300 Plutus Trained Women by 2025

Impact:

How does this proposal fit into this challenge?

In the African local context, women play a key role in designing and running local Defi solutions within their own communities. We think that by equipping women with the right tools, we are putting the full power of brainstorming, designing and implementing solutions back into their hands. We think this is important as it will allow solutions to fit their mental model with higher probabilities of mass adoption.

How will this campaign add value to our ecosystem?

The value will come from a potential growth in the number of women Plutus developers who are able to create Defi solutions for the Cardano ecosystem. It will certainly be a deep spark in inspiration for the younger women as they will have role models to look up to. Lastly this will help spread Cardano in Africa.

Outlook and future challenges?

We hope to provide women with the tools they need to lead the way in Defi solutions. We also intend to encourage women to onboard the Blockchain technology at a large scale in Africa. 

Feasibility:

 Reference (Past Successes):

Wada has been organizing monthly meet-ups across our hubs, spreading awareness and introductory education on Cardano, Project Catalyst, and Blockhain technology as a whole. We have already established active hubs in: Ivory Coast (French), Ghana (English), Nigeria (English), Cameroon (French & English) and Democratic Republic of Congo (French) that have been participating in these programs. We will be launching our multilingual Haskell and Plutus curriculum through our Cameroon hub that will provide the base curriculum for this initiative. 

Objectives:

1. We aim to train 300 women in Plutus in the next 3 years.
2. Narrow the digital divide between the number of men and women developing applications using Plutus.
3. Create an incubator for women leaders and pioneers in Plutus who will later serve as an example and inspiration for the next generation.
4. Bring the hidden heroes of the Defi machine in the African context in the forefront

Roadmap:

• Marketing awareness campaign across Africa delivered through Wada network Hubs*:
• Visit local universities, technical schools, and high schools speaking about Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and Cardano in particular, bringing awareness to our program
• Advertise on local TV and radio networks and billboards across Africa
• Identify female candidates who meet the required profile
• Organize meetups
• Organize hackathons with prizes
• Funnel women into Wada's Haskell and Plutus training program (See main proposal  https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Spread-Plutus-through-Africa/381332-48088))

Core Team & Roles:

• Manfo: Cameroon Team Co-Lead, Senior software architect & developer, 12+ year of experience programming, 3+ years in functional programming paradigm (F#, Haskell, Elm), Multilingual (French, English, Italian, Ngiembo)
• Nkalla: Senior software architect & developer, 12+ year of experience programming, 3+ years in functional programming paradigm (Haskell), Mathematics teacher (Education Systems Engineering), Multilingual (French, Italian, English, Mbo)
• Arcel: Senior Software developer in Closure 7 + years experience, Project manager, Multilingual (French, English)
• Megan: Cameroon Team Co-Lead, Central Africa Coordination Lead, Wada core team member (Education and Event Lead), Math & Physics teacher, bilingual (French & English)

 Budget: 12 months

• Marketing & Advertisement: $3 000
• Hackathon prizes: $3 000
• In person events logistics: $2 000
• Team motivations (3 trainers $250 ea per month x 12 months): $9 000
• Misc. other motivations: $1 000

Auditability:

What success looks like:

• Year 1:  70 fully Plutus trained women
• Year 2:  + 100 fully Plutus trained women
• Year 3:  + 130 fully Plutus trained women 

Key Metrics: 

Number of on-boarded / fully trained women

Risk Management: The main risk here is getting in a situation where little interest to no interest is shown mostly because of time constraint and/or absence of motivation. We think the fact that not only it is free but also the motivation participants will get through hackathons prizes will mitigate the risk.

*Wada Hubs currently most active in: Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Democratic Republic of Congo