TheCatalystSchool - Focusing Africa

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African engagement with Catalyst: current limitations

Africa is one of the main focuses of Cardano and Catalyst:

• Cardano Africa: https://africa.cardano.org/
• Connecting the unconnected and banking the unbaked: https://iohk.io/en/blog/posts/2021/08/11/connecting-the-unconnected-banking-the-unbanked/
• Supporting Ethiopia's Educational System: https://www.appsafrica.com/cardano-launches-blockchain-deployment-in-ethiopia-with-5m-students/ 
• Catalyst Challenges such as 'Grow Africa, Grow Cardano'
  https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/campaign-home/26108
  and 'DeFi and Microlending for Africa'
  https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/campaign-home/26112

Although, the African community participation in Catalyst itself is still limited. We would like to see this community acting also as builders and active contributors. For this to happen, we need to solve two challenges:

• Language barrier: most Catalyst content is made in English, while a large part of African community speak other languages such as French, Arabic and other local languages.
• Data consumption: access to the Internet and to data in general is very limited in Africa. Users need to pay for each megabyte they use, and this limits the potential consumption of Catalyst materials already being produced.

The Catalyst School: what is it all about?

The Catalyst School is a place created to enhance the impact of Catalyst as a whole by improving the contribution of all its different players and roles. We onboard new members and help improving their skills along the way, in any way they decide to engage with Catalyst: as a proposer, a Community Advisor, a Veteran Community Advisor or without any specific role within the process.

This project helps the community through live sessions and workshops, 1-to-1 and group support in different languages, interactive website and other workshops related to Catalyst.

Although, for the African community, these might not be the best ways to learn and interact with Catalyst, since most of them are led in English and require a large internet bandwidth and data consumption.

Our solution: Catalyst School localized for Africa

With this proposal, we aim at including the African community into the Catalyst process as Proposers, Community Advisors and other roles they would like to take within the process.

To achieve that, we are proposing to:

• Create low data learning materials (PDFs, text files, compressed images) and use them to provide all relevant information about Catalyst and how to interact and actively participate in it.
• Translate these materials to local languages (French, Arabic and the most spoken African language).
• Teach and train African Catalyst members to run Catalyst School sessions within their communities, and also to provide 1-to-1 and group support.

The topics covered by the Catalyst School session and 1-to-1/group support are:

1. Introduction to Catalyst
2. Proposing in Catalyst
3. How to be a Community Advisor
4. How to be a Veteran Community Advisor

This proposals aims at providing these services for 2 Funds (Funds 8 and 9), according to the roadmap below.

Roadmap and Milestones

When funded in Fund 6, the content creation and training will be done during Fund 7, and it will be ready to be delivered in Funds 8 and 9, according to the following schedule:

3 months after funded (end of Fund 7):

• Low data learning materials created and translated to local languages.
• Local African Catalyst members chosen and trained to run Catalyst School session and provide 1-to-1 and group support.

6 months after funded (end of Fund 8):

• Low data learning materials in 4 languages (English + 3 local languages) distributed to the African community.
• 12 Catalyst School sessions ran (one of each kind per language).
• 15h of 1-to-1/group support given to local communities.

9 months after funded (end of Fund 9):

• Low data learning materials in 4 languages (English + 3 local languages) updated and re-distributed to the African community.
• Further 12 Catalyst School sessions ran (one of each kind per language).
• Further 15h of 1-to-1/group support given to local communities.

Key Metrics

• Number of School sessions attendees
• Number of participants in the 1-to-1 and group support sessions 
• Number of new African Catalyst members
• Number of new African Proposers
• Number of new African Community Advisors
• Number of new African Veteran Community Advisors
• Number of new African Voters
• Number of new African Referees

The Team

This proposal is being submitted as a partnership between WADA and The Catalyst School.

• WADA: Cardano Community skilled practitioners and entrepreneurs, located in hubs across Africa & the diaspora. Mission: Connecting West African Developers and Entrepreneurs to the Cardano Ecosystem and Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT).
  Website:
  https://wadalliance.org/
• The Catalyst School: A place to enhance the impact of Catalyst as a whole by improving the contribution of all its different players and roles. Check our team in our main proposal: https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/The-Catalyst-School/367842-48088
  YouTube Channel:
  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIPvRvMoxhmHLUuPPcsMmmg

Budget Breakdown

The budget breakdown of this proposal is the following:

• Creation of low data learning materials based on School's sessions: 4 sessions x 10h/sessions= 40h
• Translation of these materials to 3 different languages: 3 languages x 4 sessions x 4h/session/language = 48h
• Training 3 African Catalyst members (to be trained in English): 4 sessions x 10h/session = 40h
• Running 24 workshops (by African Catalyst members): 24 sessions x 2h/session = 48h
• Providing 1-to-1 and group support (to be organized by the chosen African Catalyst community members): 30h
• Project management: 40h
• Total hours: 246h
• Hourly cost: $40/h
• Total cost: $9840

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