Education

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Context

In the African local context, women play a key role in designing and running local DeFi and RealFi solutions within their communities. Most communities organize themselves into tontine groups, also known as Djangui. The main purpose of these groups is to create a community whose members can support each other in so many different ways. They build, strengthen and maintain their relationships through group initiatives and activities of all kinds. New members seeking to join the community are required to secure older members’ endorsements serving as a stake to enter the network. They form what we would call a Web of Trust. This societal organization serves as a base for a reputation system in several area of life, DeFi being the most prominent. Communities usually crowdfund for their initiative and also offer borrowing, lending, and insurances within. The network they build serves as what we would call credit score / credit history in the western world, but here it’s more about the level of trust people have in you and the person that endorses you. Women are truly the owners of local context DeFi / RealFi algorithms and solutions.

Solution

We plan to extend our education program to train and equip 12+ leader women with the right tools in such a way that they are able to translate their local DeFi practices into real platforms (on the Cardano blockchain). We intend to help these leaders and pioneers to spread the word and serve as a catalyst for other women in their communities.

Our strategy resolve in three parallel and complementary activities. Marketing, Training, Spreading.

Marketing

The first activity consist of focusing on marketing to search and recruit women into our Haskell and Plutus training Program. To reach this goal, we will be securing a stand at a high profile bi-yearly Devs and Enterprises Conference called PROMOTE. We intend to run workshops and mini prized Hackathons explaining the opportunities offered by the Blockchain technology and Cardano specifically. Our marketing campaign will also extend to schools, universities and technical institutions where we are currently creating clubs and running Hackathons through our funded proposal "Clubs + Hackathon = Cardano adoption". Lastly, we will running advertising campaign on local TV and radio stations as well as displaying at strategic locations billboards and posters.

Training

Our second activity will consist of funneling pre-selected women into our ongoing Plutus education initiative and providing them with the necessary support to first learn Haskell, Software Architecture, Distributed Ledger Technologies then Plutus for smart contracts development. Our aim is to enroll more women into our program through the extra support from this proposal.

Spreading

Our third and last activity will consist of extending our Plutus Program for women to other countries and educative programs seeking to close the gap we witness between males and females in the IT field and more specifically in Distributed Ledger Technology. Our previously funded proposal has giving us a hedge and we now have four fully trained Haskell / Plutus interns ready to take on the task.

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

At the core of this proposal is the creation of a developer ecosystem geared toward women. As stated above, Women drive Defi and RealFi solutions on the ground in Africa, so giving them the tools is the right thing to do. Women leaders that we hope will serve as catalyst to convince others to join the adventure.

In order for Cardano succeed on the African market we need to focus on providing use cases applicable to Africans and women who are the designers and implementers of local on ground DeFi solutions are the solution. Women taking the lead mean implementing solutions that not only are efficient, but more importantly effective and match the local DeFi mental model.

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

We will track the following metrics to measure our success:

 

• Number of marketing campaigns relating event to capture business and dev minded women
• Number of school / technical institutes we partner with on the monthly basis (goal will be 1 per month)
• Number of women pre-selected to developer training program at events on a monthly basis (goal will be 3+ per month )
• Number of women enroll in our course 12 months post funding (goal will be 36+ after 12 months)
• Number of useful dApps a leader we trained participated in its design/implementation (goal will be 12+ after 3 years)

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

We plan to uses our social media and Wada partners platform to share the output and results.

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

Our capability lies in what we have been able to accomplish in the past.

Our LinkedIn profile provides ample information about our past successful endeavor in a multitude of contexts.

Megan: Wada Cameroon Hub Co-Lead, Central Africa Coordination Lead, Wada core team member (Education and Event Lead), Maths & Physics teacher, bilingual (French & English)

Manfo: Cameroon Team Co-Lead, Senior software architect & developer, 12+ year of experience programming, 3+ years in functional programming paradigm (F#, Haskell, Elm), Multilingual (French, English, Italian, Ngiembo)

 

Nkalla: Senior software architect & developer, 12+ year of experience programming, 3+ years in functional programming paradigm (Haskell), Mathematics teacher (Education Systems Engineering), Multilingual (French, Italian, English, Mbo).

Our own past delivered project and those we participated in from previous funds is also a key answer to this question:

• Close-out report for Planting Roots in Africa: here
• Close-out report for Nurturing Roots Part 1: here
• Close-out report for Spread Plutus in Africa here
• Wada documentary Fund 9 proposal: here

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

The main goals are:

1. Running a successful marketing awareness campaign explaining the natural connection that women and DeFi have in Africa
2. Producing introductory education content around Distributed Ledger technology and using it in our marketing workshops.
3. Recruiting leader dev and entrepreneurs women into our Haskell program and offering them a project based training approach
4. One women one usable project slogan at the end of their training journey

[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.

DITC, Wada Cameroon Hub has already launched its Haskell & Plutus education initiative (On June 1st 2022). and is already providing training content trough its YouTube channel. We currently have 4 interns concluding their training in Haskell, Plutus and Software architecture end of this month. This proposal is an extension of the work we are already doing on the ground with a focus on marketing to convince and recruit more women.

Our road map is broken into the following steps / milestones:

Milestone 1: Marketing - 1 month (Securing a stand and Promote 2024) - ADA 9k

Marketing awareness campaign starting in Cameroon. We plan on leveraging the opportunities offered by the bi-yearly PROMOTE event. We will also secure partnerships with more technical institutes (already partnered with 2 local institutes). We will also run short advertisement on local Radio and TV stations.

Milestone 2: Workshops/Hackathon - 1 month (in technical institutes and schools )- ADA 14k

We will visit local universities (12 total), technical schools, and high schools speaking about Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and Cardano in particular; Highlighting the land of opportunities brought about by DLTs and bringing awareness to our Haskell and Plutus education initiative.

Each of our visits will consist of informative workshops sessions on the Cardano ecosystem and DLT in general.

Prior to the workshop, we will elaborate educative and informative content tailored to our specific audience.

During our workshop, we will make sure to get our point across which is "You women are already doing DeFi, let's bring it onto the blockchain"

Milestone 3: Pre-selecting women leader - 1 month: (launching training campaign) - ADA 2k

This phase will conclude with the identification and recruitment of women meeting the required profile.

We will setup their profile and online training space

Finally we will funnel the identified women into DITC Haskell and Plutus training program.

Milestone 4: Training - 9 month (launching training campaign) - ADA 27k

We will leverage the content produced in our previous training experience to train selected women. Once trained, we will make sure that each trainee put together a practical project as a concrete output example.

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

The deliverables are as Follow:

1. Marketing content published
2. Partners schools and institution listed
3. Workshop content published
4. Recording of live workshop
5. Training content publish
6. Final project specification and implementation published

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

Total Budget: ADA 52000

• Cardano Stand @ PROMOTE ADA 6000
• Small stand reservation (ADA 1500)
• Stand Marketing materials, Decoration & Logistics (ADA 1500)
• Marketing & Advertisement (Plutus Women Billboard * 2, Posters, TV and Radio advertisements spots ): ADA 3000
• Live workshops sessions in technical institutes (Internet, Sound Tools, Projector, T-Shirts, Hats, Bracelets ...etc): ADA 5000
• In person event logistics (Refreshments, Snacks ...etc): ADA 3000
• Mini challenge / hackathon prizes: ADA 6000
• Training Team motivations (3 trainers ADA 600 ea per month x 12 months): ADA 27600
• Project oversight and coordination: ADA 1400

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

As mention before, Women on the ground run local DeFi solution. I am always amazed how they appear simple, yet they have a high level of complexity that integrate so many factors. By spending money on Women leader training, we are making sure to promote them to digitize what they are already doing manually. I think it's a critical and strategic investment for the Cardano community.

[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