Driving blockchain adoption through student ASB Telenet Club stake pools with assistance from MAV100.

[GENERAL] Name and Surname of Main Applicant

Alexis Smith-Bishop

[GENERAL] Email address of Main Applicant

chstelenet@gmail.com

Additional Applicants

Cameron Smith, MAV100 Founder

[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?

Yes

[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.” .

A) MAV100 is currently helping us run our stake pool in their Stake Pool Incubator Program in collaboration with Yepple Labs. We are learning how to run our own pool and intend to have our testnet block producer running before the start of the 2023 school year. Eventually we will have all of the necessary battery back-ups, multiple bare metal platforms, and redundant internet sources to ensure seamless block production for our delegators. Until then we will learn how to be a good SPO and be the back-up for the pool they have donated to us.

B) We are also dependent on ADA holders who can delegate to our stake pools. We are reaching out to the community, but it takes time from both students and advisors to reach out with us to explain the benefits that Cardano brings to our student body and community.

[GENERAL] Will your project outputs 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

Key Performance Indicator (KPI):

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

Universal Human Rights Index (UHRI):

#proposertoolsdg

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

When the equipment/accounts for our stake pools were donated to our ASB Club by MAV100, it immediately created a channel for blockchain assets to be distributed to students throughout our school districts in a variety of ways. ASB (Associated Student Body) Clubs are not for profit organizations that can engage in business related activities for the benefit of the students. For example: If we are donated a popcorn maker by the community so we can make popcorn to sell at a school sporting event like a basketball game, we can keep the proceeds that we make and use them for a variety of student initiatives. The proceeds could go towards new computers in the computer lab, school supplies, scholarships for students, or for lunch stipends on field trips. All we need is delegation and the services of the blockchain can be accessed by thousands of students in our community.

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

What impact will this project have for Cardano besides funding the project team, and what value does it bring to the Cardano ecosystem?

This solution provides a legal way (stake pools) for a legal entity (Student ASB Clubs) to earn and distribute ADA legally to students. The impact of driving adoption in the youngest and most technologically involved generation will bring value to the Cardano ecosystem both in the short and long terms.

What impact will this project have for Cardano besides funding the project team, and what value does it bring to the Cardano ecosystem?

Imagine every student in our valley learning about Cardano, using it to enhance their school experience, teaching their families about it, and graduating high school with hundreds or even thousands of ADA in their wallet. With 17,500 students in households that combine to total a little over 50,000 individuals, we expect strong interest working in tandem with MAV100. MAV100 is working with schools, businesses, and various community members towards creating a community run World Mobile telecommunications network. They will donate equipment to ASB Clubs in our partnered school districts as the core and then work with different community members to help expand the network. Immediately the entire community will have use cases for Cardano Native assets, a continuous supply of Cardano Native assets, and students will have a reserve of ADA that will be seen as a valuable asset throughout community. Within 12 months we hope to have enough ADA in each students wallet so that they have enough for collateral, txs, a handle, and delegation to their pool.

Please qualify or quantify the impact you believe your project will bring to the Cardano ecosystem. For example, consider if your project will bring people to the community.

We hope to become an example/template for other communities that see the value in distributed systems. If we can show success here with a variety of use cases including but not limited to: Cardano, World Mobile, Cornucopias, or Hydra Point of Sale Technology, then the documented value of these systems can be shown to other school districts and communities when they are introduced to the Cardano ecosystem by MAV100.

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

Describe, and where possible measure, the project’s benefits for the Cardano ecosystem, and why the measures are realistic in your opinion.

We will observe the number of students and their family members adopting the various tools that Cardano has to offer, as well as the amount of community delegation we can generate. If we get just 1% of the easily accessible community to become involved, that would be 500 new active users of the protocol.

How will the innovation affect Cardano’s productivity and growth, in both the short and the long term? 

Bringing 1-10% of our community into the Cardano ecosystem would be very beneficial to the Cardano ecosystem, yet the example it provides for other students to create something similar in their communities is the real value.

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

What are your plans to spread the project’s outputs over a reasonable timescale? How and with whom will you share the outputs/impact and opportunities that will arise as a result of your completed project?  

We will make public all local partner locations through our website, and keep statistics of wallets created for students, giving tallies every quarter once school starts in the Fall. When sub-handles are functional from ADA Handle we hope to get each student and ADA handle to make distribution of rewards quick and easy, and we will share how much ADA is distributed on-chain to students. We will have statistics on supporters/users of the community World Mobile Telecommunications network once we have the bones for that up and growing throughout the community.

How do you expect to use the results generated from the project in further research and development activities?

Once we are successful in our community, we will be reaching out with MAV100 to share our success with other school districts who begin MAV100 chapters. There are interested individuals in Oregon, California, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, New York, and Idaho so far. We will keep track of what worked and what didn't throughout the project and share that so future students can gain the benefits of the Cardano Blockchain with us. When some of our members graduate they will be bringing Telenet Clubs with them to College and continue to grow community networks throughout their educational lives.

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

Please describe your existing capabilities that demonstrate how and why you believe you’re best suited to deliver this project? 

We already have a stake pool running, a local community that has delegated over 100k ADA to our stake pool, over 100 members of the community interested in running a World Mobile Network with us, and a motivated local non-profit named MAV100 helping us along. The school provides a structured, legal, and open framework for us to work within, and every cent is publicly tracked by the Cascade School Board. We are only just getting started.

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

Please state the proposed objectives or goals for your project. 

This year we want to lay the foundation for our Telenet Club to bring the benefits of blockchain to our community for years to come. Within our school we want to have a successful stake pool generating enough block rewards to provide functional wallets/ADA transaction fees to the students in our partnered school districts and our school partners helping build our World Mobile network. This means we need delegation, and lots of it. We are already working on gaining delegation from new users in our community (over 100k delegated from locals so far). 

MAV100 will also use Optim Liquidity Bonds to secure delegation from the heavy hitters in the Cardano community by offering competitive bonuses to their staking yield. With luck the Cardano Foundation also helps us with their rotating delegation for a time to get us rolling. MAV100 also has plans to help boost our delegation through different Defi protocols that we qualify for. We will be running a school sponsored NFT Mint to help generate funds for more delegation. All in all we should have enough ADA for thousands of new local wallets within the next 12 months.

[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.

Show the order of your milestones, including which key activities will be done, and provide a timeline of how long each project milestone will take, and also each success or acceptance criteria for your milestones. Also give an indication of the projected cost to achieve each milestone.

Milestone #1

By the start of school this Fall we are pushing to have over 200 school partners interested in our community World Mobile Network. Telecommunications is a subject that everyone understands to some degree, and describing Cardano as the security layer within multiple networks helps people see the positive applications for it. These partners have so far been a major source for our community delegation drive. We have worked up over 100,000 ADA so far locally, and aim to reach 200,000 ADA by the start of the next school year (early September). This has cost $400 in education/advertising materials and advisors have spent over 100 hours driving students from A to B, helping explain the project, and coordinating with local organizations. We expect the cost by the beginning of the school year to be around $600 in educational materials and roughly 200 hours of advisor time helping with transport and education.

Milestone #2

By January of 2024 we look to have the framework for a strong community network (400+ locations) ready to roll out when World Mobile goes live in the United States. By this time we expect to be producing blocks consistently, with multiple club members having enough knowledge to operate a stake pool with minimal guidance. We should have over 300,000 ADA in community delegation by this time. For this period we will need an additional $1000 in educational material/flyers/pamphlets, and advisors will need to spend 600 hours helping students reach out to the community.

Milestone #3

By the end of the 2024 school year we will have worked out the distribution of ADA earned through proper channels with the school board. Depending on the state of World Mobile and other projects building on Cardano, our community will be heavily involved as well.  Concerning community delegation we are aiming for over 400,000 ADA by this time. As more community partners are generating Cardano Native Tokens like World Mobile Tokens, the likelihood of them delegating more ADA to us increases. We will need an additional $1500 in educational material/flyers/pamphlets. Education, community outreach, and coordination with school administration will require another 800 hours.

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

What will you produce? Please provide details about the deliverables, documentation, and outputs you intend to produce for each milestone. 

Our deliverables are about empowering our local students and community partners to use the Cardano Blockchain. Throughout the 12 month period we will continually update our progress in several metrics:

1) Increase in ADA delegation from new users in our community.

2) Number of school partners.

3) ADA generated by ASB owned stake pools for students.

4) Number of student wallets created.

5) Amount of ADA distributed to students for use on the blockchain.

By the end of the 12 months we will have a community that identifies the Cardano network with use cases that they can identify as valuable, be it telecommunication, an alternative payment system, or even art appreciation.

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

For the scope of community outreach we are receiving an incredible amount of support from MAV100, a local non-profit. The limit on the budget for this proposal will require that we receive additional funding, but we are looking to do our part in exploring all of the resources available to us. Through this budget of 39,480 ADA we will be paying for a part-time advisor who will be dedicated to helping us with transport as well as technical/legal expertise when dealing with members of the community. This advisor will be available for 10-11 hours each week, and be paid $20/hour. At current values of ADA this comes out to roughly 3000 ADA per month, and will keep the advisor re-imbursed for 12 months. We currently have 4 community members knowledgeable enough to explain how our program will work and who are flexible enough in their schedules to be available for Club activities.

As far as marketing materials we have pamphlets, questionnaires, and sign-up sheets prepared, as well as informational signs for local partners. The budget for this will exceed what we ask for through Catalyst Funding. We are asking for 3480 ADA for this which will help print enough pamphlets and questionnaires for 500 locations. We expect to need at least 5,000 over the course of the 12 months, and will be working with local organizations like the Booster Club, MAV100, and the Rotary to help find solutions for these needs.

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

For instance, can you justify with supporting evidence that costs are proportional to the average wage in your country, or typical freelance rates in your industry? Is there anything else that helps to support how the project represents value for money?

Advisors for ASB Clubs, or coaches for sports teams, can receive financial support of $1000-2000/month in our school district, which is currently in a budget freeze. The $855/month at current ADA prices for a new club that has this much potential seems within reason. Having a respected adult from the community that can articulate the value of distributed systems will be critical towards our success, and the transportation will be very important as well. We have 4 very dedicated advisors and there won't be a day where we don't have support with this financial support.

Physical educational materials are proving to be very useful. People appreciate high quality educational literature and it has the potential to be placed in many hands. Every person we talk to is both surprised and excited about the prospect of this project, and the re-usability of our school specific pamphlets has worked well in our first school district. We need to do the same in all 5 partnered school districts, and $1000 over the course of 12 months will help accelerate our community outreach.

[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