Voteaire Escrow Smart Contract

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

Integrate a smart contract or native script solution into the existing Voteaire platform to allow locked funds to be unlocked by the outcome of a ballot

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

We've already built and released Voteaire, and have been building on Cardano since the dawn of the Shelly Era.

We have an Enterprise software development background, we're stake pool operators, and are the creators of https://canucks-publishing.com/ and https://voteaire.io

[GENERAL] Requested funds in USD.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Our solution will involve adding a feature to the Voteaire platform to facilitate the locking of funds, to be distributed according to the outcome of a ballot vote.

This fund distribution should not require trust in any party, and be governed by a smart contract. It should also occur automatically after the completion of the vote.

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

The DAOs <3 Cardano challenge is about creating tooling for Cardano DAOs to help solve problems such as Treasury management, decision making and DAO Governance.

Our solution will directly address all three of these needs through an easy-to-use Dapp.

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

• Smart contract complexity - we have a good network of developers to draw upon, however, we have learned to provide a generous buffer for Haskell/Plutus development
• Mitigation strategies
• Networking and communication with established SC developers and team (such as MLabs)
• Auditing of smart contract code
• Scope creep brought on by early platform adopters
• Mitigation strategies
• Ensuring we have a clear definition of the problem and a clear definition of done upfront
• Regular / ongoing backlog and task refinement
• Resource / Team changes mid-development
• Mitigation strategies
• scrum framework - work is assigned to the team, not individuals. Personnel changes tend to be less problematic
• Healthy resource pipeline

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

• Initial Planning:
• Wireframes of user interface 
• Graphic / Visual design 
• Overall Architecture and approach to oracle problem
• Smart Contract design
• Marlowe Feasibility assessment

• Smart contract development and testing 

• Off-chain component development and testing 
• Voteaire on-chain schema updates
• Voteaire API updates
• Application updates to support depositing / locking of funds
• Automatic funds disbursement
• Transaction builders / workers

• Frontend web development of UI
• Ballot interface updates including fund locking
• Other required UI enhancements

• Smart contract deployment

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Resources and approximate allocation using average hourly rates and considering the amount of time the following resources will spend on the project per week:

• Scrum Master
• Project Owner
• Design / UX Specialist
• Smart Contract Developer
• Lead Architect/Lead Developer 
• Backend Developer 
• Frontend Developer

Weekly Budget: $9,860

Estimated number of weeks: 10 weeks

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

MSVN Distributed Systems consists of the following full-time individuals, as well as additional contractors whom we bring on as required to accelerate efforts

Michael Stewart - CTO

• 18+ years of software development and architecture experience.
• Member of the Cardano community since 2017
• Co-Founder of MSVN (Canucks Publishing, Voteaire.io, Canuckz NFTs)
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/codefly/

Vivek Nankissoor - CEO

• 15+ years of experience in database requirements, design, and development
• Established and grew web analytics, marketing automation, and QA practices
• Co-Founder of MSVN (Canucks Publishing, Voteaire.io, Canuckz NFTs)
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/viveknankissoor/

Darin Ramkissoon - Director of Operations

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/darin-ramkissoon-58450321/

Anthony Ololuo - Scrum Master

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyololuo

Mateus Santos - Full Stack Developer / Plutus Developer

Bashar Jaan Khan - Full Stack Developer / Plutus Developer

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/bashar-jaan-khan/

Mamoor Jaan Khan - Front End Developer

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/mamoor-jaan-khan/

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

Yes, we can envision applications in future rounds of funding for additional features in the product roadmap.

[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?

We will be tracking standard scrum metrics such as:

• team velocity
• story points completed
• burndowns

For the completed application we will be tracking the following KPIs:

• Number of end users (voters) using the application
• Total number of DAOs using the functionality
• Total funds locked

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

DAOs have an easy-to-use mechanism to manage their treasury and disburse funds using on-chain votes

DAO participants will feel comfortable knowing that their vote is having a direct impact on the direction of the DAO

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

New proposal