Cardano Stand @ PROMOTE Conf 2024

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

Secure a “Cardano Village” Stand and a Conference Slot at the upcoming 2024 PROMOTE Conference to introduce opportunities offered by the Cardano ecosystem to both software developers & entrepreneurs.

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

Extensive event coordination experience

• Wada Cameroon Hub team of Software Architects, Haskell and Plutus Trainers
• Wada extensive experience in organizing and coordinating outreach events
• DITC experience in running Hackathons
• January 2022 Dev tools Hackathon
• June 2022 Hackathons

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Context:

PROMOTE is a multi-sector exhibition organized in Cameroon every tow years, at the confluence of Central and West Africa, on a non-commercial basis and for the general interest of the economy by mandate of the highest Cameroonian authorities, and by the International Foundation INTER-PROGRESS.

It offers 9 days of multisectoral exhibitions, promotion, contacts exchanges, debates, meetings, advertisement opportunities and conferences to both entrepreneurs and software developers. Media exposure is very important. The event also offers stand holders the opportunity to initiate and develop multifaceted partnerships.

PROMOTE brings together companies of all sizes, administrations, regulatory agencies, institutions and various organizations. it welcomes more than 1000 exhibitors from 30 countries, in sectors such as: agriculture and agribusiness, energy industry, construction, mining, infrastructure, Information and Communication Technologies, health, banking and finance, insurance, tourism, crafts, communication, etc.

A stand can be obtained by registering at PROMOTE Headquarters in Yaoundé, or Douala, or on their website. It is recommended to book a Stand or a conference spot as early as possible as they fill up quickly and tend to be more expensive or overbooked as we get closer to the event. 

PROMOTE is probably the most strategic event for Cardano to introduce its ecosystem not only to the developer community, but also to a myriad of enterprises from all across West and Central Africa seeking innovative solutions.

Solution:

Our solution at its core will consist of several actions and activities leading to the PROMOTE event. 

Our first task will consist of renting a stand at the PROMOTE through which we will run several live workshops targeting specific audiences with specific content of their interest. Our wrap up activity will consist of a prized Hackathon for Devs with the intention to trigger deep interest in Cardano specifically and Blockchain technologies in General. 

Our second task will consist of securing a spot at the general conference within the PROMOTE. The general conference is a space where all stakeholder participating in the events tend to meet to discuss general themes such as: Finance, Banking ..etc. We intend to introduce Cardano and would be honored to work with a Cardano Foundation representative to put together the most impactful and comprehensive agenda / content for the event. 

For our entrepreneur audience: We have identified four workshops to address their concerns. The main goal will be to expose them Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs), and specifically to the opportunities offered by Cardano through the Project Catalyst platform.  

• Introduction to Blockchain: (Blockchains: Introduction, opportunities, applications, use cases)
• Cardano Ecosystem: (Why choose Cardano?, Ada, Plutus, Smart-contracts)
• Project Catalyst Platform: (Proposal submission and management workflow)

For our developer audience: We will not only introduce them to available tools for onboarding the Cardano Ecosystem, but we will also run three additional workshops that are geared towards technical topic. 

• Introduction to the functional programming paradigm
• Introduction to Haskell, Plutus and Smart Contracts
• Conclusive Prized Hackathon (Cardano, Haskell, Plutus, Smart Contract)

For enterprises seeking solutions, we intend to focus on use cases that are already operational in the blockchain space and the value they bring to enterprises: We will present cases and applications in the following industries: 

• Banking industries: Decentralized Identities (DID), peer to peer transactions, DeFi ...etc
• Health care industries: Decentralized health information exchange platform opportunities
• Education & Civics: SSI and AtalaPrism as solutions for (Identity and Access Management)

For all stake holders, we will run an several additional innovative workshops in a form of theaters/comedies scenes not only to reach out to a wider community, but also make sure that we are addressing fears and reluctance to blockchain technologies brought about by scams in cryptocurrencies in Cameroon .

Lastly, we will elaborate a content to introduce Cardano at the general conference making sure we highlight the immense opportunities offered by the Cardano ecosystem. As part of this proposal, The DITC, Wada Cameroon Hub is planning on reaching out to the Cardano foundation to work together so that we can co-create a more impactful content for the conference. We anticipate a physical presence of a Cardano foundation representative at the conference. If the physical presence is not possible (which we do not hope), we will still work on the content to present together.

DITC, Wada Cameroon Hub has already launched its training program in Haskell and Plutus and being present at this event will serve the purpose of growing its Haskell and Plutus Dev community. This will allow us not only to target, but also to funnel additional interns into our Haskell and Plutus education initiative. 

=>Click here for more context about Disruptive IT Cameroon, A Wada Hub

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

We are offering through this proposal a strategic approach to not only provide visibility and exposure of Cardano and its ecosystem to both developers and entrepreneurs, but also as a vehicle to expand our Haskell and Plutus Dev Community here in Cameroon.

We intend to attend this event in a reoccurring fashion.

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

The main risk for our project is not securing both the stand and a conference spot at the PROMOTE event. As mentioned before, they tend to run out even a year before the event. Our solution to this is to anticipate early enough which is why we are submitting this proposal in this funding round. 

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

Once we obtain funding, we will immediately secure a booth at PROMOTE 2024

After securing the booth and the spot, which we plan on doing as soon as we get funding, we have a bit of time to then prepare for the actual event as it is not until February 2024, however as mentioned above spots for this conference generally fill up one year in advance so we want to be prepared.

We plan to secure contracts regarding logistics for the event as soon as possible. Booking a technical person to help with sound, a well known comedian for theaters scenes, booking the necessary equipment for the event and securing a contract with printing companies will also be done as early as January 2023.

A very important piece of this proposal is the content that we plan on exposing at the event. Right after we obtain the funds, we will reach out to the Cardano foundation to seek collaboration in defining both the content and the agenda for the event. We are anticipating 6 months for this task starting in March 2023. We will organised our content in respect to our target audiences: developers, entrepreneurs and enterprises and workshop themes. We will also run several prep sessions with Fingon Tralala, one of the most popular comedian to secure a contract and elaborate the content for the theatrical workshop.

Leading up to the event we will prepare further by creating unique and memorable marketing content such as:

• Flyers
• Roll-up banner
• Innovative Business cards
• Content: Live demonstrations, workshop, mini hackathon with prizes

Prizes/SWAG to hand out (engraved/printed with Wada and Cardano logos):

• Hats
• T-shirts
• USB keys
• Nano Ledger

Lastly, a week heading to the actual event, we will be setting up our logistics (decorations, sounds ...etc). During the event, we will run live workshops within our stand and present at the general conference.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Total Budget requested: $24K

• Reserve stand and conference spot at PROMOTE 2024: $3K
• Event logistics (speaker, mic., table, and chair rentals)for 9 days: $2K

*already have projector and screen

• Comedian cost: $3k
• Decorations: $2K
• Marketing materials (flyers, business cards, 3 roll-up banner, etc.): $2K
• Mini prizes and SWAG: $3K
• Travel and Accommodation Logistics for 12 team members to attend and man booth over span of 9 day event: $3K
• Coordination (3 leads @ $1.5K ea, 10 interns @ $150 ea): $6K

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

Manfo: Cameroon Team Co-Lead, Senior software architect & developer, 12+ year of experience programming, 3+ years in functional programming paradigm (F#, Haskell, Elm), Multilingual (French, English, Italian, Ngiembo)

Manfo will be in charge of elaboration the educational content for the workshops geared to both entrepreneurs and developers

Nkalla: Senior software architect & developer, 12+ year of experience programming, 3+ years in functional programming paradigm (Haskell), Mathematics teacher (Education Systems Engineering), Multilingual (French, Italian, English, Mbo)

Nkalla will be in charge of elaboration the educational content for the workshops geared to both entrepreneurs and developers and enterprises

Megan: Wada Cameroon Hub Co-Lead, Central Africa Coordination Lead, Wada core team member (Education and Event Lead), Maths & Physics teacher, bilingual (French & English)

Megan will be in charge of coordinating the activities leading up to the event (rental and booking contracts)

Ntet: Haskell Intern @ DITC, Wada Cameroon Hub: promoter

Nock: Haskell Intern @ DITC, Wada Cameroon Hub: promoter

Bouagang: Haskell Intern @ DITC, Wada Cameroon Hub: promoter

=>Click here for more context about Disruptive IT Cameroon, A Wada Hub

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

Yes, we plan on returning to Catalyst in later round for further funding. DITC Cameroon is creating a Haskell / Plutus community in Cameroon through its education initiative. Attending this event every two years offers great exposure to both Cardano and us, in the sense that we will be funneling Devs into our program. Developers that will eventually develop Dapps on the Cardano Blockchain.

[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?

To measure the progress of our project, will post information related to contracts we secure, the content we create, and the actual videos from events. in a more specific way, we will:

• Post copies of signed contracts and receipts for the logistic as they come in on our GitHub
• Post videos of swags, gadgets on our YouTube channel as soon as they are produced
• Post the content and the agenda we produce for the event
• Film the boot setup and record live workshop, the publish on YouTube
• Record presentation at the conference and make it available on YouTube

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

Success for us will result in our intention for this proposal being met.

• Great exposure to the Cardano Ecosystem
• More enterprises willing to learn more about the Cardano ecosystem and Blockchain
• PROMOTE becoming a funneling mechanism of Developers into our training program
• A growing Haskell/Plutus developers community in Cameroon

[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.