Onboarding Under-represented Youth

Empower youth with structured pathways to engage within the Cardano community, find a role + shape the future as a leader of positive impact

Cardashift, Sustainable ADA

[IMPACT]

Why is it important?

The success of Catalyst depends on the availability of quality challenge teams, proposers, advisors, mentors and voters. 

Young, digital natives and those seeking to connect to the digital economy today are going to be the users of blockchain and crypto tomorrow. However, youth aren’t included nor involved, at scale, in the world’s largest DAO, and experiment in onchain governance and innovation. This can be addressed, leading to participation within all levels of Catalyst.

Why is this problem important? 

1. Future tech advocates, next generation of blockchain advocates, upcoming blockchain natives + Enabling the blockchain natives of tomorrow.
2. Gap/unmet need - Not accessible to all youth + coursework is advanced + protocol communities difficult to enter/engage at the beginning.
3. Root cause - New/information is directed towards developer community/working professionals —- there is a need to be more inclusive in sharing and brainstorming on this new technology.

Opportunity:

Why is the problem solvable?

Educational resources exist but are not tailored to the youth. The blockchain conversation is not inclusive of the youth - widening the dialogue around it.

What would the world look like if our team solved it?

The world would have a dedicated open-source youth platform that provides direct access to interact with the Cardano ecosystem and discuss emerging technologies/models of community governance.

Helping close the gap between the digital divide.

See attached document - pitch deck for further information on our theory of change.

Some statistics for context:

How big is the potential market?

Looking at the distribution of internet users worldwide as of 2019, by youth age 18-24 was 18% of the total internet users globally. This means that 4.1 billion of our global population are connected. 738 million youth make up our potential market. 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/272365/age-distribution-of-internet-users-worldwide/

https://www.itu.int/hub/2021/11/facts-and-figures-2021-2-9-billion-people-still-offline/

French people under 35 years old's perspectives on cryptocurrencies 2019.

People under 35 years old's perspectives on cryptocurrencies in France in June 2019: “Overall, French people under 35 years old had a positive opinion on cryptocurrencies: 43 percent of them believed that cryptocurrencies were a good thing, while 31 percent of them believed they were a bad thing. Among those seeing cryptocurrencies as positive, 33 percent viewed them as a good thing and ten percent considered them as a really good thing.” - https://www.statista.com/statistics/1073810/cryptocurrency-people-under-35-opinion-france/

This is pre-pandemic. With Binance seeking to headquarter in France, and the creation of an innovation hub in France with the granting of 100m EUROS, the trends indicate that youth will most definitely play a pivotal role in shaping the future of blockchain and crypto usage. Cardano and the Catalyst community has an opportunity to position itself as a leading choice for youth who are increasingly aware and concerned with being actively involved in activities and projects that have a positive environmental and social impactful. - https://www.binance.com/en/support/announcement/b11c6f68e581478bae0867146af4c258

43% of men ages 18 to 29 say they have, according to a survey of over 10,000 U.S. adults from Pew Research carried out in 2021. - https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/11/11/16-of-americans-say-they-have-ever-invested-in-traded-or-used-cryptocurrency/

Cryptocurrency is most popular with young adults: 31% of people ages 18 to 29 have used it, compared to 21% of people ages 30 to 49, 8% of people ages 50 to 64 and 3% of people age 65 or over. 

Our solution:

We lower the barriers of entry into the blockchain for impact space, onboarding youth into the Cardano Catalyst Community. By enabling youth and blockchain professionals to connect meaningfully, access professional guidance and expert mentorship, new opportunities are created for synergies that lead to catalyzing collaborative positive feedback loops.

The growth of Project Catalyst depends on meaningful participation from proposers, advisors, mentors and voters who are both eager and capable to fulfill their roles and understand their responsibilities.

Guiding questions:

How might we convert passive ADA holders into active Catalyst members?

• Incentives, compensation as a ‘changemaker/facilitator) to be rewarded to bring more long term value to their passive ADA)

How might we increase awareness of Project Catalyst as the most active open innovation platform?

• Through education, word of mouth and a stellar case study programme with diverse global participants, and broadcast to relevant stakeholders globally. Who else is bringing young people into this space?

How might we increase more meaningful participation from challenge teams, proposers, advisors, mentors and voters? What kind of additional roles are needed?

• Current active community members can be empowering role models, business mentors providing office hour support/masterclasses/mentoring/coaching/1-2-1 for our youth, the future. 
• Additional roles are roles young people can fulfill : that act as a bridge Youth Ambassador/ facilitator/coordinator for bringing the youth and the connected stakeholders into the ecosystem once an initial cohort ‘graduate’ from the pilot programme.
• A ‘youth’ member sitting on a challenge team, being a proposer and eventually proposer mentor, an advisor, and a voter (perhaps on behalf of them selves, their family, their school, their club…)

How might we encourage new members to utilize the tools and services available for onboarding?

• We have a team of engaged community members that number 200+, and several online channels to welcome and onboard the youth, as well in physical locations where feasible. Community Education services exist within our network and live demonstrations and completion of live/offline/recording.
• Circles. Why not a youth circle rep?

How might we improve the use of existing text, video and audio materials? 

• Research existing Cardano related and non cardano related appropriate content/resources (don't reinvent the wheel).
• Ask for community input and support/resource submission to collate a library of resources.
• Get diverse, international youth testing and giving feedback, recorded and documented - which exposes them to github and open source data sharing recording (QA-DAO) and how this is key to implementing the solutions to achieve the SDGs/global goals in this decade of action.
• An iterative process where young follow a pathway.
• Also design along the way (within controlled context).
• Competition process —> catalyst. Real world impact.
• Mentors from across world, networks
• Graduate as adults, equipped, networked, connected, plugged in to lead, create, collaborate, catalyze disruptive innovation in Catalyst (cohort 1,2,3…)
• Leadership programme for these young people in the programme of the future!
• Grassroots led. Challenge the status quo.

Young people globally should be included in the shaping of this space, technology and have their voices listened to in the ongoing conversation of the future of blockchain, and Cardano4 Good.

Key Metrics to measure:

The metrics can be divided into two sections. General onboarding refers to bringing people in and converting them from mere lurkers to voters and potential proposers. Innovation process metrics refer to the quantity and quality of proposals and activity around them.

General onboarding: With a lead of the cohort group (Active Cardano community members + young person/s eg 10-15 young people for the first cohort - demographics to be diverse, cross sectional, multicultural and inclusive)

• Daily/Weekly sign ups to Cardano Ideascale to interact, send messages, give kudos, make comments, and connect. Each profile has metrics attached to it eg. number of ideas posted, number of kudos etc.

• Lead Cardano Community Member modeling in a live zoom session or workshop to young people who are following along in a session, or watching a recording of a How-to, and following as a self paced exercise. Have a FAQ, and a QA in social channels (Telegram, Discord). 

• Town Hall attendance 
• Youth can participate in break out rooms, lead a room, and interact
• Our youth will at as leaders, encouraging other youth to take the leap into our townhalls each week.

• Catalyst School session attendance
• Have a young person (trained to be a workshop facilitator).
• We will be helping equip our youth with the skills to lead, and be the next blockchain teachers of tomorrow.

• Swarm session attendance
• Idea fest
• networking

• Applications to leadership positions (e.g. Circle, other programmes offered by our network partners and supporters)
• Graduates of our Youth programme
• Our graduates will have exclusive access into our community, also helping with decision making and future planning of the Youth Block program

Innovation process:

Number of referrers:

• Youth referrals once graduated from the programme and active in the following fund governance

Reduction in the number of unready proposals:

• By equipping our youth with the proper skills to navigate and propose in Cagtalyst it will minimize the number of poor and non ready proposal in the Catalyst funding rounds in the future.

• Growth in the number of 4-5 star proposals

The skills and knowledge captured through the Youth Block program will allow Youths proposals to be some of the best in the community, and with the guidance from our mentors they will receive constructive feedback that will allow them to continue to propose 4-5 start proposals in the future.

• Growth in the number of Community Advisors and Veteran Community Advisors
• Youth CA, VCA
• Percentage of proposals with Excellent assessments
• Growth in the number of voters
• Youth votes if they are awarded ADA (budgeted)
• Growth in total number of votes given
• Youth votes with ADA between 5000 ADA - 15,000 ADA ($1 USD - $3 USD per ADA)

Additional KPIs:

• # youth participation
• # partner organisations
• # expert mentor participation
• # youth enrolled in tech sector related further education programmes
• # youth tech leaders
• # partnerships created
• # youth enrolled in tech sector related further education programmes
• # youth tech leaders
• # partnerships created
• # youth aspiring for tech sector related employment
• # youth employed in the tech sector
• # programme delivery sites

Other approaches exist and have been tried, to name a few:

Unite2030, Surge https://www.unicef.org/innovation/SURGE 

Crypto Kids camp (https://www.cryptokidscamp.org)

Blockchain Kids (https://blockchainkids.net)

However, our competitive advantages are :

• We aim to offer a program for all youth, and plan to have a lead on each continent, multilingual program, transformative education

• What is distinctive about our approach and team organization is:
• We aim to have a Lead on each continent, community member past 25, mentorship for each member while taking part in the program, help accessing Project Catalyst

• This is supported and made possible through partnerships with:
• The Commonwealth
• UNESCAP
• 1 Million Mentors
• Catalyst School
• Wada

How will we ensure sustainability beyond Catalyst initial funding if successfully funded?

If successfully funded via Catalyst, we will continue our research within our network of mission driven stake pool operators, and scope the possibility too generate rewards every epoch (5 days) 5-6% of total stake each year (https://cardano.org/calculator/), and create a learn to earn model.

Given the price range of USD/ADA can fluctuate with volatility between $1 USD and $3 USD, between now and the fund winner announcement, we seek : $15,000 USD to provide a sufficient buffer to enable at least 10 youth to have sufficient minimum voting power of 500 ADA. (If ADA remains around $1 USD, enough ADA is allocated for all youth to have voting power, and any surplus ADA will be kept staked in a SPO that aligns with our values, and be used to give youth more voting power via the wallets used eg each of the 10 youth can have between 500 - 1500 ADA voting power depending on the USD/ADA exchange rate during payment schedule on fund winner announcement.

If the price of ADA exceeds $3 USD, we will have to adjust the number of youth we can onboard, or we will seek additional resources from our network of partners and supporters to address the shortfall of ADA voting power to enable 10 youth to vote.

[FEASIBILITY]

Pre fund 8 winners announcement:

March 2022:

• Acquired domain : youthblock.io
• Acquired adahandles to support with the programme:
• youthblock
• and more...

Phase 1:

1-3 months (TBC, potentially start Aug/September 2022) during Fund 10 to take cohort through a Fund moving from ‘lurkers’ to becoming active in Fund 11, as mentors, proposers, advisors, voters and more!

Cohort 1: Pioneers *10 youth (Byron)

Fund 10 finishes in November ( Aug - Nov) with the youth voting!

Phase 2:

3 - 6 months (Nov - Feb) during Fund 11 cohort are active. Feb is graduation day!

Pioneers become Shelley

Phase 3:

6 - 9 months (Feb - May) Fund 12 - youth are ambassadors, and embedded in the Cardano Impact Network. Circle Youth Representative. External partners onboarded with youth coordination and facilitation. 

Cohort 1 Pioneers are now Goguen. They bring a youth pioneer under their wing as a mentor now! 

Phase 4:

9 - 10 months Basho

Phase 5:

10 - 12 months Voltaire

By Voltaire, the initial cohort of 10 pioneers will have been part of the community for 12 months. They would have been mentors for the past 6 months.

Asia - 4 youth

Africa - 2 youth

Europe - 1 youth

N. America - 1 youth

S. America - 1 youth

Oceania - 1 youth

Youth Voting Power - Cost 10 youth * 500 ADA (per voting youth) = 5000 ADA

Given for price range between $1 USD and $3 USD between now and fund winner announcement, we seek : $15,000 USD 

(If ADA remains around $1 USD, enough ADA is allocated for all youth to have voting power, and any surplus ADA will be kept staked in a SPO that aligns with our values, and be used to give youth more voting power via the wallets used eg each of the 10 youth can have between 500 - 1500 ADA voting power depending on the USD/ADA exchange rate during payment schedule on fund winner announcement)

Programme management 12 months = 12,000 USD

Promotion of programme = 3000 USD

Total budget = 30,000 USD

When you consider this is 15% of the total pot of $400,000, and that the average course at university for a youth in the developing world to study in a 1 year Master degree course, or a higher learning educational institute specialised short course on blockchain and crypto, in the industrialized nations, to be cost up to more expensive, we believe this to be a modest investment for a community seeking to allocate a portion of the Cardano Treasury to invest in our future, our youth, so they can have voting power.

The affiliated proposal seeks to cover the costs of content and programme design, delivery and logistics: 

Open source ecosystem development :

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/404951

Team:

Trishala Adwaine Suresh - https://www.linkedin.com/in/trishalasuresh/

Impact Lead at SmartChain, Impact Assessment Lead Cardashift, Active Cardano Community Member, Project Catalyst Proposer since Fund 7, Co-founder of YouthBlock and Debug Lab, a podcast series.

Cole Bartlett https://www.linkedin.com/in/cole-bartlett

UNITE 2030 Youth Delegate, a recent graduate in Economics & Sustainability, Founder of Sustainable ADA, Contributor for Positive Blockchains, Blockchain & Sustainability Researcher, & Social Entrepreneur, Ecoquest Education Foundation - Sustainability Research, B Impact Clinic part of UNH's Changemaker Collaborative - Kikori, Sustainability Splash Program Organizer, Bronze UNH Sustainability Award Winner.

Razali Samsudin https://www.linkedin.com/in/razali-samsudin

Educator, Editor, Digital Economy, Blockchain & Sustainability Researcher, Social Entrepreneur, Catalyst Proposal Mentor, Wada UN SDG and Education Coordinator, Co-Founder of Sustainable ADA, Contributor for Positive Blockchain & Catalyst School Core Member.

Cardano4Climate.com (C4C) community includes over 200 members and growing. C4C is organising weekly meetups and monthly events and collaborating with multiple impact communities (i.e. climateneutralcardano.org), companies (i.e. Veritree, Cardashift) and the Cardano companies (IOG, Emurgo, Cardano Foundation).

SustainableADA.com team is focusing on educational services, research and communication of impact projects on the Cardano blockchain, spreading the word of the work and impact of the Cardano ecosystem .

Cardashift - https://cardashift.com

Cardashift is a community-run launchpad that raises funds, builds and accelerates startups that are solving social and environmental issues. Cardashift supports this proposal via their Impact assessment team consisting of Vincent Katchavenda (co-founder of Cardashift), Anais Bouchet and Yannis Baala ( Impact Project Managers). 

Vincent Katchavenda - https://www.linkedin.com/in/vkatchavenda/

Anais Bouchet - https://www.linkedin.com/in/anais-bouchet/

Yannis Baala - https://www.linkedin.com/in/yannis-baala-39b912138t/

Catalyst School - Catalyst School is a place created to enhance the impact of Catalyst as a whole by improving the contribution of all its different players and roles. We onboard new members and help improve their skills along the way, in any way they decide to engage with Catalyst: as a Proposer, a Community Advisor, a Veteran Community Advisor or without any specific role within the process. In order for Catalyst to flourish and reach its full potential, all these roles need to give their best contribution within the process.

Catalyst School - 

https://twitter.com/school_catalyst

https://linktr.ee/CatalystSchool

We are in talks with several partners and allies such as The Commonwealth, UNESCAP, 1 million mentors, Accelerate 2030, Wada, Beanchain Coffee and the Blockchain Learning Center about sharing resources for greater impact in delivery at scale, and avoiding duplication and working in silos.

https://onemillionmentors.org.uk/about-1mm/

https://accelerate2030.net/

https://www.wada.org/

https://linktr.ee/BeanChainCoffee

https://blockchainlearning.center/

• The Commonwealth Secretariat 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/

[AUDITABILITY]

All the information will be open source, and shared with the community.

We will have dedicated google folders where we will put together all the presentations, leads database and progress reports. We will also open dedicated discord and telegram channels for communication and information gathering and sharing. The meetings will be recorded and shared as long as the collaborative party agrees. There will be a monthly summary, accessible for all, explaining the work done and deliverables and KPIs achieved during the month. Through this process it will be possible to progress in alignment the proposal.

Transferring ADA to voting wallets that will be used by youth members will be done, with each transfer having fulfilled the necessary guideline steps and will be publicly viewable.

What does success look like?

A well-oiled open innovation platform where people fulfill roles that are meaningful for them and that contribute to shared success. Young people can be and are an essential part of this journey if Catalyst is to reach its full potential and truly move the needle. (Ambassador network)

Reaching the KPIs will be a key success indicator. In addition, a key element of success will be the number of youth members engaging as active members of Catalyst, and going on to propose and take on roles in Catalyst, and become youth leaders in the Cardano community and the blockchain for impact space.

It will be an important use case for other blockchains, educational collaborative efforts and various stakeholders to learn from our programme for success. We aim to learn during and from the process, and start developing it into a replicable model that could be self-sustained and adapted accordingly depending on the context.

This is a new proposal. However, the proposing team have a track record of proposing proposals that connect with impact, education and sustainability. Examples of previously funded proposals are:

Add SDG ratings to proposals - AIM F6: Partnerships for Global Adoption

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/367569

Research in Applying Frameworks-AIM, F6: Partnerships for Global Adoption

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/369294

Global Sustainable Stories/Usecases F6: Grow Africa, Grow Cardano

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/369883

Proposal Framework Tool - AIM F6: DLT Entrepreneurship Toolbox

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/369300

Proposal Framework Tool - AIM F7: Open Source Developer Ecosystem

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/383692

Examples of affiliated proposals are:

Youth Block Open Source Education - F8: Open Source Development Ecosystem

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/404951

SDG Rating

SDG goals:

Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

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

SDG subgoals:

4.4 By 2030, substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship.

4.5 By 2030, eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations.

4.7 By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development.

8.6 By 2020, substantially reduce the proportion of youth not in employment, education or training

Key Performance Indicator (KPI):

4.7.1 Extent to which (i) global citizenship education and (ii) education for sustainable development are mainstreamed in (a) national education policies; (b) curricula; (c) teacher education; and (d) student assessment

#proposertoolsdg