Youth Block Resource Development
Problem
Schools are failing to equip youth with the skills to access networks, navigate, and flourish in a globalized digital economy. An education for sustainable development Cardano Youth program is absent.
Solution
Adapt existing resources and develop tailor made educational resources for youth learners. As part of a structured educational content for youth bridging them into the Cardano community.
Total to date
This is the total amount allocated to Youth Block Resource Development.
About this idea
[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.
We will be conducting the research and using current resources to develop our first materials for the Youth Block education community. We plan to develop resources for our first couple of courses, and for a first step add the courses to the Blockchain Learning Center.
- What is Blockchain?
- How to work with crypto wallets?
These resources will be open source and free to use by anyone in the Cardano community, greater blockchain community and beyond.
After we have created our first two courses. We will be publishing them on the Blockchain Learning Center giving open access to this material before our Youth Block program is further developed.
This proposal is focused one creating materials for Youth Block and will allow us to develop a sufficient model, and structured process for developing more content and finding the best solutions to be efficient and impactful. Also allowing us to take the next steps towards creating our global Youth Block educational program. Helping with the overall success of the program, and strategies a greater plan for impact when we bring our program, and resources to youth globally.
Youth Block open source education program:
Creating an open source model for our program Youth Block. This model will help both generate business value by our team's new educational model for youth. At the same time we will be contributing back to the Cardano community which in hand improves the ecosystem itself and helps onboard new users.
Youth Block is a program that helps onboard the youth 18-25 to the Cardano blockchain community. We will provide transformative education to youth who want to learn about crypto, blockchain, and Cardano. We will be providing guidance and a structured way to actively connect youth to the blockchain world. We want to build a community for the youth to connect, share, and build on top of their current skill sets to ultimately start to build a force of youth educated, and supported on their educational journey.
Purpose:
The Cardano community is increasingly growing and at an incredibly fast pace. We recognize that a lot of young people will join, participate and be part of this ecosystem well into the future. However, giving them a platform to discuss and voice their thoughts on blockchain, paradigms of decentralization and new economic models is crucial to co-building a world for the future generations.
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.
We aim to provide a stream of resources in an open way by contributing back to the community by sharing our efforts in terms of our open source educational program. This is opening the youth to new accessible knowledge, and a resource to be replicated or produced again.
Why is it important?
We need to grow an entire ecosystem of experts to build and maintain the foundations of Cardano/Catalyst together with the current IOG teams
The Open Source Development Ecosystem Challenge
The OSDE challenge aims to provide a stream of resources to teams that want to develop their projects and contribute back to the community by sharing part of their efforts in terms of open source projects, open-source frameworks, and accessible knowledge.
The main idea is that projects funded by the community can both generate business value retained by the teams, and at the same time contribute back to the community by improving the ecosystem itself.
For example, a team can be funded to develop a project; generate business value by leveraging a profitable idea, and share the non-core-business part of their work in terms of shared knowledge or in terms of building frameworks or projects with other teams - such that is possible to solve complex problems by joining minds and dividing the efforts across different teams.
Creating an open source model for our program Youth Block. This model will help both generate business value by our team's new educational model for youth. At the same time we will be contributing back to the Cardano community which in hand improves the ecosystem itself and helps onboard new users.
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.
[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.
Why is it important?
The challenge states the ‘Most student entrepreneurs are suffering from resource shortages, especially in funding and engineer recruitment.’
Our solution will help provide more resources to Youth, onboarding them into the blockchain space. We will minimize the suffering and confusion youth have when navigating around the blockchain ecosystem. Providing these youth who are the builders and creators of tomorrow with the proper skillset to properly be onboarded and educated about blockchain technology and crypto currencies.
This proposal will be key in helping us work toward our goals too:
- Future tech advocates, next generation of blockchain advocates, upcoming blockchain natives + Enabling the blockchain natives of tomorrow.
- Gap/unmet need - Not accessible to all youth + coursework is advanced + protocol communities difficult to enter/engage at the beginning.
- 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.
Market Fit:
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. -
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.
Other approaches exist and have been tried, to name a few:
These other approaches dont have the long term effect our program plans to provide. We want to create a community where we continue to onboard youth and people overtime. We don't want youth to come and go but rather use Youth Block as part of their long term crypto journey.
- 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 members past 25, mentorship for each member while taking part in the program, and help accessing Project Catalyst.
This is supported and made possible through partnerships with:
- The Commonwealth
- UNESCAP
- 1 Million Mentors
- Catalyst School
- Wada
[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?
There are minimal risks for our team to follow through with our proposal and give this valuable material to the community.
Some risks could be:
- Without no Youth Block platform may be hard to give access to the type of material we plan to release on the future platform.
[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.
Roadmap:
March-June
- Acquired domain : youthblock.io
- Acquired adahandles to support with the programe: youthblock
- Preliminary research to help develop courses and individual content
- Developed strong partnerships
Phase 1: 4 weeks: Create content with current research and continue looking for better models.
This phase includes:
- Researching
- Evaluating all our current resources
Phase 2, week 5 to week 16: Develop first materials
This phase includes:
- Create all materials from first two courses
- Get suggestions on the materials from current partners
- Tweak and change any flaws or mistakes with first materials
Phase 3, week 15-17: Share our first open source content with our communities
This phase includes:
- Release our first developed content
- Share plans for next steps
- Posting our two courses on https://blockchainlearning.center/
The deliverable and KPIs will be:
- # of educational materials created
- # of courses created
- # of new partnership
[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.
Budget: 5000USD
Research - 2000USD
Content creation - 3000USD
[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.
- Benjamin Ben Zvi : https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-ben-zvi-1ab635222/
Young 18 years old international business student in Grenoble Ecole de Management.
Speaks 4 languages fluently and learning 3 others
From May to August 2022, is having a full time internship about Cardano, proposal writing, CA…
Experienced with Cardano and working with a few funded proposers :
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
Is a recent 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:
14 years of experience as an interdisciplinary Educator from early years settings to postgraduate level, with a background in social sciences, humanities, and sustainability. Freelance Writer, Editor, Digital Economy, Blockchain, Sustainability and Impact Measurements Researcher (#Blockchain4Good, #Cardano4Good, #NFT4Good), Social Entrepreneur, Catalyst Proposal Mentor.
Wada UN SDG and Education Coordinator, Co-Founder of Sustainable ADA, Contributor at Cardano AIM, PositiveBlockchain, Cardano4Climate, Catalyst School and Adatruth.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/razali-samsudin
https://twitter.com/SustainableADA
https://twitter.com/Razlosophy
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.
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.
- 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.
[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.
We may propose again to support further development of a platform for the Youth Block Education Program so we can scale to a global presence and provide support for any youth wishing to join the blockchain space.
Work Management:
Cole Bartlett: Cole Bartlett | Work Load Managment
Razali Samsudin:Managing workload: RAZ
[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?
Yes[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?
Yes[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?
We will be sharing updates throughout the process and keeping track of all our materials created during the length of the proposals.
- Updates will come through the Youth Block Twitter, and Sustainable ADA/Cardashift social streams.
All the information/ content created will be open source, and shared with the community.
We will have dedicated google folders where we will put together all the materials, presentations, 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.
Youth Block Discord: https://discord.gg/Muuxr2jb
Youth Block Twitter: https://twitter.com/youthonblock
[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?
What does Success look like?
well-oiled resources to help creating the first stepping stones towards a open innovation platform where people fulfill roles that are meaningful for them and that contribute to shared success. These first two courses will allow us to develop a plan of execution for the future program we plan to bring to youth globally and the Cardano community. 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.
Reaching the KPIs will be a key success indicator. These resources will be an important use case for other blockchains, educational collaborative efforts and various stakeholders to learn from our successes.
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.
We will also show success with the release of our first two courses on the Blockchain Learning Center, and making all of our developed resources open source and open to all. Also we will evaluate success with monthly updates of our progress.
[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 which will help us take the first steps to build out the Youth Block Education Program shared during fund 8:
Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating
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
Team
Cardashift, Sustainable ADA, Cardano4Climate, Highly engaged Cardano + Catalyst veterans funded in Fund 5,6,7,8, experienced educator in schools + universities, researchers, entrepreneurs, business development.
