Onboarding Cardano developers - Training women in the Ivory Coast

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Seedstars.com

[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)

8

[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)

Integrate the developer's course to DigiFemmes Academy - a tech and entrepreneurial university-level educational program - and expose it to 90 skilled women in the Ivory Coast. 

[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

NA

[METADATA] SDG rating

1 - End poverty in all its forms everywhere

4 - Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

5 - Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

8 - Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

10 - Reduce inequality within and among countries

[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution

About DigiFemmes Academy

DigiFemmes Academy aims to improve the capacity of Ivorian women to acquire full-stack development skills as well as entrepreneurial ones and most importantly soft 21st-century skills. Throughout their education,, the talents learn the 0 to 1 of full stack dev and launch an entrepreneurial project that can solve issued they perceive in their communities. Every year 130 to 150 women are selected based on t,eir cognitive abilities togo through a 2 year gamified, peer-to-peer and challenge-based learning journey. 

The DigiFemmes learning journey lasts for 24 months and is composed of 18 months of tech training and 6 months of entrepreneurial venture building accompanied by an optional tech specialization. More than just an Academy, DigiFemmes is also an ecosystem composed of 7000 women leading small and medium enterprises, working on digitalizing their skills or launching their tech ventures. 

About Seedstars

DigiFemmes is a project born from a consortium of leading global and local actors including EmpowHer, 01Edu, the Swiss Association for Entrepreneurs in Emerging Markets and Seedstars. 

The leading proposer is Seedstars, a Swiss organisation that fosters sustainable and inclusive economic growth in emerging markets by leveraging innovation, entrepreneurship and technology as catalysts for change. The group has activities around three main pillars: 1) entrepreneurial capacity building, 2) tech and entrepreneurial education as well as 3) early-stage investment.

About plutuspbl.io

The Plutus PBL program, available at https://plutuspbl.io/, is a project-based learning initiative developed and delivered by Gimbalabs (https://gimbalabs.com), a prominent education provider in the Cardano ecosystem since 2022. This program has been instrumental in onboarding numerous Cardano enthusiasts by providing them with interactive and engaging educational resources. With the introduction of Plutus PBL 2023, each learner can now mint a token that records the skills they acquire through the program, providing on-chain evidence of their abilities.

Over 200 talents took the plutus pbl course to date. In 2024 it is expected that 100s of talents will take the Gimbalabs Plutus PBL course. The course modules are evolving with the tech and plutus pbl version 5 is under final implementation stage which includes also Mesh and Aiken learning targets. 

From that cohort emerged the founders and developers of important startups in the ecosystem such as JPG Store, Mesh, SIDAN Lab, and Ekival. This comes hands in hand with Andamio & Gimbalabs mission to teach needed skills that transfers learners into contributors to the ecosystem. 

Here is some of the impact of Plutuspbl on the Cardano ecosystem

Focus of this proposal:

There is a great match between the needs of the growing Cardano ecosystem for developers and entrepreneurial tech-savvy talents, especially with local experience in Africa. Therefore exposing female talent in Africa who have a tech background and an entrepreneurial education to the Cardano blockchain and ecosystem through Plutus PBL could contribute greatly to widening the ecosystem. 

This proposal will help include the Plutus PBL 2024 program as part of DigiFemmes Academy’s optional blockchain track. 

The scope will include:

Course process:

• Seedstars will evaluate how to best include the developer course within the program and promote it to the talents;
• The DigiFemmes Academy team will present the opportunity to learners who have acquired a high enough level of tech skills and who can opt in;
• Gimbalabs/Andamio will offer the plutuspbl.io platform for talents who opt for a blockchain specialization during their fourth semester; 
• Previous Cardano community members that took the plutus pbl course and are active in the Cardano ecosystem will be selected as mentors and will moderate live coding sessions; preference will be for mentors based in Africa
• Open live coding sessions and weekly office hours for the learners 

Post course

• Collaborate with several key Cardano Dapps to establish development needs - where the talents can perform development work for the community and gain experience; an example of it could be that DigiFemmes talents help localize the PBL course (during and post course) so it could be attractive for more learners in Ivory Coast;
• A treasury will be assigned to compensate to talents contributors 
• to the companies in the ecosystem
• localize the course. 

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

Onboarding new developers to the Cardano ecosystem has historically been challenging; thirty-seven percent of Cardano developers have more than 3 years of programming experience, and 38% have more than 10 years of experience. In other words,‘entry-level’ developers on Cardano are scarce. Despite this challenge, Gimbalabs’ Plutus PBL program is widely regarded as a beginner-friendly entry point to the Cardano ecosystem for less experienced developers and blockchain enthusiasts. By providing the Plutus PBL to the participants of Seedstars’ DigiFemmes program, we can ensure a successful onboarding experience to the Cardano ecosystem for them. 

We will measure the success of this proposal by tracking participant’s progress through the program. By tracking Student Learning Targets (SLTs), we will be able to identify bottlenecks in the learning journey as well as areas for future improvement. At the end of the program, we will have specific data on:

• Percentage of students who opted in and integrated a blockchain element to their real-world project 
• Percentage of participants who opted in and minted their learner token
• Percentage of participants who opted in and finished each module of the course
• Percentage of participants who opted in and participated in live coding sessions

All input generated by participants’ learner tokens will be available to audit through a ‘learner dashboard’ available on the Andamio platform. 

We will also measure the contribution of the talents both to Cardano Dapps as well as to localising the course and making it more relevant for more talents in the Ivory Coast. 

The satisfaction of the talents and the ability to receive funds on contribution will also be a key area we will report on. Finally, join work with Seedstars team and evaluate how this program can continue in Ivory Coast as well as in other academies.

Overall the success will be the success of the mission of Andamio to onboard community members through teaching needed skills and transfer learners into contributors. 

[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 Plutus PBL is currently on its 5th iteration, 100s of learners having participated. Gimbalabs, the company behind the development and delivery of the Plutus PBL program, is regularly featured on Essential Cardano (https://www.slideshare.net/DSIO2/essential-cardano-guide-2022) and Messari’s State of Cardano reports (https://messari.io/report/state-of-cardano-q3-2023). It’s safe to say that Gimbalabs is one of the most reputable educational initiatives within the Cardano ecosystem. 

Seedstars is a globally recognized organizations with a network across 90 countries, a track record of working with close to 6000 entrepreneurs and investing in tens of companies yearly across 35 countries. The Group partners such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank, Facebook, and Google amongst hundreds of others(https://app.hubspot.com/documents/6650231/view/687416835?accessId=6ec798).

The Andamio platform (https://www.andamio.io/) is a state-of-the-art, Cardano native, learning and contribution management platform incubated through Gimbalabs. At the moment, it is being used by organizations such as Mesh (https://meshjs.dev/), SIDAN Labs (https://sidan.io/) and SingularityNET (https://singularitynet.io/) and more to provide onboarding resources. 

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

This milestone will focus on preparation and planning for the team. mentors and course implementation 

Milestone output(s)

• Project setup and team alignment
• Planning the implementation process of the course with the DigiFemmes Academy curriculum
• Reachout and selection of mentors and planing live coding sessions
• Reach out to talents to join the course

Acceptance criteria 

• Present a plan for the course 
• Selection of mentors
• List of talents interested to take part in the course

Timeline: 4 weeks

This milestone will focus on the course process and aim to support talents in their learning.

Milestone output(s)

• Course initiation
• 10 weekly live coding sessions 
• Weekly office hour
• Monthly evaluation sessions of coordination of progres
• Contact Cradano Dapps & tech tools (in the Gimbalabs network - i.e. NMKR, Mesh, TX Pipe, SIDAN....) and collect development challenges tasks that can be offered to course participants
• Set up the on-chain treasury mechanism for contribution    

Acceptance criteria 

• Live coding sessions 
• Progress Evaluation report
• List of development tasks
• Set up a treasury mechanism for contributors 

Timeline: 10 weeks

This milestone will focus on the connecting the talents to contribution opportunities and remunerating them through the treasury 

Milestone output(s)

• Connect to contribution opportunities related to Cardano companies
• Connect to contribution opportunities related to making localization of the plutus pbl course
• Ongoing mentorship support for the talents 

Acceptance criteria 

• Talents are actively working on development tasks
• Talents are actively working on localisation of plutus pbl
• Ongoing office hour and support

Timeline: 12 weeks

Milestone output(s)

• Collection of feedback from talents and process evaluation 
• Feedback and next steps from Seedstars
• Contribution paid for done tasks
• Closing reports and video including next steps

 

Acceptance criteria 

• Feedback report from talents
• Feedback report from seedstars 
• Show contribution payouts
• Closing report

4 weeks

• Report on key learnings
• Report on milestones completion

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

DigiFemmes - Bernard Okpattah - Head of Tech  

Seedstars - Tiziana Bombassei - Partnerships Lead

Seedstars - Daria Khlopova - Operations Lead

Plutuspbl - Roberto Mayen - learning and mentors coordinator  

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

Project timeline 30-32 weeks (with 2 weeks buffer) - 8 months

• DigiFemmes - project lead 25% role - 2000 ADA / month = 16,000 for 8 months 
• Seedstars/DigiFemmes - project lead 15% role - 3000 ADA / month = 24,000 for 8 months
• Mentors lead - 20% role - 2500 ADA / month = 20,000 for 8 months
• Andamio Setup on chain contribution + onboarding support = ADA 14,000 

Periodic compensation:

• 10 Live coding sessions - 200 ADA per session = 2000 ADA 
• 11 weeks Office hours - 200 ADA per session = 2200 ADA
• 10 hours/ milestone Reporting and admin = 10 x 200 ADA = 20,00

Contribution treasury that will be distributed to talents based on tasks done ADA 20,000

The contribution will be distributed based on the estimation of hours of work at a rate of 40 ADA per hour for a total of 500 hours of contribution. 

Total budget: 100,000 ADA

ADA reference 0.5 USD

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

• Training new developers especially women in Africa
• Providing the model of making learners into contributors  
• Stronger partnership between Seedstars and the Cardano ecosystem
• Scale the model to other Seedstars academies 
• More developers to the Cardano ecosystem that is based in Africa 
• Part of the entrepreneurship program of Seedstars and those developers can become Cardano entrepreneurs