Gov3 - DAO Delegation Dashboard

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Problem

The proof-of-concept "DAOJob" (now Gov3) conducted as part of Catalyst Fund7 revealed that DAO governance workforces can only scale efficiently when operating in delegated subgroups. This ensures informed decision-making while countering voting fatigue. 

However, delegation often comes at the expense of transparency and security. Many delegated individuals and groups act as anons without sufficiently verifiable credentials. The increasing network of delegates is not well-monitored, and performance and accountability can only be followed up with a lot of manual effort.

Currently, there are limited possibilities to manage delegations within the Cardano ecosystem or in the DAO landscape at large. Tools like Tally & Boardroom provide individual token holders with insights and tools related to voting/proposals but ignore wider delegation requirements of a DAO and its stakeholders. 

Solution

The working hypothesis of Gov3 is that improved delegation tools will be the strongest driver for high-quality DAO involvement and thus lead to a healthy overall growth of DAO operations. Thus, Gov3 is developing a Delegation dashboard that provides transparency and control mechanisms for governance delegation. 

At its core, the Gov3 dashboard provides DAO’s stakeholders with an overview of delegates and their activities. Proposal submission and voting history are just the beginning. Furthermore, it is necessary to map additional context and background information, e.g. verifiable credentials and conflict of interests. Future developments include functionalities such as the automatic resolution of delegation on defined events as well the seamless integration with task and compensation management tools such as DeWork and Coordinape.

The Gov3 Dashboard will be built upon the results from the Gov3 proof-of-concept, which was completed through successful funding in Catalyst Fund7.

Fig 1. Gov3 Profile View of delegated Working Group. Screenshot from Gov3 proof-of-concept (funded and successfully completed in Catalyst Fund7).

Fig. 2 & 3. Gov3: Governance Squad menu. Screenshots from Gov3 proof-of-concept (funded and successfully completed in Catalyst Fund7).

Fig. 6. Gov3: Connect Wallet. Screenshot from Gov3 proof-of-concept (funded and successfully completed in Catalyst Fund7).

Fig 7: Overview of Gov3 insights from wallet data.

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

The present proposal directly addresses the aim of the DAOs Challenge to create tools for DAO governance & collaboration.

Immature delegation processes are one of the biggest obstacles to building and safely scaling DAOs. Gov3 creates a crucial tool for DAOs to gain insight into their delegation practices. Building on this, further automation tools are made possible. Thus, Gov3 is an important enabler for innovative tool development within the Cardano ecosystem (esp. governance automation such as dispute resolution). This can be driven within Gov3, but also on top or in collaboration.

In line with the reasoning of Management Dashboards, „only visibility brings the right action" - Gov3 can be seen as an essential nucleus for workforce governance tooling within the Cardano ecosystem. 

Key Metrics (per the Challenge):

• SingularityDAO, an AI-powered DeFi DAO that is part of the SingularityNET ecosystem, that has signed up for a pilot with Gov3, will be the first DAO to use Gov3, which hits the key metric in the DAOs Challenge of having a DAO using Cardano in 6 months' time.
• Gov3 will serve as an actual toolset/framework for DAO Ops.
• Gov3 may potentially implement transaction fees, depending on the evolution of the business model once it is ready to be deployed.

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

Risk (1): Fast-changing governance processes

Mitigation: DAOs might increasingly transition from Governance Tokens to Utility NFTs & SBTs to organize delegation. Here Gov3 has to adapt flexibly and build the dashboard to adapt appropriate input sources. As an opportunity, Gov3 can build on the need and for example facilitate the issuance of role-based NFTs. Fluid systems instead of monoliths!

Risk (2): A worsening market downcycle

Mitigation: Even though many projects are holding on to their budgets due to the melting treasuries, there is still no negative impact on DAO governance efforts. On the contrary, construction sites in the organization are becoming very clear (e.g. responsibilities for treasury diversification). Gov3 can take the opportunity to listen to emerging problems. A DAO's breaking points are opportunities for Gov3!

Risk (3): Governance processes are too individual for a common product

Mitigation: If governance processes in the delegation differ too much from each other (e.g. involvement of complex committees and other bodies), it is difficult to develop a replicable standard product. Gov3 needs to identify best practices early and share them as expertise with other DAOs. Gov3 will participate closely in standardization discussions. Setting the tone instead of just following!

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

Milestones & Deliverables: MVP with first Proof of Market

This project, applying for funding, is planned as a pilot in collaboration with the (soon-to-be) Cardano-based SingularityDAO. The SingularityDAO dashboard will be built as a Minimal Viable Product and first delegates brought on board. Functionalities include basic governance activity tracking as well as initial background and context information. This will form the basis for further rollout of Gov3 Management Dashboard.

MONTH 1: Finalization of the requirements catalogue in cooperation with SingularityDAO 

• Milestone: Requirements and outline of planned implementation drafted as Forum Update within the Singularity community.
• Deliverable: Forum Update of Gov3 (posted within SingularityDAO Forum)

MONTH 2: Design phase

• Milestone: Development of interactive prototype and components design
• Deliverable: Gov3/Singularity Delegation Dashboard prototype (Invision) incl. Wallet Connect and Input Mask (Delegator & Delegate); Components design for front-end implementation.

MONTH 3/4: Development of MVP  

• Milestone: Back & Frontend development of MVP
• Deliverable: Dashboard MVP accessing governance activity streams (delegated voting power, proposal submission and forum comments), relevant background info (at least 1 verifiable credential), Role-based Input fields: conflict of interest self-disclosure, delegated work packages / responsibilities & budget / fees.

MONTH 4/5/6: Onboarding of 1-3 Delegates (Gov Squads)

• Milestone: Implementation of a delegation process from application to election and initial governance work tracking via Gov3.
• Deliverable: Delegation pitch template for applicants, application of 1-3 delegates in the governance forum (e.g. for treasury, legal or risk management), representation of first activities (e.g. voting power & comments in governance forum) via Gov3

Roadmap / Outlook

The MVP lays the groundwork for the go-to-market of the Gov3 public (cross-DAO) Dashboard. This includes the delegate activities from different DAOs. The implementation of further features will lead to wider adoption of Gov3, e.g., automated undelegation when a mandate is not renewed or an agreement is violated. In addition, utility NFT’s (e.g., with role-based memberships) will be supported by Gov3.

Budget allocation 

Along with development, funding will be used toward the involved personnel for their execution of the Proposal. This includes the core team of 2 (R&D & Management) as well as costs for project contributors in the area of development incl. UX/UI. Further costs involve administrational expenses (licenses) and fees for small service tasks such as logo creation.

Remarks on workload:

Kathleen Olstedt has no further commitments and is able to drive the Gov3 project full-time.

Gabriel Axel Montes is a contributor to other proposals in Fund 9. Gabriel has been successfully coordinating more than one past funding round simultaneously with no timing or workload issues attributable to these projects. Each project has a distinct core team and sets of milestones, making it straightforward to allocate workload. Gov3 has no overlap with an ongoing proposal. Regarding the ongoing projects of Gabriel Axel Montes (Fund 8), the past and present proposals have been designed so as to be synergistic and co-existent, each able to support the others, yet each able to deliver on its own merits and resources. This approach has been chosen deliberately to maximize value contribution. As past experience and success have demonstrated, we anticipate no workload issues.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Research & Development: $33,000 ($5,500 per month x 6 months)

Project/Product Management & Execution: $36,000 ($6,000 per month x 6 months)

Engineering: $36,000 ($6,000 per month x 6 months)

UI/UX: $6,000 ($3,000 per month x 2 months)

Misc project costs & Contingency: $8,000

TOTAL: $119,000

Demonstrating early adoption and relevant use cases is critical for follow-on funding. This financing would elevate Gov3 to that level. 

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

Kathleen Olstedt ~ https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathleenolstedt/

Kathleen is a Berlin- & Lisbon-based business-building professional with 15+ years of experience in emerging tech. Previous roles ranged from Future Research & Investment Management to hands-on project implementation. Amongst others, she has invested in Berlin-based software startups with IBB Ventures. As a consultant and venture builder for hy-Axel Springer Consulting Group, she evaluated new business opportunities for industrial clients and accompanied their venture initiatives as Interim Manager (e.g. Good Stuff Ventures). Furthermore, Kathleen has been deeply involved in corporate development processes, be it as Collaboration Manager for Daimler Fleetboard or in the Management of the IoT-EU platforms initiative, where she fostered technology platform-alignment amongst 120 R&D departments in the area of IoT.

In 2017, she found her home in blockchain and Web3, piloting decentralized data exchange and contract automation in logistics and supply chain. Since then she has been involved in several DAOs, e.g. as core contributor at the treasury league of Idle Finance (DeFi DAO), contributor to LLama (building economic infrastructures for DAOs) and Bankless Consultancy (edecntarlised DAO advisory), while advocating for more diversity in the Blockchain ecosystem at large.

Gabriel Axel Montes, PhD ~ https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabrielaxel/

Gabriel Axel Montes, Ph.D., is a neuroscientist, consciousness educator, and facilitator of personal and organizational development and transformation.

Drawing from over a decade of neuroscience and consciousness research and experience as a facilitator, Gabriel taps latent human capability to optimize processes and unlock value from existing resources and human capital. He works to address today's global complexities and risks through the application of practicable neuroscience- and psychology-informed models and tools that elucidate the subtle habitual patterns at the root of inefficiencies. In his work, Gabriel promotes and teaches meta-learning—the capacity of "learning to learn", adapt, grow, change, and collaborate— to maximize human capability during organizational change.

Gabriel helps organizations synergize the relationship between human capital and technology implementation during digital transformation. He has worked with SingularityNET, the world's premier decentralized A(G)I organization, first by participating in the management of the initial $36 million fundraise as part of the launch team, and more recently he served as Head of People/HR, leading a doubling of staff count during a rapid growth phase and facilitating organizational development, collaboration, and well-being among its staff. Gabriel has conducted research in various subfields of neuroscience and published seminal work on the crucial role of neuroscience and consciousness in the design and ethics of artificial general intelligence (AGI) and virtual and augmented reality technologies.

Gabriel is bilingual (English & Spanish), an author, and an international speaker for diverse audiences on the intersection of consciousness, technology, and human culture, working and presenting at Harvard, Stanford, among various universities. Gabriel is a long-time mind-body/consciousness practitioner and instructor, eclectic experimental musician, and world traveller. For more information, visit neuralaxis.org.

Kathleen will drive the project and product management/execution, and Gabriel will lead and drive the research & development. They will both work closely with the engineering team to develop the application, and they will both be involved in varying degrees in the business relationships, including with SingularityDAO (the pilot partner), to ensure that the product is developed in concert with their needs.

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

Since building governance tooling takes place in an ever-evolving (still experimental) environment, early-stage development can only be accomplished with grants and support from the community. 

After the pilot, we aim to acquire further funding for the next expansion stage (multi-client, go-to-market preparation), currently envisioned as co-financing of DAOs ecosystem grants and Cardano Catalyst. 

Once the core product is established (as a result of sufficient collaboration and testing with DAOs), the business model of Gov3 can be finalized and thus further development and scaling be facilitated by VCs (e.g. Venture DAOs).

[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?

Relevant KPI's/metrics include:

Community engagement with DAO governance delegation

Goal: >3 constructive comments where SingularityDAO Community engages positively with Gov3 Intro Proposal of Delegation Dashboard.

Activated delegates

Goal: >2 potential applicant groups to provide delegated services to SingularityDAO managed via Gov3 tooling 

DAOs using Gov3

Goal: >1 Other partner (besides Singularity DAO) in the pipeline to use Gov3 based on the pilot.

All metrics can be captured by manual counting at the respective place of occurrence, e.g. comments in the forum. The results will be reported in the monthly updates.

After at least 3 months of implementation, KPIs will change as follows:

• Delegates tracked via Dashboard
• Daily interactions with Dashboard
• Tracked submissions of improvement Proposals
• Tracked votes

These metrics will be automatically filled by the analytics functionality of the Gov3 Dashboard.

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

The pilot project with SingularityDAO is based on a concrete need. The DAO is on the verge of decentralization and has to take its community of about 15,000 participants on this journey. Gov3 helps prepare the community for the delegation of responsibility (and power) within its ranks, but also to external actors. 

As a result of the introduction of Gov3 (but also already through the accompanying communications during the pilot), the SingularityDAO community will be activated to both contribute to the discussions around delegation, but also consider for themselves the role (e.g. taking part in a Service SubDAO ).

In fleshing out the delegation dashboard, Singularity DAO's current leadership is motivated to structure the governance process and shape the interface with DAO stakeholders. Thus, the implementation of Gov3 will be perceived as a supportive strategic engine for the Singularity DAO governance structure. 

After implementing the dashboard, both the community and the current leadership will feel confident to further scale the DAO via delegation processes. The touch points to engage as delegates are clear, as are the opportunities to further improve the delegation process using the dashboard. 

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

This proposal is a continuation of the Fund7 proposal "DAOJob", which was renamed to Gov3rn (now Gov3) and successfully completed according to schedule. DAOJob (F7) served as a proof-of-concept foundation upon which we now plan to build the Delegation Dashboard on. The narrative is explained above in the "detailed plan" section.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

Future development of Gov3 can address the following SDG goal:

Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth

Goal 3: Good Health and Well-being

Decent Work and Economic Growth

Current dynamics in the DAO landscape are leading to an old problem: "more money, more influence." Whale voting and the ability to form alliances encourage lobbying tendencies. The ability to include independent delegates (such as university blockchain clubs) and the creation of committees and role-based voting rights bring back the balance originally sought when DAOs were conceived. Enabling a fairer and more equitable economy with low-barrier access supports a broader distribution of wealth. Moreover, the added transparency helps prevent malicious behavior, which in turn strengthens the DAO economy overall. 

Good Health and Well-being

Gov3 aspires to integrate tools for smoother decentralized participation and collaboration. These tools are envisioned to include components related to well-being, woven in a seamless way. The decentralized nature of DAO's has revealed symptoms of their early stage, e.g. contributors often overworking and partaking in multiple DAO's. Well-being is envisioned as a key part of helping decentralized governance to achieve its aims and to collaborate to solve large collective issues of importance.