Cardano City Challenge: Croatia Meetup

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Matea Sedlaček

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

Individual

[GENERAL] Co-proposers and additional applicants

Tena Sedlaček

[GENERAL] Requested funds in ada

99800

[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)

Organize a Cardano City Challenge + MeetUp, where participants with no prior blockchain knowledge will be seamlessly onboarded. Different Cardano projects will be presented in the MeetUp venue.

[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.”

Coordination with city council and tourist board in major points of organization of this event. The proposers have good experience with it already and no problems should be found in that regard.

Good organization of the event itself will include coordinating all the external staff/companies employed for that purpose and all the projects which will participate:

• City Challenge hosts (reception)
• Challenge points hosts
• Venue schedule hosts
• Speakers
• Projects
• Photographers/video teams
• Photo booth team
• Food/drinks booth teams
• Merch point team
• Technical team with crypto knowledge
• External technical providers

[GENERAL] Will your project’s output/s be fully open source?

No

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

This is a non technical product with no code to be shared.

[METADATA] SDG rating

9 - Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution

We have a solution for onboarding masses, city by city:

We will organize a Cardano City Challenge and MeetUp - an event in which prior blockchain knowledge is not a prerequisite, but participating in the challenge will by itself onboard people to Cardano. Easy-to-use Cardano native app will be utilized (Cardano Beam) for the activities and different projects will present themselves in the event venue. Successfully organizing this event can open doors to many more such events in the future, bringing even more Cardano tech to the story.

Why will people want to participate:

• It is free 
• It is fun
• They love creative tasks
• They love prizes

It is crucial that Cardano projects and Cardano in general starts onboarding people in a seamless, easy to use manner. There are applications which provide opportunities for that but are not being used enough. It has to be incentivised and used more.

We have become aware of one already built out Cardano application, Cardano Beam, which provides seamless onboarding opportunity. It is a “place asset on map and retrieve it” application, which uses Cardano technology in the background. It screams: “use me for such live events” and it has been used by its creators on several occasions - but we think it should be used much more. It is ideal to organize event like this:

Cardano City Challenge: Croatia MeetUp - event overview

• 1-day-event in city of Kutina, Croatia
• Newly built venue for such purposes will be rented out
• Venue will be used as start/finish point for the City Challenge
• Booths for projects and presentation stage
• Event highlights
• Up to 50 teams of 2-4 people competing in Challenge (general public) for free, using Cardano Beam app
• 10 Challenge spots dispersed through the city, each with its tasks/stories/intricacies - each has to do with Cardano (prizes from projects)
• Each participant will receive a “Cardano Starter Pack” which will partly be included in the challenges itself and partly being “deserved” by visiting our technological booth - the contents of starter pack will be fully agreed upon when the project starts and created in collaborations
• Cardano native projects can present themselves by reserving the booth (free for them)
• Speakers will be presenting on stage - Cardano onboarding themes and topics - from projects and others
• Food/drinks/merch/photo booths
• Technological booth for all questions/interests in learning more about Cardano - how to use wallets/ how to transact/ crypto security
• Possibility for outside sponsors and investors to join with sponsor packages (sponsor certain Challenge spot/sponsored speaker) if in agreement with events terms and conditions
• Possibility for any Cardano project to take part in the challenge by providing prizes in terms of tokens/NFTs for certain Challenge points (think collecting your token or NFT on the map and bringing exposure to your project to general public)

Why is this event so important?

Organizing an event equally interesting for lay public and Cardano enthusiasts could bring important changes in perception and adoption. We think this is a perfect combination of that. How will we market it to the general public?

Strategies:

• Use marketing in channels which general public uses most (might not be X, as crypto users, but Instagram/Facebook/TikTok)
• Also use marketing strategies which work best in crypto - X/discord to make this event widely known in Cardano circles
• Organizing this kind of engaging event attracts people and such are usually widely attended in our country (up to 100 teams can easily be found participating in similar City Challenges - and they are never free to attend)
• IMPORTANT - if this gets funded, it would be just a primary injection to start an event like this, and with touristic potential it offers to this region, the aim is to attract more investors and sponsors, and make it a recognizable event of its own

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

We know that crypto people in general (and Cardano especially with its great community) love to organize IRL meet ups. Also, we know that the general population loves events of competitive but fun and relaxed character. Combining those two? Ideal and extremely positive impact!

Some of the impacts we see happening:

• Onboarding at least 100-200 people to Cardano in this first occasion
• By solving the challenge they will immediately get prizes in form of special NFTs and tokens - and want to learn more about what those are:
• They will learn how to see them on pool.pm
• They will learn how to transfer them to their own wallet which they will learn how to create
• They will learn about NFT marketplaces and DeFi
• They will learn about a dozen of Cardano based projects and discover a whole new world 
• This will bring a breath of fresh air to Cardano ecosystem and spark interest for organizing more of such events
• It will make us on the inside think a bit differently about process of onboarding and utility of NFTs and dApps

Measuring the impact 

We will follow each step of the organization process in detail and finally measure the success with several items:

• Number of registered teams
• Number of participating Cardano projects
• Social media/website marketing success numbers
• Speakers/presenters quality
• Interest in technical booth (number of people visiting)
• Final satisfaction of attendees (survey)
• Degree of interest from sponsors from outside and inside of Cardano

Sharing results

Results will be diligently shared on all our media outlets. The plan is to establish social media presence months before the event, sharing the process. Of course, the final event will be carefully photographed and video material will be created, to have “the thing” captured in full. Everything will be shared with the public.

[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?

Capabilities - live event team

The team of Matea & Tena have experience of delivering such events together or individually in the past, and are the perfect team to do so for this event. In the images below you can get a glimpse of their past organizations.

Combining their passion for such events and love for Cardano ecosystem with connections Matea has acquired with leading Thesis & Dysmorphia project, make this a perfect opportunity to bring the first officially organized Cardano Meet Up in this region to life - all the while making it a fun event for seamlessly onboarding the masses.

A bit more about each person from the team is shared below.

Matea Sedlaček, mag.cin., PhD, is owner of Physical Activity Center in her hometown, where she will organize this event and has organized similar events in the past. Since her entry in Cardano ecosystem as cofounder of Thesis & Dysmorphia project, she is looking for ways to raise awareness of blockchain and its possibilities to people who are still not involved in it. This event would be a major opportunity to combine her skills of organizing live events while also presenting blockchain (Cardano) to all the participants in an easy to comprehend and engaging manner. In above pictures (and by clicking on facebook gallery links provided at links section) you can see events she organized (CTA Game Days, Hiking trips, Kids Forest Days, Sailing trips and more) and majority of them in co-organization with her sister, Tena.

Tena Sedlaček, mag.ing.arch., architectural engineer, owner of design and organization agency, is passionate for organization and design from a young age. Always creative, with a fast working brain and ideas flowing out second by second. Experienced in event organization, professionally and privately, and also with designing all the visual identities for them. She is the brain behind the majority of “games” which she organizes with her sister Matea, and will be the main manager of the Challenge aspect of this event. Loving all things detectives, riddles and puzzles, she is the perfect person for that job.

Experienced and knowledgeable external marketing team will be hired.

Accountability

With Marina Minko being the lead accountability manager, taking care of all the accounts, finances, and high level organization, with her past experience of working on high profile management positions in tourism and owning two companies, we are in good hands that everything will be managed properly and diligently.

Feasibility

Since the ground on which it would be happening is very familiar to the proposers, and it would be an event of great value for their hometown, it is not only very feasible to be very welcomed by the city council and tourist board, but it will likely get help from many more sides and interest from potential sponsors outside of Project Catalyst - if it gets that initial financial injection from here.

We know that organizing this kind of engaging event attracts people and such are usually widely attended in our country (up to 100 teams can easily be found participating in similar City Challenges - and they are never free to attend). In that sense, it could be an event of great value and future potential for Cardano itself.

Project length

We are putting the maximum time duration (12 months) in the project because of the complexity and several moving parts which will have to be handled step by step. Some of the factors taken into consideration for that decision:

• Collaborations with many Cardano projects and external teams must be established months prior to the start of marketing
• Finding optimal date for the venue to be available, and for it to preferably be warmer part of the year, which immediately brings us to Spring/Summer 2025
• At least 2-3 months of proper marketing campaign on all social outlets should be done prior to the event itself

The whole process is explained in detail in Milestones below.

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

Milestone outputs (2 months):

• Team meetings and team setup
• Establishing a high-level project plan 
• Cardano collaborations plan set in motion (contacts with potential project presenters, speakers and technological booth team)
• City council and tourist board contacts set in motion
• Visual identity brainstorming and design set in motion
• Creating sponsors outreach invitations

Acceptance criteria:

• Successful team meetings and team successfully setup in its final form
• Successful start of contacts and collaboration talks
• Visual identity agreed upon

Evidence of milestone completion:

• Delivery of team meetings summaries
• Delivery of high-level project plan
• List of contacts/collaborations established 
• Delivery of visual identity preliminary concepts

Milestone outputs (2 months):

• Defining the final organization date and reserving the venue
• Website development set in motion
• Visual identity establishing
• Social media outlets opening
• Creating a detailed plan of needed external organizational partners and sending out inquiries for offers (expo equipment, booths, video/photography, food/drinks, merch and print partners, etc.) 
• Creating a detailed marketing plan
• Preliminary talks about “Cardano starter pack” and establishing collaborations for it
• Finalizing some of the collaborations opened in milestone 1, defining some of the prizes for participants 
• Games/challenges brainstorming
• Invited speakers/topics preliminary schedule
• Technological booth team further talks
• Finalizing the number of booth presenters (vacant spots) 

Acceptance criteria:

• Venue reserved
• Visual identity finalized
• Social media outlets opened and running
• Agreed upon plan for external partners
• Agreed upon marketing plan
• Successfully finalized at least some of the collaborations opened in milestone 1

Evidence of milestone completion:

• Delivery of final date
• Delivery of final visual identity
• Delivery of external partners and marketing plans
• Proof of social media outlets opened (links)
• Proof of collaborations established
• Showcasing projects presenters confirmed till now

Milestone outputs (4 months):

• Website finalization
• Social media outlets running: designer - marketing communication working
• Finalizing more collaborations and confirming several projects presenters
• Games/challenges finalization and pairing them with prizes
• Marketing for exact date starting
• Registrations process establishing
• Technological booth team finalization including content to cover
• “Cardano Starter Pack” contents finalization
• Several invited speakers/topics confirmation
• Several external organization partners confirmation
• Filling out all the presenters booths

Acceptance criteria:

• Website finalized, social media outlets fully functional following marketing plan
• Games/challenges mostly finalized, with room for some changes with prizes
• Registration process successfully started
• Technological booth team confirmed
• “Cardano Starter Pack” contents finalized
• Successful confirmations from invited speakers, presenting projects, external partners

Evidence of milestone completion:

• Website link functional
• Delivery of games/challenges/prizes plan
• Showcasing registration process
• Showcasing “Cardano Starter Pack”
• Delivery of technological team information including high-level overview of content which will be covered/presented in there
• Delivery of speakers/presenting projects/external partners information

Milestone outputs (2-3 months):

• Finalizing and confirmations:
• Venue
• External partners
• Event staff (in venue and city staff)
• Projects presenters
• Speakers
• City and tourist board
• Final satisfaction survey creation
• Marketing outlets running
• Final announcements before the event
• Communication with registrants
• Photo/video team following certain parts of organization in this period

Acceptance criteria:

• Successful confirmations with all sides
• Final survey created
• Successful marketing campaign - all team spots taken
• Registration process working
• Photo/video documentation of this parts of process taken

Evidence of milestone completion:

• Showcasing the final survey
• Delivery of all confirmed participants and schedule of events on the day
• Delivery of photo/video materials (preliminary)
• Preliminary number of teams

Final milestone outputs (1-2 months):

• Final team meetings in week of organization
• Final rehearsal with all staff members
• Venue set up 
• Organization of the event itself
• Photo/video team capturing the event
• Live stream 
• Conducting final satisfaction survey

Acceptance criteria:

• Event organized!

Evidence of milestone completion:

• Project Close-Out report and video
• Photo material delivered
• Links to media coverage

Total project length: 

• 12 months
• We are putting the maximum time duration in the project because of the complexity and several moving parts which will have to be handled step by step. Some of the factors taken into consideration for that decision:
• Collaborations with many Cardano projects and external teams must be established months prior to the start of marketing
• Finding optimal date for the venue to be available, and for it to preferably be warmer part of the year, which immediately brings us to Spring/Summer 2025
• At least 2-3 months of proper marketing campaign on all social outlets should be done prior to the event itself

The whole process is explained in detail in Milestones above.

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

(part of the team texts also in Capabilites section)

The team is comprised of:

• Matea Sedlaček, PhD, Physical Activity Centre owner, Thesis & Dysmorphia Cardano based project co-founder
• Project manager
• X, Linkedin
• Entrepreneur, successful business owner, researcher, PhD in the field of physiology, with great interest in blockchain and crypto
• Experienced in organizing IRL events, in character similar to this proposal - sport activities and team games, group trips
• Tena Sedlaček, mag.ing.arch., successful architect and interior designer by profession, organizational expert by vocation
• Design and visual identity
• Games designer and manager
• Linkedin
• Experienced in organizing events, both professionally and privately
• Marina Minko, co-founder of Thesis & Dysmorphia
• Accountability manager
• X
• Her extensive professional journey includes positions in general management, financial management, strategic development and foreign agency contracting.
• Experienced in Cardano ecosystem as project co-founder and manager

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

ADA price is calculated at $0.5

TOTAL FUNDS REQUESTED: 99,800 ADA

ITEM ADA total

Venue rent 2000

Booths for presenters bigger 10000

Booths for presenters small 1000

Challenge points hosts. 1000

Photo/video team/live stream 6000

Hosts in venue 600

Speakers 1600

Photo booth 1000

Food/drinks booths 600

Food/drinks for organizers 2000

Merch collection point hosts 200

Technical support team booth 600

Merch for organising team 3000

Merch for participants 8000

Cardano starter packs (prizes) 8000

Prizes for winner teams 1800

Final satisfaction survey costs 1000

Website development 7000

Logo and visual identity 2000

Design/flyers/merch 2000

Games design and organization 3000

Marketing and PR 12000

Accountability manager 5000

Project manager 10000

Team building/Team meetings 1000

Contingency budget 3000

Promo print (flyers/flags/bags) 2000

Final week team 1600

Stage setup/audio 2000

Fitness spot 400

Kids place 400

TOTAL 99,800

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

For this budget, which is already at this stage planned in detail - it is an exceptional value for money! (check out the milestones)

Organizing an event of such quality - combining general public and crypto audience, and merging them into one, is the way to go. The line between lay public and crypto audience should be fading more and more as time passes and we see a great opportunity in organizing something like this to do just that. 

We see the opportunity to gather even more funds for this event from other sources, once this proposal is approved.