Improve Catalyst Search-ability
Problem
Funded proposals are poorly organized and can’t be intuitively searched and explored when looking for solutions, answers, and inspiration.
Solution
Tag funded proposals, make them searchable, and create visualizations of them. Facilitate the exploration and discovery of funded proposals.
Total to date
This is the total amount allocated to Improve Catalyst Search-ability.
About this idea
[IMPACT]
The image referenced and attached above is the first step in applying organization to the winning proposals from Project Catalyst with the goal of making it easier for everyone to see and discover exactly what Project Catalyst is funding and, if it is a proposal that has an impact in the real world, where it is funding it.
To create this image we went through all the funded proposals from Fund 6, read them and drew from them an intuitive tagging system that allows users to explore proposals by their scope, their purpose, their geography, and more! This image organizes the proposals by their primary tag, with the secondary tags being shown beneath the proposal's title. Each project can get as many tags as necessary to describe it.
We propose to take this data and to integrate it into a search function that will provide users with the ability to explore and discover Project Catalyst funded proposals. Budgeted into this proposal is:
Taking the data from both Funds 7 and 8, going through that data and implementing this tagging system. Creating visualizations, like you see above, for these Funding rounds.
Adding the data for these funds to the search function along with what has already been done for Fund 6.
Everyone will be able to explore the 3 most recent Funding rounds of Project Catalyst. When exploring, users will see the problem statement, the proposed solution, along with the proposal name and tags it has been given. By clicking the “Explore” button users will be directed to the proposal’s page in IdeaScale. Head over to https://builtoncardano.com/ to see how the UI and tagging system will function. Users will also be able to narrow down their search to a particular funding round.
Users will be able to view, download, and share the data visualizations created from this data. There are many uses for this but one that we foresee is using these images to easily show others what Project Catalyst can accomplish and how diverse an array of projects it funds. People will also be able to direct users to the search function so that they can explore the funded proposals.
In addition to this we will also develop and open source an API that allows anyone to pull the Project Catalyst data that we use, along with the tags that we have given to each proposal.
SUMMARY OF DELIVERABLES
The ecosystem style images, of funded Project Catalyst proposals, that you see here
Reading through all the funded proposals for both Fund 7 and Fund 8 and creating a tagging system that allows users to explore and discover funded proposals
A independent search function on the builtoncardano.com website that is focused only on Project Catalyst winning proposals, and contains the data from Funds 6, 7, and 8
An open sourced API of the Catalyst data we have along with the tags we give to each proposal
The qualifications for this challenge are to be about Cardano and to not to fit into any of the other challenges. There are no other challenges that our proposal perfectly aligns with.
We are here to help encourage the growth of Cardano and to foster discovery, exploration, and growth in Cardano ecosystem.
Not receiving the required data is the main challenge that we see in preventing us delivering this project on-time. We have, however, received this data for Fund 6 before and those providing it to us are the ones giving us the funding; we highly doubt that there will be a problem with obtaining this data. If there is then this data will need to be scraped from the Results PDFs which will add many more hours to the tasks and will push our efforts back by approximately 1 week.
[FEASIBILITY]
After onboarding onto Project Catalyst and receiving the relevant data we expect that it will take us up to 4 weeks to tag all the funded proposals in Funds 7 and 8, to create and bug test the search UI, and to make it available for the public. The API and images will then be available the week after.
This timeline starts after we receive the data from Project Catalyst regarding the winners of Fund 7 and Fund 8.
- Week 1-3: Tagging winning projects for both proposals
- Week 4: Integrating funds 6, 7, 8, and their tags, into a dedicated Catalyst Search UI. Search UI available to the public.
- Week 5: API and ecosystem style images are freely available for public use.
Project is then complete.
TAGGING
Tagging all of the funded projects involves reading each proposal and determining the appropriate tags for each one. It then requires sweeping through multiple times, rereading many proposals, to make sure the tagging process is as intuitive as possible and that there are no overly similar tags that cannot be combined.
Fund 6, with 151 projects, took a total of 20 hours. This breaks down to an average of 8 minutes per proposal for the tagging process. with an average growth rate of 89.8% between funding rounds we can estimate that fund 8 will fund approximately 510 proposals. This means that for tagging the hours and costs involved are:
Fund 7 - 269 projects = 36 hours
Fund 8 - 510 (estimated) projects = 68 hours
Total tagging = 104 hours @ $70 p/h = $7280
ENGINEERING
It is going to take 30 hours total to create the UI for the Project Catalyst section of the site and to integrate the project data into that search UI. The vast majority of this time is integrating the data into the platform. It takes 10 hours to design and generate the ecosystem style images of the Project Catalyst data. Here we are looking at 2 images, one for Fund 7 and one for Fund 8, 20 hours total. Final it is estimated that it will take 5 hours to build the API.
Engineering total hours and costs are:
30 Hours integration
20 Hours (2x ecosystem style images)
5 Hours API creation
Total engineering = 55 hours @ $70 p/h = $3,850
TOTAL COSTS
Tagging = 104 hours
Engineering = 55 hours
104 + 55 = 159 hours
@ $70 per hour
= $11,130
Gabe - The developer of Built on Cardano and our search UI. Also the creator of the ecosystem style images.
Ben - The creator of the Built on Cardano tagging system, having researched and tagged over 280 projects for the site. He also tagged all of Fund 6's winning proposals, viewable in the ecosystem style image.
[AUDITABILITY]
Data displaying progress on the creation of the tagging system can be sent to auditors on a periodic basis, weekly is suggested.
Integration progress can be shown in videos from our test environment. Weekly is suggested.
API will take less than 1 day. Will be released and can be viewed on the platform (link provided upon completion)
Images will take half a week and will be publicly available once finished and ready (link will be provided upon completion).
The creation of the UI and its use by ecosystem members to both search the funded projects themselves and to show off project funded Catalyst to other potential proposers.
Use of the API by those inside and outside the community to do what they want with.
Proliferation of the images across social media.
No, we have not received funding for this before. We undertook the tagging of Fund 6 on our own accord and the community liked it so much that we decided to continue this idea with this proposal
Team
Creators of Built on Cardano, an ecosystem explorer where we have implemented a detailed and intuitive tagging system and search UI through which people can explore the projects and tools building on Cardano. We have also completed the some of what we propose here for Fund 6.
