Outreach, Education & Collaboration

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

Workshops for university students, civil society, the private sector, and municipal bodies in Vienna that teach blockchain fundamentals and foster the co-creation of sustainable use cases 

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

BA in Sustainable Development

MSc in Urban Studies with a Focus on Sustainability

Current PhD Candidate Researching Blockchain’s Role in Sustainability Transformations

Urban Sustainability Lecturer at the University of Vienna

3+ years researching blockchain

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Problem

My experience at the University of Vienna and working with the municipality, has clearly illustrated that there is a severe lack of blockchain knowledge, with minimal understanding of anything that extends beyond cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin.

This is a vital gap that must be addressed, as blockchain’s, and especially Cardano’s, wide-range of use cases have the potential to be integrated into various streams of research, in different faculties, and throughout the city more widely.

In turn, this knowledge gap is inhibiting ecosystem growth, mainstream adoption, the creation of novel use cases, and the local government from achieving its goal of making Vienna ‘The Blockchain Capital’. (https://www.digitalcity.wien/schwerpunkte2021/blockchain/)

Solution

Accordingly, this project strives to inspire students and civil society, and inform them of the various ways Cardano’s ecosystem can be leveraged to elevate their ideas and support novel social, economic, and ecological sustainability solutions.

In addition to educating participants, and raising awareness, it is this project’s goal to foster interdisciplinary collaboration both during the workshop, and afterwards, with the formation of a Cardano Hub in Vienna. It is through active and ongoing networking, discussing, and cooperation, that development teams can be formed, ideas nourished, and future Project Catalyst proposals created.

Target Audience

The first workshop will target university students from the Universität Wien, and the Technology University of Vienna.

The second workshop will be open to the wider-public, bringing together policy-makers, business owners, community organizations, and civil society.

This separation is done for multiple reasons. Firstly, targeting students will help build a network which is required for attracting people from other areas of society, that aren’t students. Secondly, it will help me refine the workshop and understand how it can be more appropriately formulated for a more diverse assortment of participants. Lastly, students of different disciplines, will have unique, and more academic focused perspective, and a space should be provided for this type of collaboration. 

Who Benefits?

The main benefactors of this project are the Cardano ecosystem, Project Catalyst, and the Viennese population. It is the intent of this project to unite these three groups, and illustrate the ways people can leverage the Cardano ecosystem and Project Catalyst to overcome sustainability challenges. 

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

Objective 1: Education & Awareness Raising

The first part of the workshop will address in 3 ways:

1. Demystifying ‘crypto currency’ and providing details on the fundamentals of the Cardano blockchain ecosystem. This will include the basics of blockchain and the various consensus algorithms to demonstrate the sustainability of Cardano’s Proof of Stake infrastructure,
2. Technologies blockchain supports will be explained, including:
3. Smart contracts, DAOs, NFTs
4. After presenting these fundamentals a range of use cases will be discussed as examples, with emphasis on those that aim to support economic equity, and social and ecological sustainability, such as:
5. DeFi, Supply Chain Sustainability, Governance, Secure Data & Identity Ownership, Energy, Internet of Things applications, AI, etc

Objective 2: Collaboration for Integration & Adoption

The second part of the workshop 3 steps:

1. Provide an open, empowering, interdisciplinary environment for participants to workshop and discuss implementation ideas
2. Set up small groups to formulate ideas and co-create use case possibilities after the education portion of the workshop
3. Inter-group sharing and discussion to allow for feedback and improvement of original ideas

Objective 3: Publishing Material for Outreach

This will include 2 steps:

• Write a paper to be published which links workshop ideas to relevant academic literature and provides a more in-depth conceptualization of how they could be operationalized to bolster sustainability efforts
• Write a series of 3-4 blog posts for LinkedIn which outline the workshop, its creation, success, and output

Objective 4: Community Building

This will include 3 aspects:

1. The formation of a Cardano Hub Discord Server
2. Introducing participants to Project Catalyst, and the Cardano Ecosystem more generally
3. Fostering the growth of a blockchain network in Vienna that links people from different areas of sustainable development

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

Challenge 1: Ensuring a sound number of participants attend the workshop

• This challenge will be addressed through active in-person and digital marketing efforts that include:
• Utilizing my university contacts
• The formation of the Vienna Blockchain Discord server from Day 1
• Flyers and stickers are the city and university campuses
• Facebook Ads

Challenge 2: Balancing the content of the seminar in a way that ensures comprehension without confusion. It is key that people understand the fundamentals and various technologies, in order for them to be active workshop contributors and to co-create sustainability-based use cases.

• To address this, in addition to intensive workshop preparation, a ‘mock’ workshop will take place with a close group of friends and colleagues, in order to ensure the presentation flows smoothly, and is easily comprehended by members of the general public that have little to no prior blockchain knowledge. 

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

Workflow Process (Timeline)

1. Week 0-6: Workshop development & Marketing
2. Week 7: Conduct workshop with University Students
3. Week 8-9: Collect workshop feedback & refine the workshop
4. Week 10-16: Marketing for Workshop 2
5. Week 17: Conduct workshop with civil society, municipality members, private institutions and the like
6. Week 17-24: Write paper & blog posts that incorporates workshop development ideas
7. Week 24-26: Circulate paper through faculty members and workshop participants for review
8. Week 27: Publish paper and begin publishing posts

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Workshop Development:

• 6 hours/week * 5 weeks = 30 hours
• 30 hours * $30/hour = 900 USD

Workshop Advertising Materials - 500 USD

• Stickers
• Posters
• Facebook Ads

Seminar & Workshop

• Catering: 100 USD per event
• 100 * 2 = 200 USD

Cardano Swag for Participants

• 3/mug with Cardano Logo * 100 = 300
• 250 stickers = 40
• 2.5/Wrist band USB drives * 100 = 250
• Total = 590 USD

Venue Rental & Required Materials

• 500 USD per Event
• 500 * 2 = $1000 USD

Peer-Reviewed Paper & Blog Article Writing

• 8 hours/week * 7 weeks = 56 hours
• 56 hours * $30/hour = $1680 USD

Total= $4870 

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

James A. Vandenberg, MSc

• BA in International Development at the University of British Columbia and the University of Amsterdam
• MSc in Urban Studies with semesters in Brussels, Vienna, Copenhagen & Madrid
• Current PhD Candidate at the University of Vienna investigating Blockchain’s potential to improve the sustainability and circularity of urban metabolic flows
• Urban Sustainability Lecturer at the University of Vienna for Master level classes
• 3+ years researching blockchain and its sustainability implications.
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesavandenberg/
• https://geographie.univie.ac.at/en/working-groups/urban-studies/team/vandenberg-james/
• University Email – James.Vandenberg@univie.ac.at

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

This project can be completed with this current round of funding.

However, ideally this project will motivate participants in these workshops to apply for funding with their own projects in the future.

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

Key Metrics

• Number of participants to both events (100)
• Number of novel development ideas
• The prevalence of positive feedback from workshop participants (measured in post-workshop survey)
• Level to which workshop participants note there blockchain knowledge has been improved (measured in post-workshop survey)
• Views, comments & shares of LinkedIn blog series
• Views & future citations of peer-reviewed article
• Number of new Vienna based project catalyst participants
• Number of new members in the Vienna Blockchain Community discord server

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

• Workshop participants will have a stronger understanding of the fundamentals of blockchain and the Cardano ecosystem, the various technologies it supports, and most importantly, how they can be used to address sustainability challenges
• Workshop participants will produce innovate and novel ideas of how blockchain can be used to address major local and global challenges
• The Vienna Blockchain Community Discord Server, and subsequent Cardano Community Hub, will be an active place with new connections being made, collaborations formed, and inspiring ideas flourishing. 

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

This is an entirely new, and necessary proposal. 

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

This proposal is focused specifically on how blockchain be used for sustainability, and strives inspire new use cases that can be used to contribute to all of the Sustainable Development Goals.

However, perhaps more specifically, it focuses on SDG 4 Quality Education, SDG 11, Sustainable Cities and Communities, and SDG 17 Partnerships for the Goals.