Gig workers DAO

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

Tools and framework to build a DAO for gig workers in various professions, that will give them all the benefits of the basic employee rights while maintaining their freedom.

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

An entrepreneur seeking to build a team to build this project. I myself am a backend developer and Plutus and Marlowe pioneers participant.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Tools and frameworks to enable the building of DAOs that provide the benefits of employed workers.

Some researchers believe that as much of 10% of the global workforce engages in some sort of gig work today. The model, however, is broken. 40% of all gig workers make less than minimum wage. More than 60% want to quit within a year. Gig economy workers, based all across the world, all struggle with a shared set of challenges: insecurity, anxiety, low wages, and high costs. 

I am currently working with the ride-hailing community here in Ethiopia, and I plan on testing a pilot project with this community. This community is 10,000+ workers strong that feel like they are being exploited by the ride-hailing companies.

The creation of a ride-hailing or delivery company controlled by its workers could be one of the only ways to succeed in such a low-margin business.

With this project, we hope to research the various needs each stakeholder has, and accordingly design the frameworks and tools to enable the creation of DAOs for the needs of any gig workers community.

How would such a DAO work anyway?

Payments

Workers could choose to get paid in the DAO's tokens, or even the fiat that customers pay the DAO with. The transactions would be instantaneous, completely auditable, and transparent, and would be operated entirely by the smart contract.

Coordination

The DAO can coordinate on any co-working platform – Discord,Telegram, etc. There will be dedicated departments that replicate those in traditional platforms, such as HR, marketing, operations, legal, product, and so on that ensure that the DAO operates smoothly and functions like a ‘real’ organisation. The employees within these departments can either be full-time resources or can even be sectoral specialists that are part of a DAO themselves that freelance to offer these services. 

Governance

To avoid a scenario inchi whales make all major decisions, the DAO can potentially introduce a ‘proof-of-personhood’ based voting mechanism – the system would verify that an account corresponds to a unique individual human, who obtains one vote. Proposals on the future direction can be submitted by anyone with the DOA's governance token; they may have to attain a certain number of votes in order to be discussed further, after which they might need a 60% majority to pass (this number, obviously, is adjustable).

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

This proposal aims to build the tools and framework that gig-workers will need. These tools and frameworks will target gig-workers broadly but will be designed to specifically address the needs of ride-hailing or uber-like centralized service workers.

The first pilot community will be built together with the ride-sharing association in Ethiopia, which is currently 10,000 workers strong, and we hope to onboard 3,000 with our initial phase. We will also be integrating these workers with our wallet (Endubis Wallet) for easy engagement with the Cardano platform.

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

As with any DAO the biggest piece to building a successful project is the community it has. Even though our target audience is in need of such a project, the legal aspects of running such decentralized projects with no clear and open methods for tax collection can cause a legal challenge. As such, we will be working on this project with partners with strong legal knowledge to ensure workers fulfill all legal obligations.

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

Q3 2022:

• Creation of a coordination group, ideally on telegram
• Series of onboarding meetings with the community
• Research on a viable traditional business plan that can be adapted for the DAO (this is already partially done because of a ride-hailing business plan that we had worked on previously)

Q4 2022:

• Design of the tokenomics of the DAO
• Frameworks for the DAO governance
• Integration with payment methods for the DAO
• recruitment of Developers for ride-hailing app

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Budget for proof-of-concept (3 months):

R&D: $1,000/month x 3 months = $3,000

Community Engagement: $2,000USD

Software Services & Server Fees: $500 x 6 months = $2,000

Technical Architecture: $1,000/ month x 3 months = $3,000

User Research / UX (fees & rewards): $2,000

Admin expenses: $500

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

Muna Mohammed - Business Consultant

https://www.linkedin.com/in/muna-mohammed-23b9a963/

Nebiyu Sultan - Lead

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nebiyu-sultan-30775446/

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

If funded this round, this project will require additional funding depending on the outcome of the pilot project and we start implementing a full-fledged GIG DAO.

[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?

• Number of current gig workers registering to take part in the DAO
• The interest of the community to operate in a decentralized system
• Types of benefits uniquely available to traditional employees that are adopted by the DAO

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

• The framework and Architecture for the DAO and its products will be developed
• Viable Tokenomics and token distribution mechanisms developed
• decentralized Ride-hailing app architecture developed

[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 proposal

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

SDG Goals

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

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

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

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

8.10 - Strengthen the capacity of domestic financial institutions to encourage and expand access to banking, insurance and financial services for all

8.2 - Achieve higher levels of economic productivity through diversification, technological upgrading and innovation, including through a focus on high-value added and labour-intensive sectors

8.3 - Promote development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, and encourage the formalization and growth of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, including through access to financial services

9.a - Facilitate sustainable and resilient infrastructure development in developing countries through enhanced financial, technological and technical support to African countries, least developed countries, landlocked developing countries and small island developing States

9.b - Support domestic technology development, research and innovation in developing countries, including by ensuring a conducive policy environment for, inter alia, industrial diversification and value addition to commodities

Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

4.4.1 - Proportion of youth and adults with information and communications technology (ICT) skills, by type of skill

8.10.2 - Proportion of adults (15 years and older) with an account at a bank or other financial institution or with a mobile-money-service provider

9.a.1 - Total official international support (official development assistance plus other official flows) to infrastructure

9.b.1 - Proportion of medium and high-tech industry value added in total value added