Decentralized Catalyst Incubator

Create a business incubator for blockchain startups. Create a set of guidelines for decentralized incubators in the Cardano ecosystem.

J.D., IP, Tech startup founder, >20 years combined experience in small business incubator, stack developer, Ph.D., education

Kepler SCS is building a business incubator for blockchain startups. Using the experience gained from supporting five Catalyst proposals by small teams, we will articulate and test a model with a set of guidelines to support the growth of other decentralized incubators in the Cardano community. Over the course of the next year, we aim to test a model for decentralized blockchain startup incubator and then develop a similar model for an accelerator. These models, together with an honest assessment of the strengths of weaknesses of our approach, will be shared with the community with the aim of stimulating the growth of a collaborative network of incubators and accelerators.

Team:

JEFFREY DOWNARD, university professor specializing in law, ethics and logic. Director of collaborative projects to build educational resources and crowdsourcing project.

DAVID WATTS, business systems oriented on the problems of blockchain scalability.

SARAH HOLCOMB, practicing attorney in business transactions, trusts, estates, taxes, university lecturer in business law

TOM DIETRICH, practicing attorney in business transactions, contracts, dispute resolution, arbitration, IP.

DAVID CHAN, serial entrepreneur and business consultant

Board of Advisors: https://www.keplerscs.com/our-team-1

IP:

Community workshops on Zoom in both a live and recorded form. Informational resources will be publicly available via a Youtube channel under copy left permission.

Defining success:

Creation of a set of guidelines articulating best practices for serving as a Catalyst proposal and business startup incubator.  Development of webpage on the Kepler SCS website with videos presenting a narrative of the community conversation as citizens learn about the opportunities to make proposals and engage with the Catalyst community.

Timeline and Budget:

Phase 1:

• Month 1:  Development of decentralized incubator model: ($2000)
• Month 1-2:  Workshops for teams developing projects ($6000)
• Months 1-4:  Support of projects at incubator stage ($5000)
• Month 2:  Webpage development and and Youtube channel: ($3000)
• Month 4:  Evaluate and revise incubator model ($5,000)
• Month 4:  Formulation of guidelines for Catalyst proposal incubator: ($5,000)
• Months 1-4:  Project direction ($5,800)
• Months 1-4:  Project oversight and evaluation by members of Board of Advisors ($6500)
• Months 1-4: Legal work on guidelines for incubators: ($6000)
• Months 2-4:  Updates and project report to Catalyst community for phase 1: ($500)
• Total Budget for Phase 1: ($44,800)
• Months 5-9: transition to Phase 2 of the project

Our team is committed to the effective use of Catalyst funds to achieve the goals of the project and support the larger Cardano community. Towards this end, we are committed to procedural safeguards in the form of oversight by a board of advisors with a wide range of areas of expertise in finance, accounting, startups and IP. The board will provide oversight and auditing functions as a guarantee. 

Links:

https://www.keplerscs.com/blank-page

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn7mp5BXNH3pWkHtM85Z3rA

Resources:

Amelia, Tifa Noer, Armanu Thoyib, Gugus Irianto, and Ainur Rofiq. "Designing business incubator model for start-up digital." In Proceedings of the 2018 9th International Conference on E-business, Management and Economics, pp. 91-95. 2018.

Amelia, Tifa Noer, Armanu Armanu, Gugus Irianto, and Ainur Rofiq. "Constructing Framework for Business Incubator Benchmarking: for Startup-tech Company." International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology 8 (2017): 1066-1074.

Etzkowitz, Henry. "The movement from incubator to incubation in the entrepreneurial university: past, present and future." In Handbook of Research on Business and Technology Incubation and Acceleration. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021.

Guerrero, Maribel. "The role of incubators and accelerators in the Latin American entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems." In Handbook of Research on Business and Technology Incubation and Acceleration. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021.

Maharani, Herliana Wahyu. "Application of Blockchain Technology for Digital Transaction Security on Business Incubator Websites." In IAIC International Conference Series, vol. 2, no. 11, pp. 8-14. 2020.