Catalyst Swarm & City Hub Playbooks

(A) Background

The idea for this proposal came up during a meeting of several Catalyst Community members in Berlin in November 2021, where several people of well established projects met each other in Berlin to visit and speak at a conference.

We had the leaders of Catalyst Swarm, Catalyst School, SecretDecks, Eastern Town Hall, AIM, Innovatio Group and SPOCRA meeting through 4 days in Berlin. In this time, we also met the organisation crews of Stadt nach Acht, Frei[T]râume and United We Stream which organized the Conference in which we participated. It was the very first time, community members of Catalyst introduced Cardano & Project Catalyst in a Conference.

The Berlin experience showed us that there is a keen interest for people to get in touch with Cardano & Project Catalyst. Young people from the art and culture movement have shown high interest in the functionality and vision of Cardano and of Project Catalyst. By staying in touch with people visiting the conference and listening to our 2 hour panel about Cardano & Project Catalyst, we scheduled a follow up workshop to introduce some of those people into Project Catalyst.

This experience motivates and encourages us to submit this proposal, to move forward and to explore, establish, maintain and grow a Berlin Cardano & Catalyst hub.

This proposal is set up in collaboration between the Catalyst Swarm, Catalyst School, Bridge Builders and the Ambassadors Guilds. All groups will provide needed content and resources to drive this initiative to its success.

Our Plan in some sentences

(1) With building the Catalyst Swarm, Eastern Town Hall, Catalyst School and other projects we earned a pretty nice experience and expertise on building, maintaining and growing communities in the Catalyst Ecosystem.

(2) We use this experience to explore the process of building communities in real environment

(3) We document and track our progress and generate "practice proves" playbooks on how we can build and maintain communities.

The Playbooks will be publicly accessible and other initiatives which would appreciate our support can count on us.

We start in Berlin by the fact that this city represents a broad spectrum of mixed cultures and concepts, the language barrier is low but the City's alchemy is multicultural. This environment allows us to design the Community Hub as an flexible and dynamic inclusive and open concept.

(B) Focus

Berlin is a melting pot of cultures and languages, Ideas and visions including an extremely engaged and open minded young population. We aim to build bridges and presence of Cardano and Berlin entrepreneurs and startups, initiatives and movements.

In the Berlin Hub, we will focus on building connections and collaboration with local start ups, initiatives from the arts and culture scene and to introduce and educate young entrepreneurs into our ecosystem.

As we do in our Catalyst Swarm events, sessions and workshops, we aim to explore an inclusive and open environment for people to connect their ideas and ambitions, to provide specific workshops and sessions to inform, educate and introduce bright minds… but now in a local context.

(C) The Roadmap

(1) February 2022

At very first we will schedule recurring online meetings to create an environment in which people start to meet and connect with each other. The costs for setting online meetings and events are low, the effort to initiate those events is quite low as well, and the generated impact, relative to the required resources, is quite high.

The online events will help us as well to identify relevant topics and starting points on which we can draft specific short, middle and long term programs according to the meeting participants. If we want to build a healthy and sustainable community, we have to build on individual and common expectations, ideas and visions. The first online events will help us to identify those.

(2) March 2022

After one month of recurring events, we aim to initiate a first local meetup in Berlin. At this point, people already created very first relations and connections. We already identified key topics and themes which include the participants' ideas and visions.

The Berlin Meetups will take place in Berlin digital nomad workspaces. Those workspaces provide excellent internet access, a coffee & bar and enough space to gather a decent amount of people in those locations. We aim to start with a group of 20 to 30 people.

(3) April 2022

To this time, we will establish a stable core group of Berlin entrepreneurs and start-up founders, people of arts and culture scene, with a direct connection to already well established projects within the Catalyst Ecosystem.

From here we will set up recurring meetups in Berlin, organize Think tanks, workshops and Sessions, increase the outreach and grow the local community.

(D) Generating Playbooks

That's the most tasty part of the project.

We will documentate and track all achievements and failures of this proposal, with the goal to generate Playbooks and blueprints on "how to build a local community hub". All resources will be publicly available and other projects and initiatives can count on our full support when using our experience for their local hubs.

(E) Budget Breakdown

The listed budget is calculated for a timeframe of 3 months. We will submit a follow up proposal in Fund 8 to drive this project forward.

(1) Setting up communication hubs 

- Setting up & Maintaining Telegram group 

- Setting up & Maintaining Discord Server

- Setting up & Maintaining Youtube Channel

- Setting up & Maintaining Twitter Account 

- Setting up & Maintaining Website 

- Setting up a business Zoom Account 

(2) Organisation of Online Events 

- Setting up Zoom Calls

- onboarding hosts and speaker

- Setting up workshops and courses

(3) Organisation of local Events 

- rent location

- onboarding hosts and speaker

- Setting up workshops and courses

(4) Documentation & Tracking

- Payment for an project curator

- Generation of Playbooks and Blueprints

- Auditing the proposal and progress

(5) Project Management & Coordination

- Community Management

- Communications

- Accounting

- Event organisation and coordination

- Outreach and onboarding

(6) Additional costs

- reimbursement for travel costs ( flight/train costs for guest speaker ) - 

- reimbursement for residence ( hotel rooms for quest speaker ) - 

Total: 

( F) The Team:

- Corinna Sy 

Corinna is a social entrepreneur in Berlin, highly engaged and connected with local culture and art projects, young entrepreneurs and the Berlin startup environment. With an background in Project Management and design, Corinna will coordinate the actions and operations of this project on the ground in Berlin.

- Dan Verowski

Dan is founder of the SecretDecks project, an highly engaged and experienced Catalyst Community member with an background in tech & arts, combining knowledge and experience from the tech as from the arts. 

- Felix Weber

Felix is founder of the Catalyst Swarm which he is leading and coordinating. He is initator of the Eastern Town Hall and an active Cardano Ambassador, well connected within the Ecosystem and highly engaed in the Catalyst Community as Proposer, Proposal Mentor, Community Advisor and Challenge Team member. Elected representative for the Catalyst Circle version 1 to represent the communities toolmakers and maintainers.

- Victor Corcino

 Victor is founder of the Catalyst School which he is leading and coordinating. He is a founding member of AIM and an highly committed, connected and resprected Catalyst Community member. Victor is an active Community Advisor and veteran Community Advisor, member of a Challenge Team and a Proposal Mentor. Elected representative for the Catalyst Circle version 1 to represent the communities Community Advisors

(G) Collaborations:

This Project is driven by an collective effort of:

The Catalyst Swarm:

Supports with its community building experience and expertise

The Catalyst School:

supports with its education and introduction experience and knowledge

 The Eastern Town Hall:

supports with insights on creating multilingual and multicultural events and meetings

 The Ambassadors Guild:

supports with Experts knowledge and experience about Cardano and Blockchain

 The Bridge Builders:

support with Experts knowledge about finance and management and provides mentorship and guidance

 SecretDecks:

supports with experience and knowledge in Art and Tech

All listed projects and communities will provide high quality guidance and mentorship to the Belin Hub project. We aim to use our experiences, resources and relations to support the Berlin Hub in its successful evolution