Bring more women to Cardano

1. PROBLEM STATEMENT BREAKDOWN:

Based on preliminary research, we estimate that less than 5% of the Cardano community are women. Having women working on projects in this community is the key to building the solutions that can help shape a better future for all.

Therefore, the problems we are addressing with this proposal are:

1. How can we encourage more women to join the Cardano Community?
2. How can we maximize the engagement of women within the Cardano community so the proposals have greater input from women?

What Cardano is doing to encourage women to participate:

Cardano's very own cryptocurrency, Ada, is named after Ada Lovelace [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace]. Ada was a gifted mathematician and intellectual. Cardano supports gender equality through their non-discriminatory community code of conduct which is strictly adhered to. IOHK is training Ethiopian developers that will go on to invest their skills into the local economy building blockchain applications for the country. The first class is all-female.

Supporting content on why blockchain projects need more women:

• [https://forum.cardano.org/t/women-in-blockchain-the-next-step-forward/12117]
• [https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/29865]

2.DETAILED SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM:

Mentorship is a proven tool for opening up pathways for individuals by providing access to insights, networks, and confidence to follow their curiosities. At OneUpOneDown [https://oneuponedown.org], we have developed an AI-powered mentor matching platform specifically to support women in business and technology to transition into pathways that might have otherwise been inaccessible.

We will leverage OneUpOneDown's mentor matching protocol to match women within the Cardano network as mentors and mentees. We will achieve this by developing the infrastructure to support a matching pool specifically for Cardano. Women interested in Web3 can also join the Cardano pool to be matched with mentors and learn more about Cardano, how to participate in the community, and the opportunities that exist. By being matched with a mentor, women can transition into the Cardano community with the confidence to participate and contribute to proposals.

Our solution will provide the following components:

• Mentoring platform powered by a machine learning matching engine
• Automatically proposes high-quality mentor matches
• Administrator dashboard allows program managers to make and monitor matches
• User dashboard for updating profile, preferences and responding to matches
• Best practice mentoring tools are built into the platform to support mentors and mentees in roles
• Cardano mentoring community discoverable for OneUpOneDown users

OneUpOneDown's programme is designed so that users can be matched on an ongoing basis. Once mentors and mentees finish their 3-month match, they can be matched again to provide ongoing support through mentorship. It supports the development of deep networks within a community.

3.PROPOSAL GOALS:

Goal #1 - Build Cardano pool functionality

Goal #2 - Run Cardano Mentorship for Women pilot program.

Recruit >60 mentors and mentees to participate in the Cardano mentoring pool. Make and track >30 matches to assess match performance

Our goal is to match as many women as possible so we can fulfil the need for more women in Cardano. This will also help the network grow and will contribute to another challenge that is currently driving a lot of interest - Boosting Diversity in Catalyst [https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Boosting-Diversity-in-Catalyst/384803-48088]

4.TARGET DEMOGRAPHIC:

We will be targeting women between 25 and 54 years old, working, employed, or self-employed as this is currently the audience at OneUpOneDown. This is also the target group that has the highest interest and engagement in learning more about emerging technologies.

5.ACTION PLAN:

Step 1: Research and define the exact number of women in the Cardano network by date

Step 2: Contact those women and invite them to become mentors

Step 3: Women at Cardano sign up as mentors and/or mentees, create their profiles, update preferences, background, and experience

Step 4: Algorithm suggests best matches

Step 5: Mentor matches begin

Step 6: Monthly check-ins to assess match quality and progress

Step 7: Match finishes

Step 8: Re-matching with another mentor

Mentor matching logic: We have developed a successful matching algorithm for our target demographic and have a platform with over 500 women signed up as mentors, mentees, or both. Users currently can login, create a profile, manage their match preferences, and accept/reject proposals. We have made over 200 mentor matches to date and our NPS score is over 80%.

6.WHAT DOES SUCCESS LOOK LIKE AND KPIs:

We will consider this project successful if we can increase the number of women participating in the Cardano community by 10% and increase the number of women-led proposals by 10% within 12 months.

Key Performance Metrics

1. Increase the N of women at the Cardano network by 10%

• # of new community members generated through Cardano matching pool
• # of matches made by OneUpOneDown
• # of meetings

2. Increase the N of women-led proposals by 10%

• # of women participating in proposals from Cardano Mentoring pool

3. Make high-quality mentor matches

• Mentor Match Impact Score (0-10)
• # of matches with at least 2 meetings

7.ROADMAP:

First month: Technical setup, and mentors and mentee onboarding

Building the Cardano mentoring pool by leveraging existing OneUpOneDown infrastructure. Product launched to Cardano Community. Women from the Cardano community will be invited to join as mentors through a specific code for the Cardano pool. They will then be able to create profiles and select their preferences.

• See the image attached below [first-month-ouod-pools.png]

Second month: Matchmaking

Our AI algorithm will run through the Cardano pool and OneUpOneDown pool and will propose mentor matches. A matchmaker will confirm the good matches and will make them live.

• See the image attached below [second-month-ouod-dashboard-roadmap-1.png]
• See the image attached below [second-month-ouod-dashboard-roadmap-2.png]

Third month: Monitoring Matches

Through the period of 3 months, we will make check-ins in order to keep track of the process and make sure matches are good. This also helps us to catch earlier matches that are not good and make new proposals.

• See the image attached below [third-month-ouod-matches.png]

Fourth month: Feedback and KPIs tracking

Tracking and analyzing the data in order to compile and present a clear view of the metrics that define the success of the project.

If the pilot project is successful we will continue to expand the pool and make matches, with the intention of developing a decentralized mentoring network on the Cardano blockchain. We intend to do this in collaboration with the proposers shared below.

8.AFFILIATE PROPOSALS

In order to help the challenge objectives, we are in discussions with proposers leading two other projects that are related to Mentoring and Diversity within Cardano and Catalyst.

• Easy Engagement for New Members [https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Match-new-members-profiles-tasks/381856-48088]

• Distributed Autonomous Accelerator [https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Distributed-Autonomous-Accelerator/382562-48088#idea-tab-comments]

9.RELEVANT EXPERIENCE:

Program design expert - Natalie Robinson, Co-founder, and CEO at OneUpOneDown.

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/nataliecrobinson/
• 10+ years in sales, marketing, finance, and startup business development experience
• 5+ years experience mentoring entrepreneurs in early-stage business development
• 5+ years experience learning & development programme design

Technical lead - Dzhuliana Nikolova, Co-founder, and CTO at OneUpOneDown.

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/dzhuliana-nikolova-b6805714a/
• 7+ years experience in UX/UI design & product development
• 5+ years experience in software development
• 5+ years experience in self-development, education, and mentoring

Software engineer - Dimitar Sodev, Software Engineer at OneUpOneDown

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/dimitar-sodev-451808a7/
• 20+ years of experience in Python, AWS, Java, SQL, AI/ML, TensorFlow, Linux, JavaScript, PHP, LAMP, Pandas, Apache.

Customer success manager - Amanda Michel, CMO at OneUpOneDown

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-michel-41848a44/
• MBA Candidate at INSEAD, the Business School for the World
• 2+ years experience in marketing and operations
• 4+ years experience in events and project management
• 4+ years coaching experience

The project will be developed in collaboration with the AIM team:

Cardano AIM (Assembly Inspiring Masses) brings together active Catalyst Community members and currently designs and builds tools that support the community. Some examples: include the popular voter-tool [https://cardanocataly.st/voter-tool/#/], the Community Advisor Tools (CA and vCA-tools) [https://cardanocataly.st/ca-tool/#/ & https://cardanocataly.st/vca-tool/#/] as well as the community landing page (https://cardanocataly.st/). AIM continues to focus on developing the best services and tools for the benefit of the community.

Alex and Yoram are part of AIM and active community members, CAs & successful proposers, and participate in several initiatives and communities to make Catalyst better for all.

10.BUDGET BREAKDOWN:

Total amount: $40,000

Pilot programme for 4 months in total (development & rollout):

4 months for development(1 months) and maintenance(3 months):

• 4x$3,000 = $12,000 Full stack developer
• 4x$2,500 = $10,000 Technical leader and technical support manager

4 month for delivery:programme execution and success

• 4x$2,500 = $10,000 Programme design expert and matchmaker
• 4x$2,000 = $8,000 Cardano program and experience support