Community Consultancy: AI & Data

*** | Summary | ***

This is an experiment to provide consultancy work for the general community. There are a lot of ongoing projects and initiatives being started. Instead of proposing a solution, this proposal is about offering support to other solutions, projects and funded proposals.

The proposer would work a fixed number of hours per week over a period of 3 months, focused on a specific problem and subject. The work would include general research and focussed consultancy for existing projects working on this problem. These would in turn be used as practical use cases to steer the general research.

The result of the work would be shared through public articles, reports and presentations that aim to guide solutions to the problem.

12 weeks, 8 hours per week. Budget: 3840 $

Guiding research question:

How can projects in the ecosystem that support our governance design their architecture with AI and dat driven designmaking in mind?

*** | Community Consultancy | ***

This proposal is an experimental template for defining a paid Role through a proposal. It's not meant to introduce any official role, though it could be used by others in a similar fashion.

Role: Community Consultant*

Description: A Domain Expert who provides advice to the community on specific problems within their expertise and who supports projects working on those problems.

* First choice would be 'advisor', but that name is already taken

Format

The role will be fulfilled for a fixed period of time. This period is divided into iterations of a fixed number of weeks. Work activities will be allocated per block, each block equates to ~4h of work. Each iteration will have a fixed number of blocks as commitment.

Upfront an indication is given of the blocks per iteration over the whole period. A main subject is defined as a focus for the whole period. A public backlog is set up to indicate the intended focus and to track work. A list of (potential) projects to support is set up to track engagement.

Each iteration would include some visible result, even if it is not a finalized delivery. The end of the whole period concludes with a final report incorporating all the efforts. This will be presented to the community in a live session.

Block Activities

For this role work will be divided into 4 block types:

- Reporting & Accountability

Reporting on work done, administration of the proposal

Open Office hour: this block includes 1 hour for anyone to ask about the work being done, this proposal format or talk about a project which relates to the subject.

- Public Session

Organize a public session to present work, gather input, discuss

- Project Consultancy

Focussed sessions with members of a project, additional work to support their project

- Research & Writing

Researching the subject, related projects in the ecosystem. Working on articles about the subject.

*** | Details | ***

Main subject: AI & Data

Guiding main question:

How can we ensure that the system we are building today in this ecosystem are ready to make responsible use of AI in the near future?

This proposal will be managed on this Miro board:

https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVOcXaEEs=/?invite_link_id=537338333605

Focus & Projects

The following projects are currently on the list as potential candidates and have shown an interest:

• CA Tooling - Victor Corcino
• Gimbalabs - Project based learning

Other projects that are building solutions directly beneficial for the community would also be potential candidates. A rationale will be provided for the final choice. In the future these decisions could be guided by expert groups formed around these domains.

Time Allocation & Budget

total period: 3 months

weeks per iteration: 4 (total iterations: 3)

Blocks per iteration 8

Every iteration will include a block for Reporting & Accountability.

First iterations will focus on Project Consultancy, in later iterations the focus will shift to more Research & Writing and Public Sessions. (A visualization can be found on the Miro board)

The budget for this proposal is based on the planned blocks per iteration. Funds can be released per iteration. As this is a new role and format, the rate per hour is set at 40 $/hour. In future versions this could be increased based on confidence in the format and reputation of the Consultant.

Total hours: 4 hours * 8 blocks * 3 iterations = 96 hours

96 * 40 = 3840 $

Outcome Forecast

The first 3 months would see the body of the work for this proposal done. The projects that were supported should be closer to a solution. The result of the work is presented and delivered in the form of a final report addressing the main subject. This report would include:

• Overview of the problem
• Possible solutions or directions
• Real examples based on the consulted projects
• Next steps

After 3 months, the report is used by others to accelerate their projects. More people start doing consultancy for the community in a similar manner. Some of these tokenmics models are in the end used to support development. Those same models are used to fund more refinement and development of said models.

In the long term this effort would contribute to a well researched ecosystem of new models for decentralized finance.

Challenge Alignment

The challenge seeks to find ways AI can be beneficial to Cardano. In order to use AI, there needs to be the right infrastructure and availability of data. This proposal aims to help build this foundational layer which will be needed.

*** | About the Proposer | ***

Self-employed since June

I Plan to work in the direction of this proposals regardless of funding

For personal information, external reference and a visual overview:

https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVOdUcZlU=/

haveANiceDay to get access

Personal Motivation

I am a strong supporter of decentralized, modular and open solutions. I care about Personal Data Ownership, Freedom of Movement between (Digital) Systems and responsible, transparent use of Artificial Intelligence.

I have been actively participating in Catalyst since I joined. I want to continue to offer my expertise and do so in a more constructive manner. With this proposal I hope to directly involve those that should benefit from my efforts and fund those efforts in an accountable manner.

I chose to propose in this format because I support the collaborative spirit of the Catalyst experiment. The goal is to be of assistance to those that are already doing good work without putting any burden on them to make this happen.

Background

Basic academic background in the fields of Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence & Computational Logistics. Professional experience with software development and applied AI in the domains of Education (EdTech) & Health (e-Mental Health).

From a (inter)national, technological perspective the educational ecosystem is a fairly decentralized ecosystem. From student data moving between applications to fair assessments and accreditation of their efforts. Many of the lessons from this domain are applicable to Decentralized ecosystems like Cardano & Catalyst.

Catalyst Participation

Joined feb 2021 (during F3), participating in Gimbalabs since march, swarm since april

Current ongoing engagements:

Part of 3 Challenge Teams

No prior funded proposals

Concurrent proposals

For the sake of transparency and easy overview, below are the concurrent proposals in this funding round from the proposer:

https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/AKI-Agile-Katalyst-Intrapreneurs/384039-48088

https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Community-Consultancy-Tokenomics/384043-48088

None of the proposals rely on another proposal to be funded for success and they can function independently. I have the capacity to deliver if all 3 proposals are funded (total hours: 24-40 hour p/w, depending on the AKI-pilot team composition.

20% of the personal rewards received from either of these 3 proposals will be 'reinvested' into a buffer fund for the first Agile Team set up as part of the AKI-pilot. This is to start ensuring continued development after this initial funding round.