Lovelace Academy: Learn Platform

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Walker Leite

[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)

Guide programmers in developing real-world dApps with Cardano. Build the Learn Platform using video and written material on Plutus Experience 2.0 GitHub and bring community collaboration.

[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, we can use the actual content on PlutusExperience.

[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

MIT

[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution.

Besides Plutus Experience, which is available in the Lovelace Academy channel, we have completed the material production to be easily accessible on GitHub, requiring no extra step beyond nix and a browser to consume the material. We now propose a platform where developers can track their learning progress and receive incentives to collaborate with each other, keeping the content updated. On the other side we’ll build a sponsorship program to fund the reward program.

The demonstration of impact comes from engagement on the community channels and number of projects being created because of Plutus Experience. Our GitHub has 17 stars, the majority of it being developer profiles from different languages. Our YouTube has 1k subscribers and 9k views, with a weekly average of ~30 new subs every week.

The first Plutus Experience module was released on Nov 22

So far we have few projects directly and indirectly related to Plutus Experience:

• nix-templates (https://github.com/LovelaceAcademy/nix-templates): Created to support the project bootstrap process on Plutus Experience;
• ctl-nix (https://github.com/LovelaceAcademy/ctl-nix): cardano-transaction-lib overall tooling improvement;
• cardano-nix (https://github.com/cardanonix): community effort to improve Cardano nix solutions.

And testimonials of key contributors of Cardano ecosystem:

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

We believe we’re impacting two main areas of the challenge:

• Technical documentation & education: By producing a specialized written material and video material demonstrating how to solve real-world challenges using Cardano technology;
• Technical standards: By working together with upstream dependencies to guarantee that CIPs and other standards are being followed;
• Research & development: By introducing a robust stack as an alternative to developing Plutus and Cardano;

Native asset tools & software: By introducing a way of minting and managing native tokens using the browser.

[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?

Besides not being directly funded on Catalyst before, I’m an active proposer and Cardano builder with previous history of deliverables, including Plutus Experience first version. Maria is a community educator, SPO and well known in the ecosystem, she is helping me mostly with community engagement and material publication.

We’ve been working together to guarantee the delivery of the previous Lovelace Academy Plutus proposal.

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

• Acceptance: Have a working prototype of the Learn Platform
• Be able to parse Plutus Experience and generate HTML modules
• Activitivities:
• Migrate the Learn platform to PureScript
• Implement markdown syntax parsing
• Implement HTML generation

• Acceptance: Have a MVP of the Learn Platform
• Be able to use a content contributing tool to submit as a PR
• Be able to see community activity on the Learn platform, showing a link to PR’s and issues related with the current module
• Activities
• Implement edit/open PR tool
• Add issue tracking (module linked open github issues)

• Acceptance: Have Localization of the Learn Platform
• Be able to use a localization tool to contribute with translated content and submit it as a PR
• Activities
• Implement localization tool

• Acceptance: Have a personal progress tracking tool
• A profile webpage that records the user progress through modules
• To be able to finish a module, the developer must prove that the tests have run and passed
• Activities
• Implement personal progress tracking tool

• Acceptance: Have the Collaboration program in place
• By finish a program (like Plutus Experience) the developer receives a NFT badge
• By having a PR approved, the developer receives AcademyCoins
• Activities
• Implement Reward Program with NFT badges
• Implement Collaboration Program with AcademyCoin’s

• Acceptance: Have the Sponsorship program in place
• The Sponsorship will happen through GitHub sponsors initially and will use Catalyst funds, in a future proposal we’ll bring the program to Lovelace Academy infrastructure.
• Activities:
• Implement Sponsorship Program to cover NFT minting and transaction costs

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

Walker Leite - Plutus Pioner / Instructor

GitHub: https://github.com/klarkc

Author of Plutus Experience (LovelaceAcademy)

Maria Carmo - Educator / Community Manager

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maria-carmo

Cardano SPO

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

• 2x PureScript/Haskell developers (U$ 35/hour) x 12 months (2,080 hours)  = U$ 145,600
• Initial funding for the Reward and Collaboration programs = U$ 10,000

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

Bringing new developers to the ecosystem is guaranteeing the next generation of builders, we need to build an easy path so people can follow and learn with less friction possible.

Every new builder we know complains about the lack of material, we did a great job in Plutus Experience, and we want to bring it further to more people with updated content.

With the reward and collaboration incentives in the Lovelace Academy: Learn Platform, we’ll reward developers who complete or contribute with the program with AcademyCoins, which are inflationary and it’s not intended to have any economical value, besides being used in the future AcademyStore.

[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