Gimbalabs - Flagship Course for Aiken

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Gimbalabs

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

Entity (Incorporated)

[GENERAL] Requested funds in ada

200000

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

6

[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)

Prepare one of the flagship courses in Gimbalabs - Project Based Learning for Aiken (AikenPBL).

[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

The whole course building process would be on (an) open source Github repo(s) with Apache-2.0 license.

[METADATA] SDG rating

SDG 4: Quality Education

Description: By providing accessible and comprehensive education materials, your project contributes to promoting inclusive and equitable quality education, especially in the field of on-chain code development. It aims to ensure lifelong learning opportunities for all, enhancing the skills needed for sustainable development.

SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure

Description: Through fostering talent and innovation within the Cardano ecosystem, your project supports the development of resilient infrastructure and promotes inclusive and sustainable industrialization. By equipping developers with the knowledge and skills to build on Cardano, it contributes to technological advancement and economic growth.

SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals

Description: Collaboration is key to achieving sustainable development. Your project, through partnerships with Gimbalabs and engagement with the wider Cardano community, exemplifies the spirit of SDG 17. By leveraging collective expertise and resources, it seeks to maximize impact and accelerate progress towards common goals.

[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution

Prepare one of the flagship courses in Gimbalabs - Project Based Learning for Aiken (AikenPBL).

The PBL course would come with firstly a scientifically-carefully designed course story, riding on it to build the core skeleton of the course - modules. On each module, there would be several Student Learning Targets (SLTs). For each SLT, it consist of below’s content:

• Written lessons to guide students through all SLTs involved
• Code examples to assist the delivery of SLTs
• Video explanation covering all SLTs
• Assignment for consolidating learning outcomes for students

The course delivery could either be fully remote, where students watch the video to grasp the basics, or deliver in a physical setting - where Gimbalabs HK is piloting to deliver it to the wider public in Hong Kong.

In Gimbalabs, there would also be regular online meetups & community hosted to guide learners through the course.

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

The Cardano ecosystem has long been in shortage of talents and developers to bring ideas to live. With years of experience of producing quality developer education material, Gimbalabs’ AikenPBL would become one of the first few materials to onboard new minds and developers onto Cardano ecosystem, fostering more impactful projects and massively drive Cardano adoption.

[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?

At Gimbalabs, we have built one of the best technical learning technologies in the Cardano ecosystem, with the ability to extract the fundamentals of complex topics (protocols, tooling, infrastructure, design patterns, etc) and package them into skills. That is our know-how.

Trust and accountability:

• Talented developers, today founders of renowned Cardano startups (JPG store, MeshJS, Cardano Name Service (CNS),  Gods of Blocks, Loxe inc, Ekival, others), trusted us to take their first steps in the ecosystem: to know everything they needed to know, without restrictions, and from there, build their own path. We did not let them down.
• Gimbalabs is an infrastructure builder: Dandelion, Andamio.
• Gimbalabs is consulting: Joey's Hot Sauce, challenge "Spend ADA in your local community!", OneUpOneDown, Oxford University, Handshake, Blink Labs, CNS, MeshJS, SingularityNET, and others.

Approach validation:

• Gimbalabs started with this successful Fund2 Proposal: https://gimbalabs.com/fund2.pdf (and scored the leading vote tally in Fund1 - before there was real funding)
• Has delivered 4 iterations of Plutus PBL Course, with 5th iteration, Plutus PBL 2024, launching now, in May 2024
• Host of weekly Playground sessions for 3+ years
• Host of twice-weekly (and now more!) Live Coding sessions for 2+ years
• Gimbalabs YouTube is a helpful archive:
• 
  

Feasibility of implementation:

• Talents: Gimbalabs consists of a group of educators and diverse professionals. The budget would be easily justified by the collective professional hours contributed to deliver one of the best courses on the Cardano ecosystem we strive to be.
• Approach: With the 4+ iterations of Plutus PBL Course, Gimbalabs is proven the expert of delivering such education materials.
• Platform: Gimbalabs founds Andamio, which is a highly effective education platform built on Cardano, natively as the best platform of delivering Cardano education materials.
• 
  
• Know-how: Gimbalabs gathers a group of expert software engineer with extremely deep knowledge in the course content to be produced.

https://www.youtube.com/c/gimbalabs

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

Milestone 1: Proposal onboarding & Planning (1 Month)

Objective: Proposal onboarding, assembling the team, and defining project management practices.

Activities:

• Confirm core team members.
• Establish project management tools.
• Successful project onboarding on project catalyst

Acceptance Criteria:

• Public announcement on core team members and advisors.
• Project management tools and systems set up.
• Successful project onboarding on project catalyst

Milestone 2: AikenPBL Course Modules Design (1 Month)

Objective: Design of AikenPBL course story

Activities:

• Construct the overall story of AikenPBL
• Conduct live session to deliver the draft course story

Acceptance Criteria:

• A public documentation on course story and course modules
• Recorded live discuss session of delivering the course modules to Gimbalabs community

Milestone 3: Finalize Modules & SLTsDesign (1 Month)

Objective: Confirming modules and designing SLTs for each module

Activities:

• Revise the course modules and story according to the feedback gathered from live session
• On top of each module, curate SLTs as groundwork of lesson writing
• Conduct live session to deliver the draft course story

Acceptance Criteria:

• A public documentation on confirmed course  modules with detail module SLTs
• Recorded live discuss session of delivering the course modules & SLTs to Gimbalabs community

Milestone 4: Course Content Creation Part 1 (1 Month)

Objective: AikenPBL course content creation part 1

Activities:

• Deliver 100 modules course content, including
• Write up lessons to guide students through all SLTs involved
• Code examples to assist the delivery of SLTs
• Video explanation covering all SLTs
• Assignment for consolidating learning outcomes for students

Acceptance Criteria:

• For all the course content listed above, provide publicly accessible URL(s) for reviewing all the content.

Milestone 5: Course Content Creation Part 2 (1 Month)

Objective: AikenPBL course content creation part 2

Activities:

• Deliver 200 & 300 modules
• Write up lessons to guide students through all SLTs involved
• Code examples to assist the delivery of SLTs
• Video explanation covering all SLTs
• Assignment for consolidating learning outcomes for students

Acceptance Criteria:

• For all the course content listed above, provide publicly accessible URL(s) for reviewing all the content.

Final Milestone: Publishing & Proposal Close-out

Objective: Publish course on Andamio Instance and prepare close-out report

Activities:

• Publish all the course content created above in managed Andamio instance
• Prepare the project close-out report and video

Acceptance Criteria:

• Publicly accessible link to all the course information listed on Andamio 
• Publicly available project close-out report and video

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

James Dunseith - Educator, Course Content Designer

• Co-founder of Gimbalabs
• Co-founder of Andamio
• Advisor and teacher for Cardano developers
• Prior Experience
• Master Teacher & Coach at BetterLesson
• Teacher Educator at Mind Research Institute
• Master Teacher at Math for America
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-dunseith-0135651/
• Github: https://github.com/workshop-maybe
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/jamesdunseith

Hinson Wong - Lead Course Content Writer

• Co-founder of DeltaDeFi - https://twitter.com/deltadefi
• Co-founder of SIDAN Lab - https://twitter.com/sidan_lab
• Team member of Gimbalabs, driving Hong Kong community
• Key contributor to MeshJS, a Cardano SDK for DApp development
• Lead developer at Cardano Name Service (CNS)
• Ex-Citi, Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA)
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hinsonwong/
• Github: https://github.com/sidanwhatever
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/sidanwhatever

Gimbalabs Community - Course Content Writer(s) / Editor(s)

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

Milestone 1: Proposal onboarding & Planning (1 Month)

Activities Budget:

• ADA 20,000 - Confirm core team members.
• ADA 5,000 - Establish project management tools.
• ADA 5,000 - Successful project onboarding on project catalyst
• Total Budget - ADA 30,000

Milestone 2: AikenPBL Course Modules Design (1 Month)

Activities Budget:

• ADA 35,000 - Construct the overall story of AikenPBL
• ADA 5,000 - Conduct live session to deliver the draft course story
• Total Budget - ADA 40,000

Milestone 3: Finalize Modules & Student Learning Targets (SLTs) Design (1 Month)

Activities Budget:

• ADA 5,000 - Revise the course modules and story according to the feedback gathered from live session
• ADA 30,000 - On top of each module, curate SLTs as groundwork of lesson writing
• ADA 5,000 - Conduct live session to deliver the draft course story
• Total Budget - ADA 40,000

Milestone 4: Course Content Creation Part 1 (1 Month)

Activities Budget:

• Deliver 100 modules course content, including
• ADA 7,500 - Write up lessons to guide students through all SLTs involved
• ADA 7,500 - Code examples to assist the delivery of SLTs
• ADA 7,500 - Video explanation covering all SLTs
• ADA 7,500 - Assignment for consolidating learning outcomes for students
• Total Budget  - ADA 30,000

Milestone 5: Course Content Creation Part 2 (1 Month)

Activities Budget:

• Deliver 200 & 300 modules
• ADA 7,500 - Write up lessons to guide students through all SLTs involved
• ADA 7,500 - Code examples to assist the delivery of SLTs
• ADA 7,500 - Video explanation covering all SLTs
• ADA 7,500 - Assignment for consolidating learning outcomes for students
• Total Budget  - ADA 30,000

Final Milestone: Publishing & Proposal Close-out

Activities Budget:

• ADA 10,000 - Publish all the course content created above in managed Andamio instance
• ADA 20,000 - Prepare the project close-out report and video
• Total Budget - ADA 30,000

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

The Cardano ecosystem has long been in shortage of talents and developers to bring ideas to live. With years of experience of producing quality developer education material, Gimbalabs’ AikenPBL would become one of the first few materials to onboard new minds and developers onto Cardano ecosystem, fostering more impactful projects and massively drive Cardano adoption.

Gimbalabs consists of a group of educators and diverse professionals. The budget would be easily justified by the collective professional hours contributed to deliver one of the best courses on the Cardano ecosystem we strive to be.