Scale-UP Cardano's Community Hubs

With dozens of community hubs now funded, we need a more sophisticated approach to scaling that includes documentation, tooling and support.

Local Community Hubs across the world where the average person can take part in their own language and with their own cultural understanding

• How many new hubs were launched in 2022?
• How many countries have at least one community hub?
• How many new tools were created to support the global hub network?
• How many hubs improved their processes by applying the frameworks and tools offered?
• How many developers did this challenge bring into the Cardano ecosystem?
• How many new users of Cardano were onboarded?
• How many external organizations did this community-focused challenge bring into the Cardano ecosystem?

Challenge Updates

• Top 3 Challenge Category in Fund 8 (see attached).
• 3x Funded Challenge Setting Proposal (Fund 5, 6 and 7)

A selection of past-funded 'Scale-Up Hubs':

• Vietnamese Hub
• Cardano Builders' Hub India
• Cardano Blockchain Lab in Kenya
• Homeless Hubs
• Cardano in South L.A.
• Cardano in Buenos Aires

What this means:

1. Demand is growing for this category and we are only at the beginning of what is possible with a network of Cardano hubs globally. The network effect will take hold at some point and when it does, we need to be ready with templates, guides and materials on creating and sustaining a new Cardano Community Hub (CCH).
2. The impact is real and ROI is being met. Real lives are being affected and improved through this category. This creates a win-win, positive feedback loop as more people benefit from the solutions we offer them, there is even more demand for these services worldwide.

While we are Scaling UP community hubs, we need to Scale DOWN individual capital outlay, to ensure that we can spread as far as possible, as quickly as possible, which is why we work from first principles.

1. Delivering information to people who would not otherwise have the access.
2. Ensuring resilience and self-reliance within that community.

When we approach hubs from the lens of information-delivery nodes, we can build a hub taxonomy within a need-impact matrix and then find the most capital efficient model for each location.

In other words, consider why a hub exists, in the context of it's location, access to infrastructure and community readiness. Then design a hub according to those factors, with a traditional brick-and-mortar (CTH) being only one out of many potential information-delivery systems within a local community.

With this said, a focus more on 'minimum-viable hubs' (MVHs) is needed. What is the smallest effective unit for a hub, and by identifying this unit, can we begin to scale CCHs more rapidly.

How is the Fund 9 challenge different?

In addition to the previous round’s challenge goals, this round will introduce the additional components of tooling, measurement and support for hubs. 

• The question is: How do we ensure that community hubs are optimizing and scaling efficiently?
• The answer is: By providing documentation around best practices, building tools that support growth and tracking performance across the global hub network.

In this way, not only is the network of hubs growing with each challenge, but the introduction of supporting frameworks and tools allows them to scale efficiently.

Supporting partners:

For Cardano to achieve its ambition of being a global financial and social infrastructure that banks the unbanked, solves wicked problems and pushes for “a more connected, transparent and fair configuration for both the flow of ideas and value”, collaborating for the greater good is key, as outlined by SDG 17, “Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.”

During Fund 6, a community challenge category supported such endeavors, entitled “Partnerships for Global Adoption” - https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/campaigns/26114/stage/all/ideas/unspecified

Cardano stands out in the marketplace of ideas, as a “blockchain for good”, enabling, equipping and empowering ‘blockchangers’ to solve local, and global problems, helping to build a more equitable, prosperous world for all. The time has come for the Cardano community to scale up in connecting grassroots led hubs within a decentralized impact network, to multinational, multilateral institutions, for greater collective intelligence and positive social and environmental impact.

In that spirit, supporting partners have rallied, met the call, and are keen to join forces to collaborate with Project Catalyst to scale up our Community Hubs:

• The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of 54 independent and equal countries. It is home to 2.5 billion people, and includes both advanced economies and developing countries. 32 of our members are small states, including many island nations. Member governments have agreed to shared goals like development, democracy and peace. Their values and principles are expressed in the Commonwealth Charter. The Commonwealth's roots go back to the British Empire. But today any country can join the modern Commonwealth. The last country to join the Commonwealth was Rwanda in 2009. https://thecommonwealth.org/about-us.

• The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP)  is the most inclusive intergovernmental platform in the Asia-Pacific region. The Commission promotes cooperation among its 53 member States and 9 associate members in pursuit of solutions to sustainable development challenges. ESCAP is one of the five regional commissions of the United Nations. The ESCAP secretariat supports inclusive, resilient and sustainable development in the region by generating action-oriented knowledge, and by providing technical assistance and capacity-building services in support of national development objectives, regional agreements and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. ESCAP also provides support to partners at the national level. ESCAP’s national offer is rooted in and linked with the implementation of global and regional intergovernmental frameworks, agreements, and other instruments. The outline of the ESCAP’s Offer of Support at the national level is available here. ESCAP pursues this objective by carrying out work, in close cooperation with other United Nations entities and intergovernmental organizations in the region. https://www.unescap.org/our-work

• Accelerate 2030, initiated by UNDP and Impact Hub, is the world’s largest program supporting entrepreneurs from developing and emerging markets to scale their solutions for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). They leverage the strengths and reach of the global Impact Hub network, United Nations organizations, corporates, investors and expert partners to scale entrepreneurial innovations while contributing to a shift towards a more sustainable economy. Operating in hubs across 20+ locations, Accelerate2030 provides one-of-a-kind scaling support to entrepreneurs through National Scale-Ready Programs across Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America, followed by a Global Scaling Program for those with the highest international scaling potential. https://accelerate2030.net/.

• One Million Mentors (1MM) is a unique, community-based mentoring project with one simple aim: to connect one million young people with one million life-changing opportunities. This is even more important right now given the impact of COVID-19 on young people. We back the talents of young people to improve their career chances, while at the same time strengthening local communities. 1MM was founded on the belief that through personal, one-to-one mentoring, more young people can grow the knowledge, networks, skills and confidence they need to succeed. By giving them online access to a trained mentor every young person in the country can have the chance to reach their potential. Together we are meeting the challenge and creating social change, on a national scale. https://onemillionmentors.org.uk/about-1mm/

Due to the scope of the challenge, the proven demand for its place on the regular roster and the large institutional partners who have broadcasted interest in participating on a scale previously unseen by Catalyst and the Scale-Up Hubs community, we are now requesting a 3x budget from the last round.

Additional Success Metrics:

Hubs:

• Is the hub's Fund 9 proposal in keeping with the MVH principle?
• Do they have an understanding of their target audience?
• Can they accurately project their reach (physical and online)?
• Can they accurately project the number of onboarded members to the hub?
• Have they given an indication of a financial sustainability model?
• Have they given an indication of budget costs vs 'cost to launch'? (eg. A CTH may only apply for 1/5 of their cost to launch due to the demand pressures of acquiring catalyst funding)

Tools & Frameworks:

• Can this tool or framework apply generally across all hubs?
• Does this business framework have past case studies of successful implementation?
• Does this online tool require a license fee or is it an open standard?
• Does it include analytics and performance measurement?
• Do the tools or frameworks integrate well with the existing hub services?

Ratings by CAs and Voters should favour:

• Proposals that offer online tools that will support the global hub network.
• Proposals that offer professional services to the global hub network.
• Proposals that offer documentation and business frameworks to the global hub network.
• Proposals that catalyze growth and employment opportunities in their local communities.
• Proposals that account for local needs and infrastructure concerns.
• Proposals that show creativity and ingenuity around hub design and information delivery.
• Proposals that are using local, recyclable materials and have a commitment to sustainability practices.

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Let's build an ecosystem that is truly global, allowing everyone to participate to the best of their ability, whatever level they are starting from.

When you drive adoption at the ground level, you are doing more than just 'building cool products', you are empowering people to change their lives in ways they could have never imagined by themselves.

https://imgur.com/a/zK5ralU

https://imgur.com/a/feXUVDF

Extra resources:

• Cumbria, UK Business Hub: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/sellafield-invests-26m-to-create-cumbria-business-hub
• Rwanda Business Hub: https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/03/norrsken-foundations-hub-opens-in-rwanda-to-house-1000-entrepreneurs-by-next-year

Past-funded challenges:

• Scale-UP Community Hubs (F7)
• Scale-UP Community Hubs (F6)
• Scale-UP Community Hubs (F5)

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Interested in shaping the next-generation of blockchain innovation centers? Join the conversation at https://t.me/ScaleUpHubs

Challenge amounts should only be proposed in increments of $25K. Other amounts not in these increments will be rounded up. E.g. $27,500 will be rounded up to $50,000.