Decentralized Escrow and Dispute Resolution

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Seira Yun

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

Entity (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)

A community-managed decentralized system for escrow and dispute resolution services can protect remote developers and hiring organizations with a fair process and lower fees.

[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

Our project is proudly open source, licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 (GPLv3). This license allows others to freely use, modify, and distribute our code, under the condition that any derivative work will also be open source under the GPLv3. This fosters collaboration and community-driven development, as it encourages other developers to contribute to our project, or to use our code as a starting point for their own projects, thus driving innovation in the sector.

By making our project open source, we aim to contribute to the global movement of shared knowledge and collaborative problem solving. This approach ensures transparency, promotes the sharing of knowledge, and encourages a collective approach to addressing the challenges associated with the impact job sector. Ultimately, we believe that open-sourcing our project will lead to a more robust, efficient, and impactful solution, thanks to the contributions of the global developer community.

[METADATA] SDG rating

The project contributes to the following Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):

1. SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth - This project directly addresses SDG 8 by fostering a fair and secure platform for full and productive employment

• 8.5: The initiative supports the objective of achieving full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women, men, young people, and persons with disabilities, ensuring equal pay for work of equal value.
• 8.6: By creating a trusted platform where remote work is available, it can contribute to reducing the proportion of youth not in employment, education, or training.

2. SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure - By pioneering a decentralized escrow mechanism, the project advances inclusive and sustainable industrialization, fostering innovation in the digital work landscape.

3. SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities - The project empowers individuals by decentralizing decision-making and ensuring equal opportunities to participate in this process, thereby reducing inequalities.

4. SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions - By establishing fair procedures for dispute resolution and a transparent decision-making process, the project fosters the development of effective, accountable, and transparent institutions.

5. SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals - Socious aligns with SDG 17 by facilitating collaboration between organizations, remote workers, and community experts. This fosters a global partnership for sustainable development. Specifically, it relates to Indicator 17.17.1 by committing funds to public-private and civil society partnerships.

In addition, Socious commits more financial and human resources to impact organizations, thus accelerating social and environmental impact. They monitor this through specific indicators, including the amount of money donated to impact organizations, the number of organizations that received donations, contributions in time/skills, and the number of people who contributed their time/skills.

Socious's novel approach of fostering a virtuous circle of giving, giving back, and paying forward through THANK tokens also indirectly contributes to the well-being and happiness of its users. They monitor the impact of this aspect through the frequency and amount of THANK tokens transferred as signs of gratitude.

In conclusion, Socious's vision of building an impactful ecosystem has the potential to significantly contribute to various SDGs and accelerate social and environmental impact on a global scale.

[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution.

Our proposed solution addresses a persistent issue in the remote work landscape: disputes arising from direct work contracts between organizations and remote developers. Problems often surface as delayed payments or incomplete deliverables. This issue has significant implications, as a survey by the Independent Economy Council shows that 74% of respondents experienced delayed payments, and 59% are owed $50,000 or more for completed work.

Currently, escrow services offer a buffer to these issues, securing payment and protecting both remote developers and hiring organizations. However, these centralized services, such as Fiverr, tend to be expensive, with commission fees reaching up to 25%, and maintain total control over the dispute resolution process. Our unique approach challenges this status quo by decentralizing escrow services, thereby reducing costs and ensuring a fair dispute settlement process.

Socious will significantly impact two primary stakeholders: remote developers and hiring organizations. The platform's design encompasses three core benefits:

1. Decentralized decision-making: Socious champions community-wide decision-making, utilizing on-chain governance processes and its unique "Socious Experts Certificates". These credentials, issued only to individuals with an impact score above 700, are non-transferable, ensuring that governance power is widespread and held by informed decision-makers. The Socious Experts become the decision-makers in dispute resolution, motivated to make impartial and fair decisions due to their active involvement in the Socious platform.

Every "Socious Expert Certificate" serves as a dynamic record of a user's passions and proficiency in distinct social and environmental issues, tailored by their actions within the Socious app. The certificate's influence, in terms of voting power, is calibrated according to the user's interests and proficiency relevant to the matter at hand. To illustrate, if a vote is required to allocate treasury funds for an open-source project aimed at combatting climate change, the ballots of Socious Experts who have invested their resources - time, expertise, and finances - into environmental projects would be given proportional weightage.

The role of Socious Experts extends to mediating dispute resolutions between organizations and their contracted remote developers. Unlike centralized platforms, where decision-making rests with the platform owners, potentially raising concerns of censorship and bias, Socious ensures democratic decision-making facilitated by a selected panel of three Socious Experts. In a scenario where a developer has completed their assignment and provided the code, but the hiring organization disputes the completion and withholds the escrow funds, the developer has the opportunity to submit a dispute. An agreement by both parties to disclose specific information to a panel of three Socious Experts helps facilitate the process. To initiate a dispute, each party stakes a designated quantity of tokens as dispute settlement fees. The party whose claim is upheld will receive their staked tokens along with the refund/payment, whereas the unsuccessful party forfeits their staked tokens, which will be awarded to the adjudicating experts.

The Socious Expert status is exclusively available to individuals demonstrating active use and contributions to the Socious platform, inherently instilling a commitment to fair and unbiased decisions. This prerequisite ensures a network of trusted experts working towards the collective good of the platform and its users.

2. Automated payment: Socious' decentralized escrow mechanism includes an automated payment system implemented via smart contracts. The agreed-upon amount is transferred to an escrow wallet once the project status turns to “hired”. The organization can't move the asset, and upon project completion, the funds automatically transfer to the freelancer. If a project is canceled, the funds are automatically returned to the organization.

3. Cheaper fees: The use of blockchain technology for payments eliminates third-party fees often seen on centralized platforms. Also, community members handle dispute resolution, significantly reducing the operational cost associated with it. While centralized platforms charge 25%, Socious only charges 7%*.

This solution is uniquely relevant to Cardano, as it leverages the power of blockchain to build a community-oriented platform. It aligns with Cardano's commitment to developing decentralized solutions and fostering innovation in the industry.

As the escrow mechanism project has already been successfully funded and completed in the Catalyst Fund 9 Developer Ecosystem Challenge, our focus now lies in decentralizing the dispute resolution process, thereby allowing community members to make decisions rather than the central Socious team. The aim is to create an ecosystem that genuinely values and implements community decision-making. Our solution's impact will be demonstrable by the increased resolution of disputes and the cost-effective, streamlined experience for both hiring organizations and remote developers.

The escrow smart contracts have been developed and deployed to Mainnet. You can find the open-source smart contracts here: https://github.com/socious-io/socious-smart-contracts/blob/main/contracts/Escrow.sol.

To see a product demo, click here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sY-AF3DPxq6fiVHVN2kw_qP1xB72Eog7/view?usp=sharing

For step-by-step tutorials, visit: https://socious.notion.site/Socious-Mastery-Guide-ae3745be82ad4845b6e1521694fa5ed8?pvs=4

If you would like to test the escrow smart contracts, please follow these instructions: https://socious.notion.site/Socious-Step-by-step-Guide-for-Beta-Testers-b0da1432dd254888a6438fdbb3bebe6f?pvs=4

For verified impact organizations. To see the details of pricing information visit: https://socious.io/fees

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

Our Project's Contribution: Our solution directly addresses key challenges within the Cardano ecosystem, significantly enriching it by:

• Enhancing the developer experience through secure, timely payments and an effective escrow service. This reduces financial uncertainties, allowing developers to focus on creating innovative applications on Cardano.
• Attracting external developers with incentivization structures like impact scores and THANK tokens, thus expanding the Cardano developer community.
• Implementing support and collaborative structures through our decentralized escrow system, encouraging a nurturing environment for both developers and organizations.
• Promoting open-source projects within Cardano, in line with our ethos as an open-source initiative since inception.

Impact Measurement: To measure our impact, we will use quantitative metrics:

• Tracking the increase in the number of registered users on Socious,
• Tracking the increase in the number of transactions on the escrow smart contracts

Sharing Outputs and Opportunities: We will share the outputs and opportunities of our project through the following methods:

• During and after the completion of the project, we plan to spread its outputs. This will include providing monthly and milestone reports, as well as regular town hall meetings.
• We will share information about the project's outputs, impact, and opportunities with community members. The close-out report and video will be publicly available on YouTube. Additionally, we will share updates on our website and social media platforms. Work opportunities for Cardano developers will be listed on our Socious platform, which is a talent marketplace.
• Since Socious is an open-source project, our code base is publicly available on our GitHub page. Cardano developers are encouraged to fork and use it for other projects.
• To further our development activities, we will utilize the escrow protection and dispute settlement features to hire more developers.
• We will also engage with the community through community forums and social media platforms, providing regular updates and insights.

Success Stories: Our platform has already demonstrated its utility and impact:

• Over 6,600 registered users, including a significant number of new developers to Cardano.
• Successful connections and contract management for projects funded in Fund 9 and Fund 10, as evidenced by our engagement in these initiatives:
• Fund 9: https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/64454
• Fund 10: [https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/107678;](https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/107678) https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/107231

In conclusion, our project not only promises an increased adoption of the Cardano platform but also fosters a vibrant, collaborative community, driving open-source innovation and growth within the ecosystem.

[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?

Our team is aptly suited and equipped to successfully deliver this project. We possess the requisite capabilities that uniquely position us to execute this project to high standards of trust and accountability.

Socious is a fast-growing impact startup that provides a talent marketplace, making impact work accessible and transparent. We connect purpose-driven professionals with impact organizations through AI matching. We use blockchain to trace impact work and reward contributions.

Socious is supported by 500Global, Microsoft, and Milkomeda Foundation. Our platform lists over 80k jobs, 24k organizations, and has 6.6k registered users. Our team consists of experts in impact measurement, finance, data science, and blockchain development.

Socious has extensive experience in the Cardano ecosystem, having successfully completed five Catalyst-funded projects in Fund 9 and two ongoing projects in Fund 10.

Our team members include:

• Seira Yun

Title: Founder and CEO

Role: Product Ownership, Project Management, Research

Commitment: Full-time

Linkedin:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/seirayun/

Bio: Seira Yun is the Founder and CEO of Socious.io, a talent marketplace that makes impact work accessible and transparent. Socious connects purpose-driven professionals with impact organizations through AI matching, and uses blockchain to trace impact work and reward contributions.

Seira is a serial impact entrepreneur with years of experience in the sector. He has led teams within the ICRC, UNHCR, and social ventures. Drawing from personal experiences as a migrant, an autistic person, and a proud pansexual queer, Seira is driven to make the world a better place through social innovation. As a full-stack developer with a Master's in Social Innovation from the University of Cambridge, he enjoys blending technology with purpose. Seira is also an impact angel investor, a member of Hustle Fund's Angel Squad, and a mentor for 4WARD.VC's Climate Accelerator. When not working, he enjoys shooting hoops, running, reading, spending quality time with the kids, or embracing the adventure of getting lost during travels. He is also a long-term member of the Cardano community; he’s won and managed five Catalyst projects and has completed Atala PRISM Pioneer Program.

• Minh Douangprachanh

Title: Lead Designer

Role: Design

Commitment: Full-time

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michel-douang/

Bio: With more than a decade of experience specializing in product design, Minh is a multidisciplinary artist who has always believed art has a language of its own. As a neurodiverse individual, Minh is passionate about helping people and creating sustainable and inclusive solutions.

• Ehsan Mahmoudi

Title: Lead Developer

Role: Backend/Blockchain/AI Engineering

Commitment: Full-time

LinkedIn:

https://linkedin.com/in/ehsan-mahmoudi-611123b8/

Bio: More than 8 years of experience in Python and Machine Learning as well as extensive experience in blockchain development. Ehsan has worked for global startups including Rechat, AEC, and Navaak.

• Iman Rezasefat

Title: Senior Frontend Developer

Role: Frontend Development

Commitment: Full-time

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iman-rezasefat-001988121/

Bio: An experienced frontend developer with 7+ years of experience.

• Marjan Arami

Title: Senior Frontend Developer

Role: Frontend Development

Commitment: Full-time

Bio: An experienced frontend developer with 10+ years of experience.

• Azin Zare

Title: QA Engineer

Role: Quality Assurance

Commitment: Full-time

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/azin-zare-355a27179/

Bio: An experienced QA engineer with 9+ years of experience.

• Madi Lommen

Title: Advisor

Role: Project Management, Research

Commitment: Part-time

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/madi-lommen-394940b0/

Bio: Madi has 10+ years experience in social entrepreneurship, impact investing, and partnership building. Madi is passionate about interdisciplinary learning / problem-solving that leverages entrepreneurship and multilingual teamwork for community development. In recent years, she founded Madibanani Co. to champion refugee youth, designed a data collection program on the Jordan-Syrian border, and coordinated military-like training for Emergency & Disaster volunteers of La Cruz Roja (Red Cross) in Ecuador. After completing a thesis on medieval Arabic poetry at Yale-NUS College in Singapore, she worked with a network of angel investors scaling women-led SMEs tackling poverty in Southeast Asia. She has experience working in four languages (English, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese) and has lived in Singapore, Jordan, Ecuador, the UK, South Africa, the USA, and Japan.

• Raphael Hode

Title: Design Advisor

Role Design Direction

Commitment: Part-time

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raphaelhode/

Bio: Raphael is a Strategic Designer with a passion for social innovation and sustainability. After a few years in advertising agencies in Paris, Raphael moved to Tokyo in 2015 and joined Designit, a global strategic design firm. At Designit Raphael worked on growing a team and helping some of Japan’s most ambitious companies make innovation happen, leading him to endorse a variety of roles across UX design, service design, business design, and strategy.

In parallel, he has been passionately engaging in activities related to sustainability and social innovation: giving talks and workshops, mentoring early-stage social founders, and eventually co-founding a social venture. Today, he spends most of his time working with incredible social entrepreneurs to help them define, design, and launch visionary products that contribute to creating a more sustainable society.

To supplement our core team, we maintain a reserve of skilled freelancers, ready to contribute at short notice. Our talent marketplace, Socious, is a hub for over 6,600 individuals, many of whom could potentially assist in this project, if required.

Our ability to deliver is not just theoretical but backed by an impressive track record. We have successfully completed five distinct Catalyst projects funded in Fund 9, all within the projected timelines and budget. These accomplishments bear testament to our capabilities and our commitment to deliver projects as proposed.

The Fund 9 projects we’ve completed are as follows:

1. Recognize Impact through DIDs https://projectcatalyst.io/funds/9/f9-dapps-products-and-integrations/recognize-impact-through-dids
2. Atala Integration with Milkomeda https://projectcatalyst.io/funds/9/f9-dapps-products-and-integrations/atala-integration-with-milkomeda
3. Decentralized Escrow for Remote Job https://projectcatalyst.io/funds/9/f9-developer-ecosystem/decentralized-escrow-for-remote-job
4. Impact lending for the unbanked https://projectcatalyst.io/funds/9/f9-dapps-products-and-integrations/impact-lending-for-the-unbanked
5. Scoring Social/Environmental Impact https://projectcatalyst.io/funds/9/f9-catalyst-natives-x-cardashift-demonstrating-and-monetizing-impact/scoring-socialenvironmental-impact

We’ve also been funded two projects in Fund 10:

1. Work History as Verifiable Credentials https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/102247
2. Decentralized Referral System for DAOs https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/103005

The trustworthiness in our fund management processes is grounded in our serious adherence to legal and financial compliance. Each transaction conducted is meticulously documented with tangible evidence and audited internally for accuracy. To bolster our commitment to financial transparency, we have established collaborations with external accounting firms that assure compliance. Our Japanese entity works with Tatsumi Accounting Firm (https://kessan-online.jp/company), while our Singaporean entity partners with BBCIncorp (https://bbcincorp.com/offshore/accounting-and-auditing).

Additionally, we liaise with an external law firm, Enlighten Law Group (https://www.enlightenlaw.com/), to ensure full legal compliance. This meticulous, multilayered approach to fund management reflects our dedication to maintaining high levels of trust and accountability.

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

Title: Market and Technical Research

Outputs

Milestone 1 includes the following key activities:

• Conduct a literature review of the issue.
• Perform a market analysis.
• Conduct a competitor analysis.
• Conduct interviews with stakeholders and analyze them (recording dates and timestamps).
• Conduct research on technical aspects of the project.
• Develop a detailed plan of action for the project.
• Draft a technical and market research paper summarizing the findings above.

Acceptance criteria

The market and technical research paper is finalized and published on Notion. It is accessible for community review.

The research paper includes the following content: ****

• Literature review
• Market analysis
• Competitor analysis
• Interviews with stakeholders and their analysis (including dates and timestamps)
• Technical aspects of the project
• Detailed action plans for the project

Evidence of Milestone completion

Community members can access the market and technical research paper to find the following content:

• Literature review
• Market analysis
• Competitor analysis
• Interviews with stakeholders and their analysis (including dates and timestamps)
• Technical aspects of the project
• Detailed action plans for the project

Expected timeline for the delivery

Month 2

Cost

46,486 ADA

% Completion

15%

Title: UI/UX Research

Outputs

Milestone 2 includes the following key activities:

1. Based on the market and research paper, brainstorm and Ideate
2. Create prototypes for user research
3. Conduct user research using the prototypes
4. Compile and analyze the findings
5. Iterate the design and repeat Step 3 and 4.
6. Finalize the UI/UX design
7. Consult with the developers to decide on the technical architecture based on the design

These steps will results in a finalized UI/UX Research Paper.

Acceptance criteria

The following three items will be publicly available for the reviewers.

1. An UI/UX Research Paper on Notion
2. A user story board on Miro
3. A prototype on Figma

1 The UI/UX Research Paper includes

• Details of the user interviews
• Analyses of the findings

2 The user story board on Miro will have the detailed user flow of the following user stories:

• As a user (both hiring organization and freelancer), I can initiate a dispute settlement mechanism by staking assets
• The Socious app randomly selects three Socious Experts to serve as judges on the case
• The chosen judges can make decisions on how to allocate the escrow funds (either to freelancer or hiring organization).
• Based on the judges’ decision, the smart contract executes and releases the escrow funds to the winner.
• The three judges receive the loser’s staked assets as dispute settlement fees.

3 The prototype on Figma will include interactions that reviewers can click on to view how the app behaves.

Evidence of Milestone completion

The following three items will be publicly available for the reviewers.

1. An UI/UX Research Paper on Notion
2. A user story board on Miro
3. A prototype on Figma

1 The UI/UX Research Paper includes

• Details of the user interviews
• Analyses of the findings

2 The user story board on Miro will have the detailed user flow of the following user stories:

• As a user (both hiring organization and freelancer), I can initiate a dispute settlement mechanism by staking assets
• The Socious app randomly selects three Socious Experts to serve as judges on the case
• The chosen judges can make decisions on how to allocate the escrow funds (either to freelancer or hiring organization).
• Based on the judges’ decision, the smart contract executes and releases the escrow funds to the winner.
• The three judges receive the loser’s staked assets as dispute settlement fees.

3 The prototype on Figma will include interactions that reviewers can click on to view how the app behaves.

Expected timeline for the delivery

Month 4

Cost

55,135 ADA

% Completion

32%

Title: UI/UX Design

Outputs

Milestone 3 includes the following key activities:

1. Complete the production-ready design in Figma.
2. Film a video walk-through of the design.

These steps will result in a finalized, production-ready UI/UX design in Figma, along with a video walk-through.

The design will include the following user stories:

• As a user (both hiring organization and freelancer), I can initiate a dispute settlement mechanism by staking assets
• The Socious app randomly selects three Socious Experts to serve as judges on the case
• The chosen judges can make decisions on how to allocate the escrow funds (either to freelancer or hiring organization).
• Based on the judges’ decision, the smart contract executes and releases the escrow funds to the winner.
• The three judges receive the loser’s staked assets as dispute settlement fees.

The Figma file will be published and made available for community review. Similarly, the video walk-through will be published on YouTube and made available to the community.

Acceptance criteria

The production-ready UI/UX design is finalized, published and is accessible to the community for review.

The design will include the following user stories:

• As a user (both hiring organization and freelancer), I can initiate a dispute settlement mechanism by staking assets
• The Socious app randomly selects three Socious Experts to serve as judges on the case
• The chosen judges can make decisions on how to allocate the escrow funds (either to freelancer or hiring organization).
• Based on the judges’ decision, the smart contract executes and releases the escrow funds to the winner.
• The three judges receive the loser’s staked assets as dispute settlement fees.

The finalized production-ready design will be handed over to the engineering team. “Production-ready” means that it doesn’t need more work from designers and is ready for the engineering team to turn the design into code.

The video walk-through will be published on YouTube and made available to the community.

Evidence of Milestone completion

The Figma files and the video walk-through are publicly available and community members are able to review them.

The design will include the following user stories:

• As a user (both hiring organization and freelancer), I can initiate a dispute settlement mechanism by staking assets
• The Socious app randomly selects three Socious Experts to serve as judges on the case
• The chosen judges can make decisions on how to allocate the escrow funds (either to freelancer or hiring organization).
• Based on the judges’ decision, the smart contract executes and releases the escrow funds to the winner.
• The three judges receive the loser’s staked assets as dispute settlement fees.

Expected timeline for the delivery

Month 6

Cost

29,189 ADA

% Completion

41%

Title: Backend and Blockchain Development

Outputs

Milestone 4 involves the following key activities:

• Sprint planning, which includes meetings with the Product Manager, designers, and developers. This includes writing tickets with specifications, assigning story points, and more.
• Backend development
• Blockchain development
• Unit testing
• Manual testing
• Bug fixes
• Deployment
• Documentation

These steps will allow us to develop the feature and make the GitHub repository (public) available to the community member.

Acceptance criteria

1. The community members can review the source code which will be available on GitHub (open source)

The code will include the Backend and Blockchain features for the following user stories:

• As a user (both hiring organization and freelancer), I can initiate a dispute settlement mechanism by staking assets
• The Socious app randomly selects three Socious Experts to serve as judges on the case
• The chosen judges can make decisions on how to allocate the escrow funds (either to freelancer or hiring organization).
• Based on the judges’ decision, the smart contract executes and releases the escrow funds to the winner.
• The three judges receive the loser’s staked assets as dispute settlement fees.

1. Community members can view the video walk-through of these functions on Youtube.

Evidence of Milestone completion

1. The community members can review the source code which will be available on GitHub (open source)

The code will include the Backend and Blockchain features for the following user stories:

• As a user (both hiring organization and freelancer), I can initiate a dispute settlement mechanism by staking assets
• The Socious app randomly selects three Socious Experts to serve as judges on the case
• The chosen judges can make decisions on how to allocate the escrow funds (either to freelancer or hiring organization).
• Based on the judges’ decision, the smart contract executes and releases the escrow funds to the winner.
• The three judges receive the loser’s staked assets as dispute settlement fees.

1. Community members can view the video walk-through of these functions on Youtube.

Expected timeline for the delivery

Month 8

Cost

50,811 ADA

% Completion

58%

Title: Frontend Development

Outputs

Milestone 5 involves the following key activities:

• Sprint planning, which includes meetings with the Product Manager, designers, and developers. This includes writing tickets with specifications, assigning story points, and more.
• Frontend development
• Unit testing
• Integration testing
• Manual testing
• End-to-end testing
• Bug fixes
• Deployment
• Documentation
• Film a product demo video

These steps will allow us to deploy the "decentralized dispute resolution" feature and produce a product demo video.

Acceptance criteria

Users can go through the “decentralized dispute settlement” feature on the Socious app. They include the following functions:

• As a user (both hiring organization and freelancer), I can initiate a dispute settlement mechanism by staking assets
• The Socious app randomly selects three Socious Experts to serve as judges on the case
• The chosen judges can make decisions on how to allocate the escrow funds (either to freelancer or hiring organization).
• Based on the judges’ decision, the smart contract executes and releases the escrow funds to the winner.
• The three judges receive the loser’s staked assets as dispute settlement fees.

1. The source code will be available on GitHub (open source)
2. These features will be published and available for the community members to go through the flow on the Socious app.
3. We will film a walk-through of these functions and publish the video on Youtube so that community members can access it.

NB: The aforementioned functions are subject to change, depending on the result of research in this project.

Evidence of Milestone completion

1. Community members can view the source code of the features on GitHub (open source). The code will include the Backend APIs for the following user stories:

• As a user (both hiring organization and freelancer), I can initiate a dispute settlement mechanism by staking assets
• The Socious app randomly selects three Socious Experts to serve as judges on the case
• The chosen judges can make decisions on how to allocate the escrow funds (either to freelancer or hiring organization).
• Based on the judges’ decision, the smart contract executes and releases the escrow funds to the winner.
• The three judges receive the loser’s staked assets as dispute settlement fees.

1. Community members can view the video walk-through of these functions on Youtube.

Expected timeline for the delivery

Month 10

Cost

87,568 ADA

% Completion

85%

Title: Marketing, user testing, data analysis and final report

Outputs

Final Milestone involves the following key activities:

• Marketing to a specific target audience
• Onboard users as beta testers
• Conduct user acceptance testing
• Analyze users’ feedback
• Bug fixes if necessary
• Draft a project close-out report
• Record a close-out video

These steps will produce two deliverables: a close-out report and a close-out video

Acceptance criteria

The following items are publicly available for the community to review.

• Project close-out report
• Project close-out video

In addition, the following functions will be available at https://app.socious.io

• As a user (both hiring organization and freelancer), I can initiate a dispute settlement mechanism by staking assets
• The Socious app randomly selects three Socious Experts to serve as judges on the case
• The chosen judges can make decisions on how to allocate the escrow funds (either to freelancer or hiring organization).
• Based on the judges’ decision, the smart contract executes and releases the escrow funds to the winner.
• The three judges receive the loser’s staked assets as dispute settlement fees.

Evidence of Milestone completion

Community members can access and review the project close-out report. The project close-out video is published on Youtube for the community to review.

In addition, the following functions will be available at https://app.socious.io

• As a user (both hiring organization and freelancer), I can initiate a dispute settlement mechanism by staking assets
• The Socious app randomly selects three Socious Experts to serve as judges on the case
• The chosen judges can make decisions on how to allocate the escrow funds (either to freelancer or hiring organization).
• Based on the judges’ decision, the smart contract executes and releases the escrow funds to the winner.
• The three judges receive the loser’s staked assets as dispute settlement fees.

Expected timeline for the delivery

Month 12

Cost

46,486 ADA

% Completion

100%

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

Socious is a fast-growing impact startup that provides a talent marketplace, making impact work accessible and transparent. We connect purpose-driven professionals with impact organizations through AI matching. We use blockchain to trace impact work and reward contributions.

Socious is supported by 500Global, Microsoft, and Milkomeda Foundation. Our platform lists over 80k jobs, 24k organizations, and has 6.6k registered users. Our team consists of experts in impact measurement, finance, data science, and blockchain development.

Socious has extensive experience in the Cardano ecosystem, having successfully completed five Catalyst-funded projects in Fund 9 and two ongoing projects in Fund 10.

Our team members include:

• Seira Yun

Title: Founder and CEO

Role: Product Ownership, Project Management, Research

Commitment: Full-time

Linkedin:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/seirayun/

Bio: Seira Yun is the Founder and CEO of Socious.io, a talent marketplace that makes impact work accessible and transparent. Socious connects purpose-driven professionals with impact organizations through AI matching, and uses blockchain to trace impact work and reward contributions.

Seira is a serial impact entrepreneur with years of experience in the sector. He has led teams within the ICRC, UNHCR, and social ventures. Drawing from personal experiences as a migrant, an autistic person, and a proud pansexual queer, Seira is driven to make the world a better place through social innovation. As a full-stack developer with a Master's in Social Innovation from the University of Cambridge, he enjoys blending technology with purpose. Seira is also an impact angel investor, a member of Hustle Fund's Angel Squad, and a mentor for 4WARD.VC's Climate Accelerator. When not working, he enjoys shooting hoops, running, reading, spending quality time with the kids, or embracing the adventure of getting lost during travels. He is also a long-term member of the Cardano community; he’s won and managed five Catalyst projects and has completed Atala PRISM Pioneer Program.

• Minh Douangprachanh

Title: Lead Designer

Role: Design

Commitment: Full-time

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michel-douang/

Bio: With more than a decade of experience specializing in product design, Minh is a multidisciplinary artist who has always believed art has a language of its own. As a neurodiverse individual, Minh is passionate about helping people and creating sustainable and inclusive solutions.

• Ehsan Mahmoudi

Title: Lead Developer

Role: Backend/Blockchain/AI Engineering

Commitment: Full-time

LinkedIn:

https://linkedin.com/in/ehsan-mahmoudi-611123b8/

Bio: More than 8 years of experience in Python and Machine Learning as well as extensive experience in blockchain development. Ehsan has worked for global startups including Rechat, AEC, and Navaak.

• Iman Rezasefat

Title: Senior Frontend Developer

Role: Frontend Development

Commitment: Full-time

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iman-rezasefat-001988121/

Bio: An experienced frontend developer with 7+ years of experience.

• Marjan Arami

Title: Senior Frontend Developer

Role: Frontend Development

Commitment: Full-time

Bio: An experienced frontend developer with 10+ years of experience.

• Azin Zare

Title: QA Engineer

Role: Quality Assurance

Commitment: Full-time

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/azin-zare-355a27179/

Bio: An experienced QA engineer with 9+ years of experience.

• Madi Lommen

Title: Advisor

Role: Project Management, Research

Commitment: Part-time

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/madi-lommen-394940b0/

Bio: Madi has 10+ years experience in social entrepreneurship, impact investing, and partnership building. Madi is passionate about interdisciplinary learning / problem-solving that leverages entrepreneurship and multilingual teamwork for community development. In recent years, she founded Madibanani Co. to champion refugee youth, designed a data collection program on the Jordan-Syrian border, and coordinated military-like training for Emergency & Disaster volunteers of La Cruz Roja (Red Cross) in Ecuador. After completing a thesis on medieval Arabic poetry at Yale-NUS College in Singapore, she worked with a network of angel investors scaling women-led SMEs tackling poverty in Southeast Asia. She has experience working in four languages (English, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese) and has lived in Singapore, Jordan, Ecuador, the UK, South Africa, the USA, and Japan.

• Raphael Hode

Title: Design Advisor

Role Design Direction

Commitment: Part-time

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raphaelhode/

Bio: Raphael is a Strategic Designer with a passion for social innovation and sustainability. After a few years in advertising agencies in Paris, Raphael moved to Tokyo in 2015 and joined Designit, a global strategic design firm. At Designit Raphael worked on growing a team and helping some of Japan’s most ambitious companies make innovation happen, leading him to endorse a variety of roles across UX design, service design, business design, and strategy.

In parallel, he has been passionately engaging in activities related to sustainability and social innovation: giving talks and workshops, mentoring early-stage social founders, and eventually co-founding a social venture. Today, he spends most of his time working with incredible social entrepreneurs to help them define, design, and launch visionary products that contribute to creating a more sustainable society.

To supplement our core team, we maintain a reserve of skilled freelancers, ready to contribute at short notice. Our talent marketplace, Socious, is a hub for over 6,600 individuals, many of whom could potentially assist in this project, if required.

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

Please find below a detailed breakdown of our budget, including the allocation of people and hours to each task. We have calculated the cost at $50 per person per hour. The current conversion rate for ADA-USD is 0.37 at the time of writing.

Executive summary:

Total Cost: 315,676 ADA ($115,600)

Milestone 1: 46,486 ADA ($17,200)

Milestone 2: 55,135 ADA ($20,400)

Milestone 3: 29,189 ADA ($10,800)

Milestone 4: 50,811 ADA ($17,600)

Milestone 5: 87,568 ADA ($32,400)

Final Milestone: 46,486 ADA ($17,200)

Please find the details of the breakdown here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TtzjiLL_t4vF1GIp0L-ss0nDaTpanut7kKQh1Glbq48/edit?usp=sharing

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

We believe that this project provides great value for money within the Cardano ecosystem.

First, Socious has already onboarded 6,600 individuals to the Cardano ecosystem. This new project has the potential to onboard even more.

Second, the average salaries of product designers ($72 per hour), developers ($68 per hour), and product managers ($65 per hour) are quite high. (See here for more details.) However, we budgeted salaries of $50 per hour.

Thirdly, every item on the budget breakdown is based on previous experience with similar projects. Therefore, we are confident that the number of people and hours required for this project are accurate.

Please find the breakdown details here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TtzjiLL_t4vF1GIp0L-ss0nDaTpanut7kKQh1Glbq48/edit?usp=sharing

[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