CASIA - [Cardano4Good x helpBlocks] - Borderless Social Impact Network - Fundraising Globally, Impact Locally

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Buck Nguyen

[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

Thang Tran - CTO

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

10

[GENERAL] Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated into English from another language

Yes

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem (200-character limit including spaces)

Propose a DAO decentralized social good network connecting those in need with immediate assistance.

Information is validated thru consensus, and funds are released securely via blockchain technology.

[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.”

Emurgo lib: https://github.com/Emurgo/cardano-serialization-lib

Paas smart contract platform: https://paas.bworks.app/web

[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 project will be fully open source:

• Public GitHub repo
• MIT license

[METADATA] Horizons

DAO

[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution

This proposal is a NOVEL AND DARING CONCEPT since one year we launched the Cardano4Good with a partnership with the helpBlocks team to take it to another level with the validation through a consensus.

We had experience in Charity/Social Impact leveraging Web3 tech with a year-long launch. The numbers speaking themselves with 1.800+ transactions and 50.000+ USDT raised.

https://cardano4good.net/en/campaign

The defined problems:

Natural disasters and wars caused an increasing number of people to be unable to work or to lose income, and many people find it difficult even to survive. A self-run help network helps here. 

How it works

A victim of war in Ukraine needs timely help. They can proceed as below:

• Raise case to helpBlocks to call for help from the community with location pickup through Google Maps inside the app.
• The community then UPVOTE or DOWNVOTE, with comments, to confirm if the case is validated or not.
• The backend then calculates the VOTEs with wallet vote power and voter location to validate the case.

Once the case is validated, it will be listed for donations, with 2 options:

• Send ADA directly to the recipient’s wallet through the helpBlocks web3 function or from its “wallet send” function.
• Send ADA to helpBlocks smart contract address, with a designed datum to assign a trusted partner to unlock. 

The amounts that are sent to helpBlocks smart contract address then will unlock to the recipient's wallet as soon as it is confirmed by the community, also through a consensus process.

The "decentralized" manner (DAO)

• All payment transactions are made from the user's browser-based wallets.
• helpBlocks backend isn't involved in the transaction process it is the user's wallet and Cardano network transaction.
• The backend records only the transaction information for its statistic reports.

The "decentralized" manner is kept.

Use cases

• Charity donation
• Quick help for urgent situations.

AppFlows 

Post and vote on a case to ask for help

• Someone creates a case that describes a situation that needs help, picking up its location through GOOGLE MAP:
• Describe the situation with the requested budget in ADA and the expected time.
• Pick up the location of the person needing help
• The posted case is then immediately listed on the helpBlocks frontend, for the community to vote UP or DOWN to confirm the case in terms of:
• The accuracy of the information
• The reasonableness of the requested help amount

Functions

• Post a case
• Vote a case
• Donate to a case
• Direct donation by sending Ada to the recipient's wallet
• Indirect donation by sending Ada to helpBlocks Plutus script address

• Spend locked UTXOs to recipient's wallet
• Track the transaction inside the app
• Multi-level search
• Report
• Posted case report 
• Cardano lock and unlock transactions statistics  
• Utils and tools
• Dashboard

Post a case

Direct help for a case

Help through smart contract

Users

• Community users (a Cardano web-based wallet is required):
• Raise a case to ask for help
• Vote to verify a case
• Vote to unlock funds to recipient
• Donate to recipient through Plutus or directly send
• Admin users

Conclusion

As helpBlocks runs on the Cardano blockchain network, users are required to have a Cardano wallet to have a helpBlocks account. so the success of the project will result in massive new Cardano accounts created on the network and will propagate Cardano technologies widely, which will benefit the Cardano ecosystem. 

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

Measuring the success

The success of the running product count by a list of key performance indicators:

• How it helps donation recipients around the world to solve their difficulties:                    
• Number of posted cases to helpBlocks to ask for help.
• Number of people who have received donations through helpBlocks.

• How it helps to connect donors to people in need around the world:          
• Number of donors, and sponsors registered to helpBlocks. 
• Number of donors donating.
• Total donated amounts.

• Cardano aspects:
• Number of helpBlocks users - corresponding to the number of created wallets.
• Number of donate transactions made through helpBlocks

[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?

We had experience in Charity/Social Impact leveraging Web3 tech with a year-long launch. The numbers speaking themselves with 1.800+ transactions and 50.000+ USDT raised.

https://cardano4good.net/en/campaign

The Catalyst experience:

We are a group of Cardano experienced people who have done some Catalyst projects in technical and Social. We have done several Catalyst-funded projects:

• Cardano Tiktok Asia, the largest Tiktok channel for Cardano-only content news. (FUNDED- CLOSING OUT)
• DRep TV Hub, is a reliable hub to connect DRep to ADA delegators.
• Cardano4Good,  a dApp Fundraising Platform for Social Good Projects (FUNDED- CLOSING OUT)
• Bworks - the seamless plutus smart contract and Cardano web3 integration project (FUNDED- CLOSED OUT)
• Creport - a community analytic application with Cardano web3 integration project (FUNDED- CLOSED OUT)
• and play various roles in the Cardano Ecosystem from Fund 7 to Fund 12.

We will follow Catalyst milestone reports: Work, outputs, and evidence of work for every milestone.

Methodology

Our methodology is to ensure the success of a project by solving critical risks in advance before submitting a proposal. Listed above and other risks are already solved to make sure we submit only what we are capable of fulfilling, then later move the project smoothly.

Please see our demo/checklist:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dk7x_hC54qAP3nMkeVGyi28IipOVsZJsTUt3_P6u24Y/edit#gid=0 - project checklist

The community can verify the works of the project through public GitHub commits, and deploy app URLs, documents, and demo videos.

Critical risks

As stated in the impact section, the project is pioneering to provide a new approach for Cardano dApp developers; therefore there will be risks we have to address and research in advance:

• Serialized script store and provide through RESTFUL APIs with POST and GET methods.
• Execute the Cardano transaction model from the client browser with fetched scripts via browser-based Cardano wallets.

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

Milestone-01. Project initiation & paperwork PoC.

Time: Month 01. Budget: 10% of the requested budget is equivalent to 14,000 Ada

A- Ouputs:

• Form the team and work sprint.
• System design with detailed diagrams and specifications 
• Define end-user functions & system features
• Establish project management process including defined tasks and expected time to complete. 

B- Acceptance Criteria:

Setup development environment:

• Backend, frontend staging servers 
• Cardano node
• Form the core team and work sprint.

C-Evidence of Milestone completion

• System design with detailed diagrams and specifications 
• Define end-user functions & system features
• Establish project management process including defined tasks and expected time to complete. 
• Kick-off project

Milestone-02. Develop Backend APIs

Time: Month 02 - 03. Budget: 25% of the requested budget is equivalent to 35,000 Ada

Common libraries & web components 

DB schemas  

Backend APIs 

• Post a case to ask for help with APIs
•  Post a case 
• Vote APIs
• To vote on a case
• Donation API to record Cardano transactions that are made through helpBlocks
• Record the direct or indirect Cardano transactions.
• Record the lock and unlock status of a transaction.  
• Report APIs
• Dashboard APIs
• Common CMS APIs
• User and wallet APIs
• Register a new user and select a wallet to use.
• Parse wallet address to get public key hash to use in Plutus Datum.
• Record wallet status that will be used to calculate voting power

Logics & microservices

• Unlock transactions to recipients in case the community selects helpBlocks as a trusted partner to deliver donated funds for a case. 
• Real-time calculation of the votes for case validation and unlock decisions. 
• Analytic services 

Q3-2025

Milestone-03. Develop CMS frontend

Time: Month 04-05. Budget: 15% of the requested budget is equivalent to 21,000 Ada

• General admin management
• Posted case management 
• Scammer filtering  
• Analytic and reports
• Dashboard
• Cardano Web3 function to unlock transactions in case we need
• Communication campaigns management

Milestone-04. Develop a Community web frontend 

Time: Month 05-06. Budget: 15% of the requested budget is equivalent to 21,000 Ada

• Post a case to ask for help
• Vote function
• Web3 Donation function to directly donate by sending ADA directly to the recipient and indirectly by locking ADA to helpBlocks Plutus script.
• Donation, lock and unlock transaction tracking 
• Dashboard 

Milestone-05. QA/QC feedback & refactor. Beta launch platform, trial users with key functions

Time: Month 08-09. Budget: 10% of the requested budget is equivalent to 14,000 Ada

• Perform all function and feature test 
• Feedback, fixing bugs, and improving the loop until all is set.
• Create a case to ask for help 
• Vote on a case validation and unlock decision for each case
• Donation through web3 direct and indirect functions 

Milestone-06. Launch platform with full functions and features

Time: Month 10. Budget: 25% of the requested budget is Ada 35,000 Ada

• User acquisition and engagement
• Platform improvement
• Put the platform into a fully community-driven mode 

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

Teamed up the responsible and capable members who can work on particular domains required by the project, to make sure having proper resources to lead the project to success:

• Software and Cardano web3 engineers 
• Community and marketing people
• People who love to help and share

Project members:

📌Cardano4Good Core team:

1. Mr.Buck Nguyen - Total Project Lead

Founder of Cardano Asia TikTok, a Catalyst Fund 9-10-11-12 project. Buck has extensive experience in community building and online marketing, particularly in promoting Cardano across platforms.

He is an active member of the Catalyst community, serving as a PA, vPA, Funded Proposer, CR LV2, and Challenge Team member for Funds 9 and 10, and PoL and MR for F10-F11-F12.

Certifications:

• Certified Blockchain Business Consultant from Emurgo Academy.
• Cardano Blockchain Certified Associate (CBCA) from the Cardano Foundation and ProSkills39.
• Ambassador of Emurgo Academy in Vietnam

Core Skills: Community building, marketing strategy, video content creation  

Experience:

• 5 years of Cardano blockchain research  
• Long-term experience in community building and online marketing.
• R since Fund 9, Fund 10, Fund 11
• Five+ years of research experience in Cardano blockchain and investment
• SPO for over 3 years.

Key Contributions:  

• Cardano Asia TikTok founder/admin
• Cardano4Good founder/admin
• Cardano DRep TV Hub lead - phase 1
• Admin of the Cardano NFT (CNFT) community: https://twitter.com/AsiaCnft 

Key contact:

• Telegram: https://t.me/Buck_Nguyen
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thegoodgiao/

The whole Cardano4Good team

https://cardano4good.net/en/intro

2-Cam Nguyen - Campaign manager

• Over 10 years of experience in management, department head roles in various enterprises, and overseeing major projects within companies.
• Founded, operated, and managed community projects while still a student.
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cam-totto-nguyen-47903577/

3- Thao Doan - Business Analyst Lead

• Several years of experience working with large complex systems, specializing in building digital banks.
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thaophuongdoan

4-Long Nguyen - Back-end Developer

• 7-year experienced engineer working on developing and maintaining the backend of the platform that enables buy now, pay later solutions for e-commerce businesses.
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ntlong1594/

5-Bao Le- Front-end Developer

• Experienced full-stack developer with nearly 3 years of expertise in Node.js, React.js (TypeScript), and AWS serverless services.
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bao-quang-le/

6-Hieu Nguyen -UI Design Lead

• Head of Design Department Green Global IT Solutions Consulting
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/huuhieu/

7. Bao Tran- ONUSChain Technical Lead

• Five years of experience in digital marketing & growth hacking; he is aiding various SMEs in expanding their businesses in operations, marketing, and product development.
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-tran-59341411a/

8.Chien Tran -CEO ONUSChain/ Project advisor

• A programmer, cyber-security Specialist, and technology product developer with many years of experience. Founder and direct developer of various Startup projects in Vietnam
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chientq/

📌Developer team - helpBlocks

9-Thang Tran- CTO

Software expert, practical Cardano Plutus, web3 engineer, and manager.

GitHub: https://github.com/saigonbitmaster

Telegram: https://t.me/ThangTranNam

Roles:

• Product designer
• Engineering and project manager
• Full stack developer
• Web3 & Plutus smart contract developer

Responsibilities: 

• Product development, operation management.
• Plutus smart contract and web3 integration developer.
• Backend and frontend developer.

10-Xo Nguyen

Senior full stack developer.

GitHub: https://github.com/hongxo

Roles: Full stack developer.

Responsibilities: 

• Develop backend APIs, and logics.
• Develop frontend functions and features.

11-Chuong Pham

Senior DevOps and blockchain engineer.

GitHub: https://github.com/jackchuong 

Roles: DevOps engineer.

Responsibilities:  Develop cardano scripts, product build, and deployment.

*12 Seira Yun - Special project advisor

Role: Project Advisor (Japan-related social good projects)

Commitment: remote, project-based (advisor role with his great experience in impact world with SOCIOUS)

Linkedin:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/seirayun/

Bio: Seira Yun is the Founder and CEO of Socious.io, a talent marketplace that makes impact work accessible and transparent. Socious connects purpose-driven professionals with impact organizations through AI matching and uses blockchain to trace impact work and reward contributions.

Seira is a serial impact entrepreneur with years of experience in the sector. He has led teams within the ICRC, UNHCR, and social ventures. Drawing from personal experiences as a migrant, an autistic person, and a proud pansexual queer, Seira is driven to make the world a better place through social innovation. As a full-stack developer with a Master's in Social Innovation from the University of Cambridge, he enjoys blending technology with purpose. Seira is also an impact angel investor, a member of Hustle Fund's Angel Squad, and a mentor for 4WARD.VC's Climate Accelerator. When not working, he enjoys shooting hoops, running, reading, spending quality time with the kids, or embracing the adventure of getting lost during travels. He is also a long-term member of the Cardano community; he’s won and managed five Catalyst projects and has completed the Atala PRISM Pioneer Program.

*We are discussing a partnership with SOCIOUS x Cardano4Good on this proposal https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/129582

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

📌Total requested budget 140,000 ADA

• Philanthropy purpose 30% (42000 ada) will be used to fund the projects onboarding on the platform to help people at risk (at the willingness of team members' donation- part of the salary as per team pre-agreement.)

Project cost structure 

The proposed budget includes the following types of costs:

Internal cost 

• Engineering cost to pay software and DevOps engineers
• Project management cost to pay project manager and coordinator.
• Communication, marketing, and operation cost

External cost

• Infrastructure cost: Pay Amazon infrastructure services.  
• Marketing campaigns and events cost: pay Google ads, Facebook, Twitter, and others to acquire users.
• Donate and help sample real cases globally as showcases.  

Risk management: 5% as per ADA USD price fluctuations

Philanthropy purpose 30% (42000 ada)

📌Details by milestones

Milestone-01.

Project Initiation & Paperwork

Time: Month 01. Budget: 10% of the requested budget is equivalent to 14,000 Ada

• System design with detail diagram and specifications: 1,500 Ada
• Define end-user functions & system features: 1,500 Ada
• Document a list of tasks and objectives. Setup project management software: 1,000 Ada
• 03 EC2 servers for 10 months development periods: 6,000 Ada
• Project management cost for 10 months development periods: 4,000 Ada

Note: The cost for staging servers is not a one-time cost; we have to arrange it across the development period.

Milestone-02.

Develop Backend APIs

Time: Month 02 - 03. Budget: 25% of the grant budget is equivalent to 35,000 Ada

Common libraries & web components: 5,000 

DB schemas: 2,000  

Backend APIs: 23,000 

• Post a case to ask for help APIs: 2,000 
•  Post a case 
• Pickup location of the recipient through GOOGLE MAP.
• Vote APIs: 3,000
• To vote on a case
• To vote to unlock to recipient's wallet decision 
• Donation API to record Cardano transactions that are made through helpBlocks: 5000
• Record the direct or indirect Cardano transactions.
• Record the lock and unlock status of a transaction.  

• Report APIs: 4,000
• Dashboard APIs: 3,000
• Common CMS APIs: 2,000
• User and wallet APIs: 4,000
• Register a new user and select a wallet to use.
• Parse wallet address to get public key hash to use in Plutus Datum.
• Record wallet status that is used for calculating vote power

Logics & microservices: 5,000

• Unlock transactions to recipients in case the community selects helpBlocks as a trusted partner to deliver donated funds for a case: 2,000 Ada
• Realtime calculation of the votes for case validation and unlock decisions: 2,000
• Analytic services: 1,000 

Milestone-03.

Develop CMS frontend

Time: Month 04-05. Budget: 15% of the grant budget is equivalent to 21,000 Ada

• General admin management: 2,000
• Case and vote management: 4,000 
• Util e.g scammer filtering: 3,000  
• Analytic and reports: 5,000
• Dashboard: 3,000
• Cardano Web3 function to unlock transactions in case we need: 3,000
• Communication campaigns management: 1,000

Milestone-04.

Develop a Community web frontend 

Time: Month 05-06. Budget: 15% of the requested budget is equivalent to 21,000 Ada

• Post a case to ask for help: 5,000
• Vote functions: 3,000 
• Web3 Donation function to direct donate by sending ADA direct to the recipient and indirectly by locking ADA to helpBlocks Plutus script: 3,000
• Donation, lock and unlock transaction tracking: 3,000
• Report: 1,000 
• Dashboard: 5,000 

Milestone-05.

QA/QC feedback & refactor. Beta launch platform, trial users with key functions

Time: Month 08. Budget: 10% of the requested budget is equivalent to 14,000 Ada

• Perform all function and feature tests: 3,000 
• Feedback, fix bugs, and improvement loop until all is set: 5,000
• Launch platform, monitor, and record the system performance and functions for 1 month: 3,000 Ada
• Seek 10 donors and sponsors and 10 cases that need help globally: 2,000 ADA
• Create 10 real cases to ask for help
• Vote for a case validation and unlock decision for each case
• Donation through web3 direct and indirect functions
• Cost to donate to those 10 cases to verify the process: 1,000 Ada 

Milestone-06.

Launch platform with full functions and features

Time: Month 10. Budget: 25% of the requested budget is equivalent to 35,000 Ada

• User acquisition and engagement: 12,500 Ada
• Platform improvement, server cost for next 01 year: 10,000 Ada 
• Cost to donate to 10 real cases e.g. Kids in Ukraine as an honor from Cardano and helpBlocks: 12,500 Ada. This budget to make a real showcase gets donations from helpBlocks.

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

1/ Impact to the Cardano Ecosystem:

We use the funded budget to develop a help donation network and communicate it around.

These funds return awareness of Cardano, grow transactions, and more people to attend the network.

2/ Value for money - Cost benchmarking

The Value for money considers optimized savings compared to the level of seniority and experience of the team benchmarking at the local level. The labor cost is reduced compared to the average salary in Vietnam by 40%-60%.

The project is relatively straightforward, with a core team of 10+ core members with 20 working hours/week in 7 months. Compared to the seniority and experience of the team member this project is considered to be at the low end.

Salary Benchmarking Link

3/ Value for money - Value for Cardano Ecosystem

• We commit to bringing the Catalyst values of Transparent/Acountalbe/Collaborative to the social good NGO entities and donors to make social good contributions to the growth of Catalyst and the Cardano Ecosystem in the long term.

4/ Philanthropy: We commit 30% of the Proposal budget to fund NPO Projects on our platform. Our team firmly believes we are the first ones who take action as a force for good.