University Students Collective for Cardano

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Benjamin Ben Zvi

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

Individual

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

10

[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)

A collaborative space for projects about students/universities. By sharing material, experiences, best practices, challenges, we will maximise chances for onboarding/retaining students & universities.

[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

All information will be recorded and accessible to the community

[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution.

Through the Catalyst funds there were many initiatives dedicated to promoting Cardano to Universities and to students. In Fund 9 and fund 10 there were dedicated challenges for students.

In Fund 9 there were 15 funded proposals: F9: Challenge & Scouted for Students🎓 | Project Catalyst at the Students challenge 

In Fund 10, 63 proposals were suggested and 13 were funded in F10: Startups & Onboarding for Students | Project Catalyst.

In Lidonation.com if you search for "students" in the proposals sections, the results show 245 approved proposals and 136 completed. If you search for "University" there are 342 funded proposals and 191 approved.

Very significant numbers that show the interest of the ecosystem in student engagements.  

This results in 10s of activities by various teams around the world creating materials and approaching universities. This is done in Silos.

The opportunity is to create a collaborative space to meet on a regular basis and enable a space to share resources, learning and best practices.

This collective could also then promote key activities around the Catalyst and Cardano solution and create joint initiatives. For example promoting Cardano Academy by CF to universities. 

The format will include 2 meetings per month, shared social network channels, shared space for resources.  

The meetup be in the following initial format (and it will be adapted as we progress)

• Welcome & connect
• Updates 
• Shared info - PPT, by one or two of the projects or guest speakers i.e. CF academy
• Ideas & Suggestions (could be also in breakout rooms)
• Sharing Telegram groups, Instagram
• Closing       

We will aim to have a diverse group of people from different countries and languages 

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

Working in collaboration will have many benefits to the ecosystem

• Support all initiatives aiming at universities for funded proposal as well as the ecosystem
• Information and best practices sharing
• Improving resources
• Through the work onboarding more students as well as universities 
• A decentralised way to onboard students and Uni to Cardano
• Open space for new students to join the session and get hooked to Cardano
• Together it will be easier to collaborate with student associations

[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?

We are students in different universities and in different countries

Benjamin:

Student in a Business school in France, doing a Bachelor in International Business. 

Did an exchange with the City University of Hong Kong for one semester and met a lot of students from around the world.

Already has some funded projects about students and universities on fund 9 and participated in Fund 10.

Part of students association

Support to other students related initiatives and supporting goodwall work (link) and WADA for french market

Registered to be a Found 11 reviewer.

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/benjamin-ben-zvi

Anna:

Student in International Business Management based in Barcelona.

Part of the student association, a Finance think tank group.

President of the Basketball school association.

Presenting a project on promoting Catalyst within 5000 student community in English and French.

Registered to be a Found 11 reviewer.

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/anna-ben-zvi-7b1b43297

Both applicants are fluent in 4 languages:

French, Spanish, English, Hebrew and have understanding of Italian, German and Mandarin.

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

(February - March) - setting

• Open social network spaces
• Create guidelines & format for meetings
• Prepare a list of funded relevant proposals
• Reach out and coordinate with proposals to join the program and share materials
• preparation and performance of the first United Uni meetup
• Incentive participation in meetups

(April - June) - meetups 

• 6 bi monthly 90 min meetups
• Ongoing updated list of resources & initiatives
• Coordinate social platforms
• Incentive participation in meetups

(July-August) - summer time 

• Key learning from milestone 2 and suggested improvements for next Uni year starting in September
• Ongoing updated list of resources & initiatives
• Coordinate social platforms
• 1 monthly meetup
• Incentive participation in meetups

(September - December) - Meetups phase 2 

• Overall 6, 90 min meetups
• Ongoing updated list of resources & initiatives
• Coordinate social platforms
• Incentive Participation in meetups

(January 2025) summary and reports

• Final reports 
• Closing report and video

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

Benjamin Ben Zvi: focus on the French speaking community material and collaboration, as well as communities and projects in all other languages and geographical distribution except for English.

Linkedin: Benjamin Ben Zvi | LinkedIn

Benjamin is a 3rd year University business student that is interested in Blockchain and Cardano. Benjamin already participated in previous funds.

In fund 8 helped to do the marketing and admin for an art project and got 3 funded proposals on fund 9 based on the education of students about Blockchain, and especially, Cardano and Catalyst.

Here is a link to the closing report and closing video of the proposals.

https://projectcatalyst.io/funds/9/f9-challenge-and-scouted-for-students/aloha-for-cardano  

https://projectcatalyst.io/funds/9/f9-challenge-and-scouted-for-students/catalyst-tournament

https://projectcatalyst.io/funds/9/f9-challenge-and-scouted-for-students/international-students-for-cardano

Anna Ben Zvi: focus on the English speaking community material and collaboration.

Linkedin: Anna Ben Zvi | LinkedIn

Currently student in TBS education Barcelona campus ; active member of the financial club of the school ; delegate of my group.

Registered to be a Found 11 reviewer.

Anna also has a second proposal for fund 11 Initiation to Cardano for international students where she will work in collaboration with the University to present Cardano in 4 campuses.

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

The budget will include two key categories:

The first category will include facilitation of the group, meetups, social network and the work committed in the milestones. This will be conducted by the project team as well as any support team members that will be added based on needs and engagement.

The second category is incentive dedicated for the students/project owners for being active participants in the meetings and sharing the information & resources they have with the group. We will facilitate this incentive in a transparent way and use it for collaborative efforts. For the proposal we estimated based on the number of active participants. Any gap will be used to incentivise collaboration. 

Milestone 1 (February - March) - setting

• Open social network spaces: 2 hours 
• Create guidelines & format for meetings: 2 hours 
• Prepare a list of funded relevant proposals: 10 hours
• Reach out and coordinate with proposals to join the program and share materials: 40 hours
• preparation and performance of the first United Uni meetup: 5 x 2 people = 10 hours
• Incentive participation per meetup 500 ADA (estimated to be divided by up to 10 participants)

Total team: 64 hours x 50 ADA = 3250 ADA

Incentive participation: 500 ADA

Total Milestone 1: 3750 ADA

Milestone 2 (April - June) - meetups 

• 6 bi monthly 90 min meetups: 5 hours x 6 meetups x 2 people = 60 hours
• Ongoing updated list of resources & initiatives = 20 hours/month x 3 months = 60 hours
• Coordinate social platforms = 15 hours/month x 3 months = 45 hours
• Incentive participation per meetup 500 ADA (estimated to be divided by up to 10 participants) x 6 meetups 

Total team: 165 hours x 50 ADA = 8250 ADA

Incentive participation: 3000 ADA

Total Milestone 2: 11250 ADA

Milestone 3 (July-August) - summer time 

• Key learning from milestone 2 and suggested improvements for next Uni year starting in September = 20 hours
• Ongoing updated list of resources & initiatives = 10 hours/month x 2 months = 20 hours
• Coordinate social platforms = 8 hours/month x 2 months = 16 hours
• 1 monthly meetup = 2 meetups x 5 hours x 2 people = 20 hours
• Incentive participation per meetup 500 ADA (estimated to be divided by up to 10 participants) x 2 meetups 

Total team: 76 hours x 50 ADA = 3800 ADA

Incentive participation: 1000 ADA

Total Milestone 3: 4800 ADA

Milestone 4, (September - December) - Meetups phase 2 

• Overall 6, 90 min meetups: 5 hours x 6 meetups x 2 people = 60 hours
• Ongoing updated list of resources & initiatives = 20 hours/month x 4 months = 80 hours
• Coordinate social platforms = 15 hours/month x 4 months = 60 hours
• Incentive participation per meetup 1000 ADA (estimated to be divided by up to 20 participants) x 6 meetups 

Total team: 200 hours x 50 ADA = 10000 ADA

Incentive participation: 6000ADA

Total Milestone 4: 1600 ADA

Final Milestone (January 2025) summary and reports

• Final reports including = 20 hours  
• Closing report and video = 4 hours

Total team: 24 hours x 50 ADA = 1200 ADA

Total team: 25500 ADA over 10 months

Total Incentives: 10500 ADA 

Admin and others: 3000 ADA (i.e. Zoom, treasury support...)

Total Project budget: 39000 ADA

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

There are 100s of projects on Catalyst related to students and universities and there will probably be many more in the future. Coordinating between the teams and work will help the ecosystem as a all to be more efficient and share resources and best practices.

We designed the proposal to last through 2024 to build a good base for collaboration over the year. This project budget is 4000 ADA per month through the year while 25% will be to incentivise collaboration and participation between other teams.

The work of this proposal could serve all the ecosystem approaching students and universities as all info will be available. It puts together all the resources in one place and helps to develop best practices for students' engagement and engagement with Universities.

We see it also as a great opportunity for the companies operating in the ecosystem to connect with students and create synergies with students and universities. A simple example could be working with CF to promote CF academy to Universities.

Multi language could also be an important success factor for this proposal as it will support the work done by proposers worldwide

This project will serve as a base for collaborative approach to promote Cardano to universities and students around the world

[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