European Cardano Community Town Hall - Operation and Country Hubs
Problem
Absence of a platform hampers collaboration, information sharing about EU regulation and steps for ensuring compliance, language barriers, growth, and adoption in European Cardano community incl. SPO.
Total to date
This is the total amount allocated to European Cardano Community Town Hall - Operation and Country Hubs.
About this idea
[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant
Marcus Ubani[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)
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)
A multilingual European Cardano Community for collaboration of SPO and projects with a focus on region-specific aspects. Also, we drive Cardano's growth by hosting face-to-face events in EU countries.
[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.”
- Functioning Multi-Signature Wallet (Adao, Summon implemented in F10)
- Cardano DAO Platform for voting (Summon, Clarity)
[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
We decided on GNU. Because like the Apache or MIT license, it requires documentation and referencing our original documents. However, GNU would enforce open sourcing of our blueprint also for closed source projects.
[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution
We leverage the European Cardano Community events (i.e. Zoom calls we call Fireside Chats) as a central hub to facilitate collaboration.
Our focus is on ecosystem projects and information about EU regulations. We do not endorse projects but engage with a positive mindset to increase awareness. Our intrinsic motivation is knowledge exchange, fostering growth, and helping overcome language barriers.
Since our inception in 2022, we have engaged key stakeholders, including Stake Pool Operators (SPOs), project teams, community members, and policymakers.
We are building strong strategic partnerships to address the unique needs of projects building on Cardano in Europe.
With this proposal, we intend to increase the intensity of our endeavors.
We are featuring indy projects as well as prominent Cardano projects and organizing multilingual X spaces; we ensure inclusivity and broad participation and cater to diverse linguistic needs.
This approach enables us to connect with regional values, support the adoption of Cardano within Europe, and provide a platform for projects building on Cardano to network and share insights.
We care about transparency and compliance. We understand compliance as the responsible trajectory of a project or ecosystem to comply with our community's expectations and prevent getting into the crosshairs of regulation.
Amongst others, we are already fostering collaboration among projects building on Cardano. However, with this proposal, we want to furthermore contribute to the community's knowledge about local regulatory compliance, and enhanced growth of the Cardano ecosystem in Europe.
As Cardano ecosystem participants often care about business and philanthropy, we see us as a founders' hub. Establishing a blueprint regarding general compliance, funding mechanisms, and business ideation is helping us and the greater community to improve on everyone of these aspects, reaching far beyond the Cardano ecosystem (Note: At the time of your reading we are still in our creation phase from F11).
The blueprint will be a continuation of our non-imposing set of suggestions for communities to build on, regarding their specific needs and region-specific aspects. A bundle of strategies, internal rules, and tools to formalize ideas into a tangible pathway assisting projects to navigate through their own unexplored realms.
We will actively foster alignment and collaboration with other regional Town Halls, such as the African Town Hall, Eastern Town Hall, LATAM Town Hall, and MENA Town Hall, promoting cross-regional knowledge sharing and driving synergistic growth within the global Cardano community.
We are currently re-evaluating a Stakepool delegation rotation to add to already existing initiatives of the xSPO and the F2LB communities. These initiatives help small pools receive enough delegation to mint blocks. They also foster their interexchange. We see the need for additional delegation pillars like these to bridge the gaps between the rotation cycles.
Our fireside chats are building a solid foundation for physical meetups. These will be coordinated by local country hubs, for which we will establish a treasury to work with some of our trusted and active community members.
These events are comparable with the meetups supported by Cardano's founding entities and intersect MBO: however, this time, they are 100% community-led, community-financed, and following the principles of our blueprint to the likes of the Cardano Community.
With our experience from Fund11, we are now increasing the budgets for hosts, and will adjust the total amount of live events to 12 workshops over a period of 6 months.
With Fund 12, after having been funded in Fund 11 - we have established country hubs - with a strong focus on building local communities via face-to-face workshop events.
To be clear, we are not working against any of the founding entities or Intersect, but we observed the expression of independence around the community and this is one way to fulfill it.
By offering a platform that facilitates networking, knowledge sharing, and strategic alignment, our solution amplifies Cardano's visibility, adoption, and influence in the European market, strengthening its position as a leading blockchain platform.
[IMPACT] Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community
As the platform that EuCardano is now, we already provide an open platform for established and new projects either based or operating in Europe.
We have already fostered the incubation and promotion of a community podcast to promote fellow SPOs towards delegators. This has now evolved into a monthly SPO Podcast where, in a very conversational form, topics around stakepool operations and dReps are discussed.
Another initiative we are looking forward to financing with this proposal is the foundation of a delegation rotation similar to other initiatives in the ecosystem. With both tasks, we enable growth amongst smaller SPOs to increase the decentralization of Cardano.
Our Blueprints will help other communities and projects to bootstrap transparent processes for general compliance. The outcome will also help to get more clarity on how to treat donations in a global setting (e.g. how to consider the jurisdictions for beneficiaries and donors).
Amongst others, we had as our guests the likes of:
May 9: Charli3, Mehen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mgg3rY2P3KUApril 11: Arbiter, Mynth, Revuto, Cardano Thor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vquo-v4mSDQMarch 28: VyFinance/T-Minus-One, Cryptofluency, AdaExchange
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haSlYRHsp3Yhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTQIug17yy8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vrQjvIuH-MMarch 14: TxPipe, 45B, DLT360
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjON5IkPNoEFebruary 29: FluidTokens, SoundRig Music, AdaKonda
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCxZXrvmeT8February 15: WildTangs, Adam Deam, MELD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uLDWXsYolUFebruary 1: Emurgo Academy, Revuto
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t07CZ8XQEocJanuary 18: Landano, World Mobile, Farmer Nash
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKmKDPYUORkJanuary 4: TapTools, Financial Fox, Open Bank Project
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R38bYzcLHYEFollowing our path from Fund 11, we want to continue expanding our reach to more and more European countries, connecting founders, providing insights into their projects, and nurturing the ground for fruitful discussions around their realms.
We strongly believe, that by providing this extra information, we can elevate the discussions around projects to a mature level, liberated of speculation or witch-hunting. As these projects will be interconnected with “regular” users and other founders, their ecosystem and as such the Cardano ecosystem will grow and bond stronger.
With support for this community proposal, we were already able to unlock six languages spoken in Europe and hence continue to cover the vast majority of the continent (Bulgarian, German, Greek, English, Italian, Spanish).
Our community will find and co-create information regarding, but not exclusively related to EU topics.
By providing a framework for countries to develop their face-to-face activities in bigger European cities, we contribute to removing entry barriers for builders, investors, and students. Europe already has a crypto-friendly regulation and our goal is to maximize the opportunities arising from it.
[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?
The core team of the European Cardano Community Town Hall (ECC) is composed by the following individuals:
- Davide Lucchesi
- Deryck Lance
- Marcus Ubani
- Mauro Andreoli
- Ricardo Burgos
Since the inception of the ECC in 2022, the members have dedicated time and resources in order to plan, execute, and publish the Town Hall Meetings and the X Spaces in multiple languages. Our detailed profiles (see section below) contain information on the background of the respective members and other projects and initiatives they have been involved with.
In Fund 10, the following process was established in order to ensure that the community funds are managed in a proper and transparent manner:
- Creation of a multi-signature wallet
- Definition of workflows including documentation of payouts
- Publishing of monthly reports showing inflows and outflows
All transactions are being done from/to the multi-sig wallet and the respective justification for outflows are recorded on-chain.
In Fund 11, we followed our commitment to open source and to leverage the community to cater for their own interest, for that we continued involving the community through:
- Publishing our milestone activities, meeting minutes, and plannings transparently via GitHub
- Enabling the community to freely engage and contribute via GitHub and Discord
- Streamlining processes and including speakers of fireside chats and Xspaces to prepare events more efficiently
- Bolstering the our initiated F11 Blueprints for founders via feedback from live events
- Drafting a DAO
We are happy to have received funds already from the Cardano Community and have internal, evolving processes for transparency in the distribution of rewards for engagement in the different activities (e.g. X-spaces in multiple languages).
We proofed that our team remains strong even in challenging times. In the beginning of Fund 11 two team members where surprisingly caught up by their day jobs, but the remaining team took the lead, expanded and guided the project back into safe yet thriving winds.
[PROJECT MILESTONES] What are the key milestones you need to achieve in order to complete your project successfully?
Milestone 1
- Fortnightly EU Town Hall meetings planned, executed, and published
- X (formerly Twitter)-Spaces held and recorded
- Milestone and Deliverable setup in GitHub
- Physical MeetUp events across the EU progressing the founder blueprints
- Planning and execution of giveaways (merch + NFT)
- KPI tracking file and goals for Milestone
Acceptance criteria:
- The Milestone Report for the Reviewer for Milestone Months 1 and 2 is published on GitHub
- Link to filtered Milestone on GitHub will provide an overview
- The report is communicated to the Cardano Community (via Discord and X)
- EU Town Hall meetings took place and the recording is available on YouTube
- X-spaces in different European languages were hosted and recorded
- GitHub documentation includes the detailed planning for the MeetUp events incl. clear responsibilities for their execution
- Merchandise and digital assets (e.g. NFT books, NFT music) distributed via giveaway. NOTE: Team Members are excluded from the raffles.
Milestone 2:
- Fortnightly EU Town Hall meetings planned, executed, and published
- X (formerly Twitter)-Spaces held and recorded
- Physical MeetUp events across the EU progressing the founder blueprints
- Planning and execution of giveaways (merch + NFT)
- KPI tracking file and goals for Milestone
Acceptance criteria:
- The Milestone Report for the Reviewer for Milestone Months 3 and 4 is published on GitHub
- Link to filtered Milestone on GitHub will provide an overview
- The report is communicated to the Cardano Community (via Discord and X)
- EU Town Hall meetings took place and the recording is available on YouTube
- X-spaces in different European languages were hosted and recorded
- GitHub documentation includes the detailed planning for the MeetUp events incl. clear responsibilities for their execution
- Merchandise and digital assets (e.g. NFT books, NFT music) distributed via giveaway. NOTE: Team Members are excluded from the raffles.
Milestone 3:
- Fortnightly EU Town Hall meetings planned, executed, and published
- X (formerly Twitter)-Spaces held and recorded
- Physical MeetUp events across the EU progressing the founder blueprints
- Planning and execution of giveaways (merch + NFT)
- KPI tracking file and goals for Milestone
Acceptance criteria:
- The Milestone Report for the Reviewer ofr Milestone Months 5 and 6 is published on GitHub
- Link to filtered Milestone on GitHub will provide an overview
- The report is communicated to the Cardano Community (via Discord and X)
- EU Town Hall meetings took place and the recording is available on YouTube
- X-spaces in different European languages were hosted and recorded
- GitHub documentation includes the detailed planning for the MeetUp events incl. clear responsibilities for their execution
- Merchandise and digital assets (e.g. NFT books, NFT music) distributed via giveaway. NOTE: Team Members are excluded from the raffles.
Final Milestone:
Closing Milestone
(A) The closing report contains at least:
- An update of KPI for the complete proposal
- A report showing all inflows and outflows by category
- An overview of all recorded YouTube events and X-Spaces (Link List)
(B) The closing video:
- Summarizes ~5 minutes the main aspects of the closing report
[RESOURCES] Who is in the project team and what are their roles?
Davide Lucchesi
An IT Professional with more than 25 years of experience in the software development an systems engineering fields. Indie game developer. Recently moved back to Italy after almost 15 years in the Netherlands, to focus 100% on the current project and other Cardano-related activities.
Deryck Lance
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/deryck-lance-9405898/
- https://twitter.com/QuasarSure
Deryck Lance is an Entrepreneur with 18 years experience in the insurance and risk industry, Founder of Quasar Risk Advisors, an independent insurance brokerage and Gig Guard, an insurtech engineering studio specializing in the design of embedded insurance for platform businesses. His journey into blockchain began working with Etherisc, a parametric based smart contract risk protocol in 2017.
Specialties: Workers' Compensation, Marine Insurance, USL&H, Business Insurance, Personal Insurance
Marcus Ubani
Father of 4. Socialpreneur from Germany, deeply rooted in the service industry.
Working in web-related services since 2010.
SPO of BIRTH Pool, Atala Prism Pioneer, CEO & Co-founder of Larissa.Health, a Cardano-related project.
MA in Marketing, BA in international management, background in legal, design thinking, full-web-stack. Certified by Emurgo Acadamy Haskell, Cardano, Blockchain. Contributing member Trust over IP foundation.
Worked with various APIs, as well as in finance and transportation.
Has attracted big brands through solutions-based marketing strategies.
Ricardo Burgos
From San Salvador, El Salvador. Living in Germany since 1996. IT guy through and through. Auditor in Stuttgart. Father and Husband. Ricardo has been an active member of the team and community since day 1 of the European Town Hall. His background is in project management and cost control. For the last 5 years, he has been working as an internal auditor in the corporate environment. With friends, in 2022 he initiated the “Web3 User Group e.V.” (W3UG) - a registered non-profit association with headquarters in Wiernsheim, Germany. The W3UG plans and executes projects aiming to generate donations for IT education in developing countries.
Mauro Andreoli
Cardano Ambassador and legal expert with a strong focus on blockchain aspects.
[BUDGET & COSTS] Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources
The following table summarizes the planned budget for the EU Cardano Community Operation extended by the Country Hubs in five EU countries.
Due to the acquired experience in the previous months of activity, we decided to add some allowance for unforeseen expenses and to increase the compensation for external contributions (X-Space hosts, country hubs organizers, etc).
[VALUE FOR MONEY] How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?
Our Town Hall enables creators, SPO, project teams and blockchain enthusiasts to exchange information about Cardano and learn from each other on a regular basis and thus creating a knowledge base for continuously expanding the ecosystem.
By setting a strong focus on language diversity we contribute to the adoption of Cardano in more and more countries.
The cost planning premises are based on symbolic compensation for the team members, and extended team members (e.g. those hosting X Spaces).
The average wage in the EU for IT architects, programmers, etc. is approx. 65 EUR/hour.
We create value by offering a platform in a friendly and relaxed environment where blockchain enthusiasts can connect directly to the project teams.
Also - this proposal helps the founders of EU Town Hall to recover from the opportunity cost of not working only on their own projects - thereby sustaining the platform and communication channels for the broader Cardano Community.
The planning and execution of face-to-face events in major EU cities will be key to reaching out to interested people who so far have not touched points with Cardano. Despite the current sentiments on social media, we foresee a growing community in key areas also touching Europe with increased regulatory clarity and institutional adoption in 2024/25.
Team
