University/College Outreach

[IMPACT]

Please note: This is a continuing funding request! Originally funded in Fund4! and Fund6! and Fund7!

Please note: We did not have a chance during Fund5 to amend the Fund5 submission due to the closeness of Fund4 and Fund5. We did receive overwhelming support for this project in Fund5. Sadly, we did not receive funding in Fund5 due to a lack of available funding left over in the proposer outreach category. Please note this project received an advisor score of 4.11 in Fund7!

Goal:

The goal of this project is to reach out to as many students/graduates as possible to raise awareness of Cardano and the opportunities that exist for both developers, professionals and business owners. We want to drive the targets to Project Catalyst and assist them in submitting ideas and earn Referrer fees (to be self funded). We also want to incubate those that want to continue to learn more about Cardano and help to nurture this audience, we want them to stay part of our community and part of the Cardano Community. We have grown to over 650 followers on Twitter!

Addendum: A clarification, we plan to request additional funding for a few months until we can be self-funded. During these next few months, as we introduce student and graduates to the Cardano ecosystem, we hope to help candidates develop Catalyst ideas; Steer them through the process of developing ideas and refining them for submission to the project thereby earning Referrer Rewards. When this conduit matures, we will be able to sustain the project without further funding from the Project (ideally by Fund8). Note Fund7 was supposed to be our LAST Funding request before we were considered SELF SUSTAINABLE and able to pay ourselves full time salaries. Sadly, only 3 of the 40 projects referred to Catalyst have been funded to date. Therefore, this funding request is to expand and broaden our reach by

KPI:

1. Number of people Engaged (80/day, responses, learning, referrals)(down from 200 last fund) (This KPI is being DROPPED in FUND8 as this metric is no longer being tracked)

2. Number of people Attended (50 per Zoom/Twitch)(down from 100 last fund)

3. Number of Ideas Submitted. (20 per Fund, adjusted from 30)(same goal since last fund)

4. Number of Twitter Followers (1000, currently 650)

Campaigns:

Social Media: Twitter, Telegram, Zoom etc. Daily Twitter/Twitch Spaces

Email: Lead Nurturing and CRM During lead nurturing we will continue to engage the targets by drip marketing and steering them to learning resources that will be helpful in ensuring their adoption of the ecosystem. A sample drip would include a short 1-2 min video with the learning resource of the day. A link to register to twitch stream/zoom call. A reminder email/text sent to the target 15 mins before start and at the start of the call.

Incentive Program ADA Airdrop to student association presidents, participants; introduces them to Daedalus, broadens adoption, incentivizes key student figures to promote participation

Risks: Students are very busy and this project has had to pivot a number of times to accomodate COVID, changes in student habits and changes given to war and its impacts. Our zoom calls are stable and maturing to the point where the presentation deck and topics are evolving to include a greater focus on Project Catalyst and connecting the students to the SWARM, SCHOOL and Town Halls.

Further risks include public perception of blockchain and Cardano itself. The image of Cardano and the brand itself could be tainted by bad actors or other negative events within the ecosystem such as a disruption to the functioning of the protocol itself.

A final risk is the fact that not all students engaged have included us as a referrer to receive the referrer reward. Sometimes the integrity of the proposing student and ultimate greed take over and we never get the credit we deserve for helping shape and refine their proposals. We spend many hours (sometimes more than 10 hours) working patiently with student proposers crafting their proposals for no direct compensation).

[FEASIBILITY]

Please note this ongoing project funded from fund4/6/7 has reached over 3,400 students to date. We have a process where Steve initiates contact with the university professor or student assocation or key person and then we explain who we are, what we do via a combination of email and twitter blasts. This is time consuming but Steve being retired enjoys spending his mornings interacting and setting up these zoom meetings. We both believe in Cardano and the overall mission of banking the unbanked.

This Funding Request is for a 3 month period as opposed to our other funding requests of 1 month at a time. We believe our pilot proves the value we provide to the community. Therefore, we want to be able to build out and expand our educational offering and be closer to our community than just delivering these zoom calls. We will iterate and provide meaningful engagement solutions (such as a TikTok account called CardanoMinute, delivering short updated information on changes and news, delivered daily), encourgaing a dialogue with those that want to learn more.

Currently, Jeff and Matthew deliver the actual zoom calls which consist of a powerpoint presentation that covers Cardano (roadmap), Cardano Foundation, Emurgo (emphasis on the educational courses) and Projecct Catayst (introduction to Ideascale, the community Catalyst site and other ressources)

This particular funding request we want to EXPAND this proven pilot and experiment to add more community members and even have some of our own community (students who had taken the time to propose and show a genuine interest in growing themselves and the Cardano ecosystem) to become presenters and help share our vision. Think students teaching students about Cardano and the opportunities that exist.

Budget:

• Social Media Campaign $1000 (for 3 months total) (Hawke Digital Inc., SEO, Targeted Twitter Ads)

• Incentive Program $600 (Airdrops, incentives to student helpers)

• CardanoOutreach Invitational Chess Tournament $1200 (2 events $500 each), $100 to Twitch host for each event (@bulletMercenary)

• Hardware and Software Acquisition $880 (CRM Monthly costs, new laptop for Steve (cost $1880 + tax)(2 year lifecycle))(Note: $1000 already funded in fund7)

• Salary $6000 Project Lead (Full time 37.5 Hrs per week)(for 3 months)(Reporting to Coordinator, closing out videos, project management, presenting to students, jack of all trades!)

• Salary $3000 Steve (3.5 hours per day setting up appointments, correspondence with targets)(for 3 months)

• Salary $5000 Mathew (@goofy_ginger)(community advisor) ( 2 hours per day setting up appointments, delivering zooms )(for 3 months) + Working on Presentation Deck Updates and TikTok daily updates

• Salary $2400 Student Presenter (English Language) (4 presentations per week, each presentation is 1 hour + 1 hour for correspondence, referral setups, feedback loops and reporting)(3 months salary)

• Salary $2400 Student Presenter #2 (English and Mandarin Language)(4 presentations per week, each presentation is 1 hour + 1 hour for correspondence, referral setups, feedback loops and reporting)(3 months Salary)

Total Budget $22,480 USD

Team:

Jeff Granger (Idea Proposer, Project Leader)

• Project Lead, Twitch Host, Idea Submitter Consultant to Students, Zoom Presenter

• 20 years + Management Experience, Successful realtor and property

investor, semi-retired, able to devote full time to this project

• Contact Information: jeffgrangerbarrie@gmail.com

• Contact Information: 705-791-8655

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-g-30a144188/

Steve Murray (Retired Manager of IT (IT Department, Shared Services Canada)

• Webmaster, Developer (20 years in the IT space)

• Appointment Setting, General Clerical Duties

• Contact Information: Murray255@rogers.com

• Contact Information: 705-627-4373

Mathew (@Goofy_ginger)(Community advisor)

2 Students from the School of Management, University of Ottawa

• 1 will lead the DRIP Campaign and Outreach Activities and Presenter

• 1 will assist with Twitch and Zoom for Chinese language (Mandarin) streams

Notes:

• Worldwide Audience, targeting university students and graduates in

faculties of computer science, engineering, business and Law.

• Daily Zoom/Twitch Streams of 1 hour and 7 hours daily devoted to Lead

Nurturing/Guidance and Learning/Idea Submissions, a full time

commitment

• Proposer is a university graduate and can quickly connect to the various student

associations, graduate student associations and others affiliated to the

learning institutions.

• Initially focusing on areas with high concentration of the target audience

(ex. India, China, US, top 100 universities for devs etc.)

Expected Launch: Already Launched!

[AUDITABILITY]

A separate Wallet for this Fund will allow for tracing of payments to ensure the intergrity of the project.

Internally, our target is to have each presentation have 50 students. The students are already qualified for fit as they are within the scope of computer science (developer) and or business and law, areas where the Cardano Ecosystem lacks talent.

Our goal is to measure number of students engaged, number of referrals to Catalyst and we want to create new feedback loops to continue to engage our community by introducing innovative communications channels such as Tiktok. (launching CardanoMinute on TikTok)

Currently we have delivered sessions to 3,400 students, referred 40 projects of which 3 have been funded. We did not have the time or people to measure how else the balance of the 3,400 participate (are they token holders, still within the ecosystem, still seeking additonal info? We did poll 100 participants to provide feedback on how we did and we discovered 20 students actually took the Emurgo Blockchain course, perhaps more took it that we do not know of! As this project grows we need to create better feedback loops to understand how to better nurture these students.

We will measure average students engaged per session and provide better metrics as the project evolves.

Success is defined as delivering quality educational zoom sessions to the target audience, measuring follow up for referrals and most importantly iterating to meet their needs as they progress with their introductory experience with us. We need to develop ongoing follow up with these students to keep them current on devlopments within the ecosystem.

As an example of iterating, we held a chess invitational tournament on twitch in the month of December (a pilot within a pilot)(while students were in exam mode) to engage the broader twitch community, to our surprise our sponsorship of $500 for this event was money well spent as we delivered exposure to over 25,000 people and specifcally spent 40 minutes holding a QandA session with over 200 people. We will continue to host invitational chess events as they are good value for the funds spent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUnmkVPdBYo

This is a continuing funding request. This project was succsessfully funded in fund4/6/7. The last funded proposal in fund 7 can be found here: https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/384543