Win-Win Dispute Resolution

A marketplace with certified mediators, financial guarantees via Plutus, and convenient technology that enhances the mediation process.

A team of a dozen developers, Plutus pioneers, legal experts, dispute resolution specialists.

For a better reading experience, consider opening the proposal on GitHub by following the website link.

Win-Win is a decentralized dispute resolution platform and marketplace built on the Cardano blockchain. It allows disputing parties to find a suitable mediator to help resolve their conflict in a timely and cost-effective manner outside the court system. The marketplace enables mediators to focus on the mediation process without having to engage in often questionable business boosting practices; cases flow to mediators for a small percentage of their mediation fee.

A Primer on Mediation

Mediation is an alternative dispute resolution process that allows disputing parties to come up with their resolution that ideally satisfies the interests of all parties.

On page 266, Carrie J Menkel-Meadow, Lela Porter-Love, Andrea Kupfer-Schneider, and Michael Moffitt write in Dispute resolution: Beyond the adversarial model (published by Aspen Publishers in 2005):

"[It is] a process in which an impartial third party acts as a catalyst to help others constructively address and perhaps resolve a dispute, plan a transaction, or define the contours of a relationship"

A mediator, usually a neutral third party with no prior connection to any of the parties, controls the process of the mediation, but not the outcome. Ultimately, mediation allows for parties to collaboratively solve their dispute.

This is in stark contrast to litigation, where parties are becoming increasingly entrenched throughout the process as adversaries.

Mediation within communities and the workplace have become common. Depending on the type of case and jurisdiction, parties may be required to seek mediation prior to being permitted into the court room. As mediation has an extremely high success rate in the upper ninety percent range, many cases never make it into litigation.

As the term mediator is not protected, anyone can claim to be a mediator. However, a skilled mediator has commonly gone through an extensive training program. Certified mediators on Win-Win have advanced degrees in Conflict Resolution or Law in addition to having graduated from effective mediation training programs.

Some mediations may also require special subject matter expertise, as discussed on Ken Adam's livestream: https://youtu.be/HihqicZUyhc?t=1366

Most importantly, mediators are great listeners. Parties will be heard --- something that the court system cannot guarantee.

Problems of the current mediation system vs Solutions through Win-Win

#1 Problem: Trusting Credentials

Parties cannot easily verify mediators' credentials, and the number of innacurate or even false credentials in the field is increasing constantly in the last years.

Solution: Trust

Universities and peacebuilding organizations verify their graduates on Cardano. Parties have access to professional mediators and can check their certifications.

#2 Problem: Mediation process slow to start

Conflicting parties do not have months to start the mediation process when they are ready to kill each other, and the current process to set up a mediation might take that long.

Solution: Convenience

Parties find mediators specialized for their case instantaneously through our DApp. Clients flow to qualified mediators, according to their availability.

#3 Problem: No refund/payment guarantees

Mediators may favor the party who pays their fees first. Mediators sometimes have to run after their money. Parties have no refund guarantees on a no-show by the mediator.

Solution: Smart contracts

Refunds and payments are handled by smart contracts. The mediator doesn't know who paid first, therefore lower risk of bias in the mediation process. The parties are refunded in case of a no-show by the mediator.

#4 Ethical mediators don't have repeat clients

As the DevOps of Conflict Resolution, mediation helps parties to solve not only their acute, but also future disputes.

Good for the world, but bad for business.

Mediators focus on the process

Win-Win pre-selects suitable mediators for any given case. On Win-Win, mediators can focus on doing their work, and not trying to be the loudest on social media.

Team

Our team site ( https://winwin-team.web.app/ ) has additional information on each team member incl. LinkedIn and/or Github links.

Matthias Sieber

• Professional Software Engineer for over 20 years
• working on Liqwid through MLabs internship
• Conflict Resolution Specialist (Mediator, Facilitator, Peacekeeper, Educator)
• BA in Negotiation, Conflict Resolution, and Peacebuilding
• Master of Dispute Resolution (expected graduation: December 2021)
• Community-elected Moderator on Cardano Stack Exchange
• Plutus Pioneer (1st cohort)
• Project Catalyst Community Advisor
• Catalyst Circle Runner-up
• Cardano Ambassador
• Built successful marketplaces, startups, SMBs, and mission-driven teams
• Gimbalabs PPBL Team Member

Emma Enriquez

• California lawyer with 20+ years of experience
• Handled hundreds of mediations and settlement conferences
• Professional Software Engineer

Eli Selkin, L.C.S.W., M.S

• Professional Software Engineer for over 5 years
• Plutus Pioneer
• Gimbalabs PPBL Team Member
• MS in Computer Science, specializing in Machine Learning
• ML architect
• B.A. in Psychology
• Masters of Social Work
• Licensed clinical social worker

Victor Corcino

• Energy Industry Engineer for 6 years
• Member of the first Catalyst Circle as Community Advisors representative
• Catalyst Veteran Community Advisor and Proposal Mentor
• Co-creator of AIM Community Tools (CA/vCA Tools, Voter Tool)
• BSc Chemical Engineering and MSc Chemical Engineering and Software Development
• Specialization in Data Science, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
• PhD candidate, researching the field of Machine Learning applied to Computational Fluid Dynamics

Ganesh N

• Professional Software Engineer for over 8 years
• Plutus Pioneer (1st cohort)
• Gimbalabs PPBL Team Member
• BTech in Electronics and Communication Engineering
• Has lead development of large scale applications
• Experience in the financial services industry

Angela Gatende

• Professional Software Engineer and Entreprenuer for 8 years
• Plutus Pioneer (2nd cohort)
• Community Advisor at Project Catalyst
• Working on Alonzo Purple testnet
• Dip of Building Design from RMIT and a BBA from SMC
• Involved in the IOHK colab with EBU to give scholarships to teach African students Haskell/Plutus

Ryan Kirsch

• Professional Software Engineer for 2 years
• IT Project Manager for 4 years
• 10+ years experience in finance specializing in physical precious metals and secured storage
• BA in Public Relations & Strategic Communication

Nana Kwadwo Safo

• Active Community Advisor on Project Catalyst.
• Ambassador for GCTU WADA.
• Greater Accra Regional Head for Blockchain Education Network.
• Independent Representative for QNET.
• 5 years experience in Presentations. (Business, Products, Services and Projects).
• BSc. Information Technology at GCTU

David Bradley

• Professional Software Engineer for 2 years
• Experience across multiple organizations aiming to better people's lives
• BA in Business Management

Darya Leylian

• Profession Speech Language Pathologist for 6 years
• Full Stack MERN Software Engineer
• Masters in Speech Language Pathology

Afredo Arriola Jr.

• Professional Software Engineer for 1 year
• California Notary Public
• Experienced Sales & Customer Service Professional

Christopher Holder

• Professional Project Manager and Full Stack developer for 2 years
• BSc International Management specializing in Advanced International Management
• Professional certificate of Computer Science for Web Programming from HarvardX

Roadmap

October:

• User Research
• web interface prototype
• smart contract prototype
• PAB prototype

November:

• Setting up business organization
• Onboard California State University, Dominguez-Hills (CSUDH)
• Onboard 3 mediators
• Token minting
• MVP launch on testnet

December:

• MVP launch on mainnet
• Increase numbers of mediators through CSUDH to 10

Q1 2022:

• Onboard two more universities and their mediators
• Onboard two mediation associations and their mediators
• Fiat payment gateway
• Mobile app development

Q2 & Q3 2022:

• Expand to all of North America
• Expand language support
• Execution of video-assisted mediation and arbitration on platform
• Integration of court-mandated mediation
• Integration into social good and government services

KPIs

• Number of ADR programs onboarded
• Number of mediators onboarded
• Number of parties signed up
• Number of mediations set up
• Total volume of ADA involved in application transactions

Budget Breakdown

Eli, Ganesh, and Matthias are part of Gimbalabs' Plutus Project Based Learning (PPBL) Team - see https://discord.com/channels/767416282198835220/829467351983587328/880462584434802689

As there is overlap between coming up with solutions to the challenges of this proposal and creating educational content as part of the PPBL Team, this proposal is in part funded by Gimbalabs. This reduces some of the labor costs and is reflected in the funds requested.

Furthermore, Win-Win is part of CardStarter's Hack Cardano! hackathon and has a shot of winning prize money and development support. In the event that Win-Win receives such an award, the funds here requested will be used to accelerate development and integration of features that are planned for a later date.

Total $25000 broken down:

• Labor (team member compensation): $20816
• Tech services (hosting, GCP, GSuite etc.) 1 year: $2184
• Incorporation and legal fees: $2000

Project sustainability

Once developed, Win-Win will generate income by charging a small, one-digit percent fee on every mediation process that happens through the platform. By then, the project will no longer need funding through Catalyst or other means, and it will be sustainable for the long term.

UX/UI Designers/Developers wanted

You can see our first draft of our UX for the DApp in this YouTube video: https://youtu.be/fEy4NVJAo4g

We are looking for additional team members to sharpen up the user experience.

Related proposals

Blace.io Marketplace Creator: https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Extensible-Marketplace-Base-Layer/368797-48088

Skill certification for Mediators: https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Skill-certification-for-Mediators/368777-48088

Proof of identity for mediators: https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Proof-of-identity-for-mediators/368367-48088

Gravatar for ADA Wallets: https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Gravatar-for-ADA-Wallets/367448-48088

Other projects

Cardano in South L.A.: https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Cardano-in-South-L-A/367936-48088

Scam Alert: https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Scam-Alert/367015-48088