Cardano Baltic Startup Hub

[IMPACT]

We are Cardano Baltic Hub, part of the Artano founding team, a growing high-quality NFT platform on Cardano, currently based in Tallinn, Estonia.

We have had many encounters with the local startup and VC community, and we believe we need a more permanent establishment, especially when introducing Cardano to startups and VCs in the Baltics who are interested in investing or building on a blockchain.

Summary

We propose founding a new Cardano Community Hub in the Baltic Region, starting in Tallinn, Estonia. Cardano Baltic Hub will be its own independent organization, and will gain continuous support of the Artano team and its creative community, as well as other Cardano communities.

Cardano Baltic Hub will host weekly events, in English and Estonian, including workshops from established Cardano projects, community-leaders and founders to expose the local business community to Cardano and make Cardano their first contact with any blockchain.

In addition we will create local community discord channels and telegram groups to enable community members to stay in touch.

We are also looking for funding to join one of the local startup co-working spaces to connect with them more easily, and eventually establish a permanent office in Tallinn and other Baltic states.

Artano pledges to give 10,000 ARTA tokens towards these events in giveaways, we are working with our partners to pledge their tokens towards the initiative as well.

MVH

Our MVH includes a 1-year participation in a local startup co-working space, organizing events, workshops with startups and universities there, as well as match-making efforts between Catalyst and startups, and VCs and startups who are interested in the blockchain.

The needed budget to kick this hub off is around $4500 USD, due to the need to rent a coworking space and hiring a part-time community manager for a minimum of 3 months.

There are a lot of growing companies and unicorns in Tallinn and other Baltic cities, but there is currently no active presence of Cardano (even though other blockchains have started taking their piece of the pie).

Since our team is located in Tallinn, we wanted to offer to open a Cardano Hub there with the local startup and VC community, to attract more talent to Cardano.

The main challenge could be long-term funding, unless we introduce ourselves to local VCs and other organizations that can help us (along with Catalyst).

The community in Tallinn is growing, however, we could already be "too late" to the game, as many projects are adopting Solana and Ethereum.

[FEASIBILITY]

0-3 months

• Create 10 new Cardano holders per event (via airdrops, including ARTA tokens)

• Connect with 5 startups and at least 2 VCs in the first three months

• Hold weekly events, growing to 20+ people per event

3-6 months

• Hold weekly events, growing to 40+ people per event

• Create 30+ new Cardano holders per event

• Hire a part-time, local-speaking community manager (if needed)

• Secure an additional sponsorship from VC connections (if needed)

6-12 months

• Start holding bi-weekly events, growing to 100+ people per event

• Create 40+ new Cardano holders per event

• Secure additional sponsorship

• If interest is sufficient establish a permanent hub location

We aim to host 20+ successful events in the first 12 months. Following that, the success of the hub may depend on additional sponsorship, which we plan to find via VC connections locally.

• Part-time community manager: $40/hr. x 20 hrs/mo x 6 mo = $4800

• Co-working space fee (1 person): $361/mo. x 6 months = $2166 (Workland

- Workshops, VC and Startup Matchmaking events (12 events) organization and materials: 12 hours @ $40/hr. x 3 seminars = $1440

- Quarterly meetups space (2 events, up to 50 people): 2 hours @ $150 / hr. x 2 seminars = $600

- Running bi-monthly seminars (3 events): 2 hours, $40/hr x 3 seminars = $240

- Publishing seminar materials for the community: 1 hour @ $40/hr x 3 seminars = $120

- GitBook (Team): $8/mo. x 6 months = $42

- Trello (Team): $10/mo. x 6 months = $60

- Website hosting: $10/mo. x 6 months = $60

- Food, Drinks (incidentals) = $150

We will need a local, Estonian- and English-speaking community manager, and I (Mateja) would host the talks and workshops. There is no need for more people at the moment, since we already have connections in the area who would be interested to help and co-host events.

[AUDITABILITY]

We will measure progress through adoption metrics, such as:

• Number of open wallets
• Number of long-term holders
• Number of wallets that staked their ADA
• Attendance numbers and increases over time
• Number of successful VC+startup matches who adopted Cardano
• Number of Catalyst Proposals submitted
• Number of new Plutus Pioneers

We hope that our attendance numbers increase from around 20 people at the beginning to as many as 50 in the first few months.

We also hope to have at least 3 startups who have started building on Cardano thanks to our Hub in Tallinn.

• Creating at least 50 new Cardano HODLers in the first 6 months.
• Helping at least 3 startups start working in the Cardano ecosystem
• At least 1 startup who applied for Project Catalyst
• Finding at least 1 VC who will support our initiative for continuous funding and help one of the Cardano startups we worked with at our Hub.
• Establishing a permanent hub in Tallinn and opening a hub in Riga and Vilnius

Entirely new proposal

SDG Rating

SDG goals:

Goal 8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

Goal 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

SDG subgoals:

8.4 Improve progressively, through 2030, global resource efficiency in consumption and production and endeavour to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation, in accordance with the 10‑Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production, with developed countries taking the lead

9.2 Promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and, by 2030, significantly raise industry’s share of employment and gross domestic product, in line with national circumstances, and double its share in least developed countries

9.5 Enhance scientific research, upgrade the technological capabilities of industrial sectors in all countries, in particular developing countries, including, by 2030, encouraging innovation and substantially increasing the number of research and development workers per 1 million people and public and private research and development spending

Key Performance Indicator (KPI):

9.2.2 Manufacturing employment as a proportion of total employment

9.2.1 Manufacturing value added as a proportion of GDP and per capita

8.4.1 Material footprint, material footprint per capita, and material footprint per GDP

#proposertoolsdg