Devs for Awarenes Event West Africa

We've received a lot of constructive feedback on our Fund4 proposal The Cardano Global Treasure Hunt [ https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/The-Cardano-Global-Treasure-Hunt/340173-48088 ], from the Project Catalyst community, suggesting that before organising a global event we should first have a more regionally focused, Africa-centric event. After consideration, we've come to the conclusion that this would make a lot of sense, given Cardano's broader mission and vision and the people we are trying to attract to the Cardano ecosystem first.

To achieve this goal we have partnered with @wadalliance (West Africa Decentralized Alliance) and are working towards an Africa-centric event first.

Our proposal focuses on attracting more people into the Cardano ecosystem in a fun, rewarding, and engaging way through a "Treasure Hunt" event (for more details on the mechanics of the Hunt itself please refer to our Fund4 proposal, link above). Its goal is to expose the Cardano ecosystem to people who don't have a technical or investment reason to engage with it.

Our initial project had a much more general vision, but while shifting our focus to Africa we realised we had the opportunity to implement this in a much deeper way.

In order to achieve this, we have broken up the project into multiple stages that we intend to put forward before the Cardano community.

In the first stage, we want to focus on recruiting, training and equipping a team of African developers to build the tech infrastructure, dapps and apps that will be needed to successfully implement the Treasure Hunt event in West Africa.

Our collaboration with WADA will enable us to jump-start the project and immediately start recruiting and building the dev team as we will be able to make use of their network of hubs, connections and local knowledge in several West African countries.

Developers could be hired from any part of the world, but since we plan to implement the project in West Africa first, it would make perfect sense to draw on local knowledge, but it's also a perfect opportunity to recruit and train developers from the region and get them building on the Cardano ecosystem. The work they will end up doing on this project could be the beginning of what could prove to be a productive long-lasting collaboration.

From a technical standpoint, 3 distinct deliverables need to be developed by the end of Stage 3 - Launch:

1. An online platform for registering and managing users will also serve as a repository for information regarding all aspects of the project.

2. A mobile app with an AR component for interacting with the treasure hunt's clues and objectives, which in the case of the Africa implementation would need to also contain all the feature of the website built-in, as mobile-only users are far more prevalent in Africa than in other parts of the world.

3. Integration with the Cardano blockchain for all the needs of the event: validation of clue discovery, clues themselves in metadata, but most importantly the locking, allocation and transfer of prizes.

These development goals are also what dictates the breakdown of our dev team personnel needs:

4 developers in total - 1 for blockchain integration, 2 for mobile apps/dapps (1 mobile generalist + 1 AR focused), 1 for web development.

The implementation of Stage 1 can be accomplished remotely, in a virtual environment, however at the beginning of Stage 2 - Content we would need to travel on location to Africa. As such, certain preparations will need to be made, such as visas, vaccines, detailed travel plans, insurance and possibly legal fees.

Metrics

This project will directly bring 4 new developers to the Cardano ecosystem in some capacity. The experience and knowledge accumulated by the developers working on this project will remain and will be carried over, both to bring and train new people, and be used in new projects after this one is completed.

It could also serve as one of the starting points for the creation of thriving Cardano developer communities in West Africa. The fact that working on this fun and potentially motivating project has the potential to create a tight-knit group that could spread their passion for the ecosystem.

By implementing this proposal we would not only recruit and train 4 new developers for the Cardano ecosystem in Africa, but it could also serve as a seed that would allow WADA to grow its developer outreach for numerous other projects in the future.

We plan to open-source all the technical infrastructure that will be developed for this particular project.

What success looks like

3 months - A dev team is formed in West Africa and work on the MVP for the project is nearly completed

6 months - The MVP is built early in Stage 2, a beta is deployed and the final product is close to launch.

12 months - The product is deployed, only 1 or 2 of the developers need to remain on the project to provide maintenance and oversight through the implementation of the Treasure Hunt event. The rest of the team could move on to new projects, new implementations of the Treasure Hunt taking their accumulated experience and knowledge with them.

Roadmap

We estimate the implementation of the project could start as early as a few weeks after the first portion of the funds from Project Catalyst are received (possibly early September 2021). The recruitment phase is estimated to take between 2 weeks and a month.

Once the dev team is recruited and training begins, wireframing and collaborative work on UX/UI can begin.

A more detailed breakdown of the stages of the project:

Stage 1 - Form development team and start building the technical infrastructure (month 1-3)

Stage 2 - Content (month 4-6)

Stage 3 - Marketing & Launch (month 7-9)

Stage 4 - Post Launch (The Treasure Hunt event unfolds) (month 10-12)

Risk Assessment

We have identified the biggest risk to the project as being the comprehensive Planting Roots In Africa proposal not being funded.

That risk will however be mitigated by the fact that WADA will still be creating infrastructure in some of their main hubs (for example Cameroon). Even though the West African network of hubs will possibly not be as widespread as planned.

Also, other sources of funding will be sought if they will not be granted through Project Catalyst. (As an example WADA fundraised the entirety of the budget for their unfunded Fund3 proposal in a single afternoon).

Budget

(All our Africa related costs are derived from close consultation with our partners at WADA and are a result of extensive, on the ground knowledge)

Africa Dev Team Costs

Office Space

Rent + Internet + Electricity + Generators + Networks + Insurance + Office Furniture = 0

These will be provided by the network of WADA hubs partially funded through the Planting Roots In Africa comprehensive proposal.

https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Planting-Roots-In-Africa/350764-48088

HR

Recruitment costs: 1000

Retention costs: 1500 = 3x500/month

(in-office meals and entertainment)

Personnel

Costs for 3 months

Senior developer: 3750 = 3x1250/month

Junior developers: 6750 = 3x3x750/month

Training

Trainer incentives: 3000 = 1000x3months

WADA coordination: 1500 = 500x3months

Hardware

Laptops: 5000 = 4x1250

Mobile devices for testing: 2600

External monitors: 1400 = 4x350

Project Development Costs

African Local Researcher: 3000 = 1000x3months

R&D: 3months = 6400

UI/UX Development & User Stories: 2 1/2 months = 7200

Project Management & Development: 3 months = 6400

Accounting: 1500

Pre-Travel Expenses: 2500

(visas, vaccines, insurance, etc.)

TOTAL: 52500

Team:

Rares Kövesdi

Director & Producer; Filmmaker & Game Designer; CEO & Co-Founder at New Mindflow Studio

New Mindflow's role in Stage 1 of the project will be to ensure a smooth collaboration with our partners and to set the ground for a successful implementation of the subsequent stages in the project's life-cycle.

Starting with the third week of the project, giving the developers time to go through an initial stage of theoretical training and team building, work on the wireframe, UX/UI and user stories can begin.

Through the entire lifetime of the project, New Mindflow will perform R&D and project management tasks, either provided directly by Rares, an experienced producer, or delegated to specifically hired qualified personnel.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rares-k%C3%B6vesdi-551260106/

Félicien Fotio Manfo

Lead Developer WADA

We are relying on our partners, WADA, for on the ground implementation of Stage 1 in West Africa. Recruiting, training, managing and supervising the dev team.

As the lead developer in WADA, Manfo will play the most active role in the process.

He is a skilled software developer, teacher, and community activist, multilingual (able to teach high-level IT/math concepts in French, English, Italian, Nguembo - native language).

https://www.linkedin.com/in/felicienfotiomanfo1642a479/

Note:

If our Fund4 proposal, The Cardano Global Treasure Hunt, will be funded by the community we intend to reallocate the budget of that proposal into starting to implement the Treasure Hunt in West Africa.

Fund4 Proposal: https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/The-Cardano-Global-Treasure-Hunt/340173-48088

PS: The typo in the title is intentional, ran out of characters. :)

52500