Last updated 4 months ago

Cardano Civic Sentiment Index with Demeter

Problem

Civic sentiment data (polls, complaints, satisfaction) is siloed, mutable, and hard to verify. Cardano lacks a reusable, live pipeline to anchor this data on-chain as open public infrastructure.

Solution

Build a Demeter powered pipeline that writes anonymised civic polls and sentiment aggregates from our running app to Cardano, exposing a public Civic Sentiment Index and open verification tools.

100,000 $ADA
Total funds requested

About this idea

Team

Lead Proposer – Mihai Bărbulescu (Romania)

Founder of the Romanian Cyber Space Initiative (ROCSI) and long-time independent builder with over 20 years of experience in software, digital products, and remote collaborations. Cardano Blockchain Certified Associate, actively involved in the ecosystem as a Web3 / blockchain advisor and decentralized governance enthusiast.

Mihai is the designer and main developer of the existing civic platform that powers this proposal, responsible for the frontend (TypeScript/React), the Supabase/Postgres backend, API integrations, and deployment on Google Cloud. He also manages Linux servers, SSL/DNS configuration, and continuous delivery scripts for multiple production services.

His background includes:

  • Software quality assurance and solution architecture for commercial software products, with strong focus on reliability and usability.
  • WordPress and web application development, including integrating payment, authentication and marketing systems.
  • Advisory roles in blockchain / AI projects (e.g., VeterinaryDAO board of advisors, Web3 marketing advisor for several SingularityNET ecosystem projects), which gives him practical experience at the intersection of decentralized tech, token ecosystems and community building.

Within this project, Mihai will act as:

  • Product & Technical Lead – responsible for the overall architecture of the Civic Sentiment Index, the Demeter/Cardano integration, and the evolution of the existing civic platform to support on-chain publishing.
  • Backend & Infrastructure Engineer – implementing the aggregation jobs, transaction construction and submission flows, monitoring, and security/privacy safeguards.
  • Project Manager & Liaison – coordinating with Demeter, local civic partners and external testers, and delivering all milestones and reports to Catalyst.

Supporting roles

The project will also rely on a small set of supporting contributors engaged on a part-time or contract basis:

  • Frontend / UX collaborator – assists with the Civic Sentiment Explorer UI, charts and mainnet/testnet views, working under Mihai’s technical direction.
  • Data protection / legal advisor (external) – consulted as needed to review the aggregation and anonymisation approach, ensuring that on-chain data remains compliant with privacy requirements for civic deployments.
  • Civic pilot partners – municipal or NGO partners who help test the prototype in real-world workflows and provide structured feedback; they are not funded team members but are important for validating the solution.

Overall, the project is deliberately scoped so that a single experienced lead can deliver the core engineering work, while targeted specialist input is brought in only where it adds clear value (UX polish, privacy review, and domain validation).