45B - Marlowe workshops for Business professionals

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Pedro Lucas - 45B

[GENERAL] Are you delivering this project as an individual or as an entity (whether formally incorporated or not)

Entity (Not Incorporated)

[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] Summarize your solution to the problem (200-character limit including spaces)

We will run Marlowe workshops for non-tech users. Providing a clear introduction and hands-on experience by building example use cases and personal projects. No previous knowledge will be required.

[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] Please provide here more information on the open source status of your project outputs

Project will be fully open source.

Apache 2.0, MIT License https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution.

Marlowe is a ground-breaking tool in the user experience it brings to Cardano. Especially for something as Smart Contract development, that can be seen as a huge difficulty for projects to overcome in developing. Marlowe shines in enabling non-tech builders to access a robust Smart Contract technology [for prototyping or cost-effective].

However, a very small number of developers from learning/developing communities (e.g. Gimbalabs) are truly familiar with Marlowe, and seriously consider it when planning a project.

This is due to lack of familiarity with the technology and lack of proximity with communities that are Marlowe-centric and available to support.

We propose to run cohorts of online workshop-based courses that will provide a space to experiment with Marlowe and get to know it using terminology relatable from our daily lives. Demystifying acronyms and initial concepts to common sense language, while extending options to learn more.

We will reach out to teaching communities and web2 or web3 development entities from other blockchains, to promote that they come build in a simpler way. Also there are many financial and business areas where although a specialist of that area won’t be single-handedly taking a solution to production, they can greatly benefit of Marlowe for prototyping use cases on the Marlowe Playground

We will go over real use cases, discuss possibilities and even debate with guest lecturers from the IOG Marlowe team, who are available to support and discuss with our learners.

The results of our workshops will be fully shared for other to learn on their own time, plus learner project debriefs depublished as blog posts for easy reference and to build upon.

Existing proof of Concept

https://linktr.ee/cardanofornontechs

"Cardano for non-techs" ran for five months and touched some 30 learners and teachers. We had close to 30 diverse sessions with different ENG and PT learners. It left resources on Youtube, Miro, Sheets and Docs (linked to in the linktree above) and gave me (who already had a trainer background) a nice prototype experiment about teaching Cardano in a grassroots way.

Cardano for non-technical people - Main English Cohort

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW67rVVWg6dVjWr-hlr5BJZG5CFWmomji

Cardano for non-technical people - English Cohort 2

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW67rVVWg6dVAMF4yrQENGCRus2GPzURl

Cardano para não técnicos - Portuguese Cohort

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW67rVVWg6dXdB0Tn-jwPPza4FP99QbaC

Cardano for non-technical people - Facilitator sessions - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW67rVVWg6dXpYIygkjoPSR0PdOms37p7

The "Cardano 4 non-techs" initiative also spun off a Spanish version "Cardano sin tecnicismos" where Roberto expanded his prototype to having a Website and other resources. I'm adding Roberto as a co-proposer now. So this also serves as a POC, as we'll be teaming up for the current proposal.

https://cardano-sin-tecnicismos.netlify.app/

https://cardanosintecnicismos.substack.com/p/stake-pools-en-espanol

https://linktr.ee/cardanosintecnicismos

https://twitter.com/cardano_st

https://forum.cardano.org/t/cardano-sin-tecnicismos-un-podcast-de-cardano-descentralizacion-total/109698

"Marlowe 4 non-techs" (this proposal) will be a much more groomed version of "Cardano 4 non-techs" starting from Cardano usage basics and expanding the users' knowledge and experimentation onto playing with Marlowe to understand Smart Contract workings and possible Use-cases.

It will provide a simpler and more acessible alternative to Emurgo Academy's Blockchain Business Consultant (select 'Business Stack'/'BCC' here).

Seing it as a groomed and serious product aimed at Small and Medium Businesses/Enterprises, I aimed this proposal at 'Solutions' and not 'Cardano Open'.

"Marlowe 4 non-techs" (this proposal) articulates with our proposal to build a website and other social/marketing/teaching resources, which will progress regardless of funding.

45B - Bring end-users and small businesses to Cardano: https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/114561

Also, resources will be published in a Docusaurus or similar website format (e.g. this that I currently collaborate in maintaining)

Although he's not participating in the project, we are also touching base with Brian Bush from the Marlowe team for some orientation/review.

[IMPACT] Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community.

This proposal will make it easier for people specialized in finance, business, logistics, and other non-technical backgrounds to create smart contracts. By creating content tailored to them, we increase adoption and lower the barrier of entry to work with Cardano.

Our documented an collaborative workshops approach will yield educational material for future Marlowe users.

The promotion and running of this will foster relationships between communities and businesses.

[CAPABILITY & FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?

45B’s Pedro Lucas is an experienced trainer with 20y in IT and 10y as a Technical Business Analyst (bridging technical and non-technical teams). He ran Cardano for non-techs workshops weekly for five months (detailed above), onboarding end-users to Cardano and experimented with bridging that format to Portuguese. The initiative also resulted in a Cardano Sin Tecnisismos spin-off to Spanish, by Roberto Mayen, who is a co-proposer and will be collaborating to deliver this proposal.

The goal of this project is not to dive into the technicalities of end-to-end taking a Marlowe solution to Production, but on the contrary to take builders through a use case approach of understanding the flow of events that happen in simple Smart Contract use cases. We have the ideal team to keep things at this level with accessible language.

This proposal will include limited advisory and mentorship from the IOG Marlowe team. Furthermore we will articulate with Gimbalabs for any technical support, plus Cardano Beam developers, who have hands-on experience with Marlowe.

[Project Milestones] What are the key milestones you need to achieve in order to complete your project successfully?

Stage 1: Promotion and gathering sign-ups - 1 month

• Identify communities in Cardano and elsewhere to captivate for this training
• Development organizations developing Web2 financial/business solutions
• Communities teaching the development of smart contracts through other languages
• Organize a workgroup and coordinate session timings

Stage 2: Workshops for background knowledge leveling - 3 sessions

• Review or introduce Cardano Concepts 
• E.g. Wallets, transactions, UTxOs
• Practical Blockchain concepts
• E.g. Blocks, Staking, Confirmations
• Using dApps and other tools and aspects
• E.g. Hands on experimentation, knowing NFTs
• Time for questions, experimentation, and catching up with each other

Stage 3: Introduction to Marlowe - 2 sessions

• Function on Smart Contracts in dApps
• Understanding Payment vs Contract addresses by using them
• Marlowe vs the typical solutions
• Playground vs IDE
• Easy UI to simulate running contracts
• Marlowe Playground tutorials by IOG Marlowe team
• Contents from IOG documentation "Marlowe Playground tutorials” https://docs.marlowe.iohk.io/tutorials/videos#marlowe-playground-tutorials
• Playground, Blockly, Main tools, First contact and your first contract
• Time for questions, experimentation, and catching up with each other

Stage 4: Deconstructing Marlowe use cases - 5 sessions

• Marlowe: Financial contracts on blockchain
• Contents from https://docs.marlowe.iohk.io/tutorials/videos#marlowe-financial-contracts-on-blockchain
• [some practical examples to select]
• Learning by doing and exploring
• Running the examples hands-on
• Deconstructing the observed examples and documenting them with flow diagrams
• Time for questions, experimentation, and catching up with each other
• Learners will be incentivized to experiment tweaking and building asynchronously
• Guest lecturer to discuss building Financial use cases 

Stage 5: Building a use case together - 2 session

• An example will be provided and built with cycles of discussion and hands-on

Stage 6: Prototyping your own idea - 6 sessions

• Discuss learners ideas for projects to build; Distribute a diverse set of projects, possibly team up some learners
• Wireframe ideas, drafting flow diagrams, presenting and discussing with the group
• Sessions where learners are invited to build asynchronous and we focus on one project per session
• Final project presentations by each learner/team; Using each other’s prototypes
• Guest lecturer from the IOG Marlowe team to openly discuss learnings and possibilities

[RESOURCES] Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

Trainer for English and Portuguese cohorts

Pedro Lucas - Technical Business Analyst - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pedrohlucas/

Maestro Developer Experience, BizDez;

Pedro Lucas has over 20y experience in IT. Working as a Technical Business Analyst in Business Process Management and Decision support DataViz solutions in Finance and Banking. He has been in Crypto for 3y and 100% dedicated to Cardano communities and technology for almost 2y. Pedro has helped in Gimbalabs, amongst other communities, created and ran 'Cardano for non-techs' workshop sessions, and now collaborates with Maestro focusing on Developer Experience and Business Development.

[BUDGET & COSTS] Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources.

Promotion, content and administrative time

$45/hr x 30hrs x 5 cohorts = $6 750

Workshop sessions time

$60/hr x 18 sessions x 1,5hr/session x 5 cohorts = $8 100

Total $14 850 at $0.30/ADA = 49 500 ADA

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

There is a huge potential in proving that Marlowe is something unique for the development of web3 solutions. Facilitating the greater adoption of Marlowe with this kind of trainings will represent planting seeds in whole industries and for example the finance sector, where usually the professionals that understand processes would not dare pick up coding their automation themselves.

The training budget is according to or bellow standard rates for specialized trainers in Europe or the USA.

[IMPORTANT NOTE] The Applicant agrees to Fund 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