littlefish - Redefining Earning

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

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We are the Littlefish Foundation (LFF), a decentralized, global organization, building technologies that align individual actions towards common goals, enabling collective intelligences.

We use blockchain technology to redefine earning relationships between people, work, and organizations, enabling a new model of operation that grants more freedom to participants, while making sure that freedom results in progress towards the goals of the whole. 

Our proposals are best experienced in the Littlefish Vault. There will be multiple links to it throughout the proposal with background information necessary to fully understand the concepts.

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PAs, you will need this information to understand what LFF is, what problem we solve, and how. We strongly recommend reading these before the proposal. 

• The Bleeding Edge of Organizations and the Big Problem
• The Basics - littlefish, colonies and Action
• The Big Picture
• Littlefish Action Model

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Background

Earning in today’s world is capturing the time and effort of individuals for a predetermined amount of pay. An hour's pay for an hour's work: an earning relationship between the employee and employer where the employee is beholden to the employee, a relationship of subservience.  

When these relations scale, they create organizations with pyramids of power:

All organizations prior to Teal were structured as pyramids for a simple reason: it is a natural consequence of the boss-subordinate relationship. 

These structures centralize power at the top of the pyramid and often make life miserable for those at the bottom. The agency of individuals to make decisions is taken away from them. Things need to be permitted. Independence at the workplace is a dream. 

No pyramids exist at the Littlefish Foundation. We replaced them with distributed decision-making, natural, fluid hierarchies, and self-management. Enabling this kind of work is at the heart of all we do at LFF, and this proposal is key in making it happen at scale.

Redefining Earning Through Action 

We live in the world of the pyramid. It looks so strong with its structural integrity. It has deep roots in our institutions, long standing organizations. Is there a chance we can topple it?

The problem seems complex when you look at the symptoms, the pyramids themselves. The consequences of the system are complex, yet the underlying cause is very simple: the earning relationships. We just have to change it into something else. 

Enter reward sharing. 

In employee-employer systems, the proceeds from any activity are shared between the employee and the employer, usually in an unequal split that lets the employer get a large portion of the rewards, thanks to the wage system.

Now imagine we remove the employer. In its place are peers. Other members of the organization, other workers. Earlier, the reward went to the employee, now it’s shared between the worker, and their peers. 

Let’s make that more concrete with an example. Remember, this all needs Action to make it work.

Imagine you are a software developer. You just updated the website with a nifty feature and created an Action to show your work. You are proud of the work and someone validates the pride by supporting your work and buying your Action. You feel great. You got rewards for work you did. You’re hungry for more. 

And so are your peers. They just got a percentage of the rewards too. Your work helped them out. Now they’re hungry for more, producing new Actions to get paid. They produce Action and sell it. This time, you get a percentage of the rewards, along with everyone else in the organization. 

At this point you may be thinking “this sounds well and all, but could it really work?”. How can we have a system that benefits the worker, and all other members of the organization at the same time, while keeping the organization healthy? 

Conceptually, reward sharing is simple. Once you get down to engineering to achieve the outcomes you want, things get complicated. There are many ways to implement it, many parameters to play with. 

In crypto-economic systems, roads going through half-baked ideas and bad engineering leads to collapsing bridges. A comprehensive engineering approach is necessary to prevent further Luna incidents.

You might need a refresher on LFF lingo before proceeding.

Problem 1 - How do we split?

Just setting the split parameter has widespread consequences. Imagine the effects of these splits:

• 5% Action producer, 95% colony
• Similar to the employee-employer system hmm?
• 50% Action producer, 50% colony 
• An equitable distribution, or is it? Does the size of the colony matter in this case?
• 95% Action producer, 5% colony
• What values does this colony represent? 
• 30% Action producer, 50% colony A, 20% colony B
• Hmm, that’s interesting. What does that look like? A 20% ownership stake by colony B in colony A Actions? A direct donation by colony A to B? A business deal? 

Suffice to say, there are many different ways this can play out. Simply by changing the parameters of shared rewards, we create different outcomes. 

Problem 2 - Who shares in the rewards?

Now that is an interesting question. The answer is dependent on the organization.

Imagine a business colony. We know who the members of the colony are, the employees. They share the rewards, simple. Great, by how much? That’s simple too. Boss gets X%, the middle manager Y%, everyone else gets crumbs. hmm… 

Imagine a digital community in Catalyst. Who are the members? Is the person who contributes consistently a member? Yes, of course. How about that guy who contributed for a week last month and hasn’t shown up since? 

Digital communities are fluid, this is not so simple to answer without additional mechanisms like pledges, but those systems create gated communities that restrict the flow of people.  

For reward sharing in digital communities, who shares the rewards must be answered.  

Problem 3 - How much do individual colony members get?

Once we have a list of individuals who represent the colony, our job is simple right? We just send them their percentage. But how do we calculate that percentage?

Simple way to do it is to treat everybody the same. All members of the colony get the same amount. But is that fair to the consistent contributor who puts in effort every week? What would that incentivize: Do the bare minimum possible to get rewards. The result is collapse. Hundreds of examples exist for this in history. 

How we approach the problem: Token Engineering R&D 

The problem we tackle is extremely critical. The product we produce, when used at scale, has the potential to uproot existing organizational structures and replace them. To not end up at the same or a worse place, a rigorous engineering process is required.

Enter token engineering. This is a new cross-disciplinary field, that “draws from established practices in systems, electrical, robotics & controls engineering, and more”. 

The goal of token engineering is to design and create tokeneconomic systems that are robust against exploits, unintended consequences and cascade failures, in order to protect and empower users. 

And that is the goal of this proposal: To design and create a tokeneconomic system of reward sharing, that is robust against exploits, unintended consequences and cascade failures. A system that empowers users to topple pyramids and protects them from disaster.

Finally, The Solution

Token engineering, being a multidisciplinary field, requires a diverse background. A wide set of perspectives must be incorporated into the product to account for the various tradeoffs in the problem set. A diverse set of experts in economics, game theory, ethics, psychology, computer science must work together to understand and solve the problem at hand.

1 - LFF Token Engineering Fundamentals Cohort

The first thing we do to tackle this is to get everyone up-to-speed in token engineering. We take the Token Engineering Fundamentals course as the Littlefish Foundation cohort, including all members of LFF who are interested in token engineering. 

The more diverse the background of those in the cohort, the better the possible learning, so we’ll open this up to anyone who wants to join in from the Catalyst community.

We apply our learning to the problems mentioned, through discussions and problem specific workshops. The aim of this stage is to come up with specific models and hypotheses which we can then simulate.

2 - Modeling, designing, simulating, and testing the system

The next stage is to turn these hypotheses and models into code using cadcad. Cadcad is a framework that focuses on computer aided design for complex systems. It is a Python based package for learning. We learn this framework together as a cohort, then build reward sharing models using it.

This is a research and development process, where we start out simple, modeling the basic reward sharing structure, and then iterate with progressional learning.

One thing we already have in mind to solve problems 2 and 3 is what we call reward aging. We want to implement it using the Fibonacci numbers to age rewards. 

Reward Aging Through Fibonacci Numbers

Once an Action is produced, the reward share for the producer of that Action, let’s call A, gets from future Actions of the colony is reset. The next Action produced rewards the maximum amount.

The next Action sold for the colony will reduce the reward share for A. With each next Action, the reward is aged in accordance to the next Fibonacci number in the sequence. 

This incentivizes consistent contribution from participants. Again, the parameters have an incredible effect that needs to be understood. How fast should aging take place? Should aging occur with time, number of Actions sold, price, or some other parameter? Who gets the aged portion of the rewards? These must be simulated and thoroughly understood before set in the unchangeable setup of smart contract code.

3 - Build reward sharing with smart contracts

To implement the reward sharing system, we’ll develop a sales smart contract for Actions that supports reward sharing between an arbitrary number of participants. 

The initial version will implement a basic reward sharing scheme with specified sharing percentages. We will then iterate according to test results, building out the full feature set, as we develop it through the process. 

4 - Use reward sharing to guide development process

We are big believers in experimentation. We want to taste our own medicine. We want to use the things we’re building to make sure they do what we intend them to do. 

This means we’ll be using the reward sharing mechanism we’re building out, when we’re making payments for Actions produced in the name of LFF. That means we’ll use the smart contract internally as we’re developing it. If we figure out a practical way of implementing this manually, perhaps through Excel magic and manually sending payments, it also means we’ll use it even before we have smart contracts.

We believe using these tools will provide critical input into the process, helping us identify and solve issues before they exist.

5 - Understanding fish token

Once we know the technical details of the crypto-economic system we want to create, we can look into embedding these features into the fish token. Our aim is to embed as much of the functionality into the token but we know there are some limitations like unchangeable transfer logic that prevents us from implementing reward sharing directly into the token.

Through this proposal, we will understand what features can be embedded into fish token, what will need to be implemented through smart contracts, model the crypto-economy these structures create and how a token can be used to enhance them.

Who will benefit?

The beneficiary of our work is all users of the Littlefish Foundation platform, starting with the builders of LFF, and expanding into the Catalyst community. All users of Actions will benefit from a reward sharing mechanism that is tested and true. They will enjoy the benefit of liberating earning relationships, allowing them to freely explore their interests while searching for their Ikigai.

Outcome

This work will create a brand new paradigm for earning designed to create public good outcomes. A paradigm where:

• individuals are empowered with greater autonomy,
• work represents values,
• previously unpaid (public good) works can be valued, 
• everyone who contributes earns,
• collective, global intelligences can form and solve problems at a never before seen rate.

In the short term, this means a new work paradigm for DAOs and digital communities that makes them more effective in what they do. In the long term, it means a decentralized civilization. 

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

Alignment with the Challenge

… the current options are all based on, mostly, the Ethereum blockchain

Worry no longer dear Cardanian. Littlefish Foundation, the comprehensive, go-to platform for DAOs everywhere is being built right here on Cardano. A coordination tool and a digital economy in one, built with solid foundations on organizational science and ethical philosophy.

When we implement all we propose in this proposal, Cardano will have something no other blockchain has. A DAO community collaboration, operation, creation, and governance platform, with an approach that is truly unique in the blockchain space. We aren’t building what others are building. We’re building something truly original. A new, global earning economy fit for the 21st century.

Key Metrics

This proposal has the potential to be the greatest improvement to date on these challenge Key Metrics:

• Number of Communities engaged in collaboration using Cardano DAO creation tools.
• The proposal will greatly impact this metric. Many Littlefish colonies will be using the platform, engaging in DAO creation through Littlefish colonies.
• Amount of ADA coming from DAOs transaction fees after the solutions on this challenge get implemented (> than the challenge's allocated fund amount)
• Reward sharing will supercharge the amount of spending on Littlefish Action NFTs, dramatically increasing the DAO transaction fees.

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

LFF General - Funding

Littlefish Foundation is a complex organization driven by individual efforts. It only moves forward if individuals drive it forward. The single biggest risk in front of that is financial. A large percentage of the team is based in Turkey, which has been experiencing hyperinflation for the past year. 

Funding is the number one challenge we face. With funding we can pay the team to work on Littlefish Foundation and make their financial burden lighter. This all puts us closer to achieving the LFF vision. We are a global community with contributors from all over the world. Without funding, we will still build the LFF, but it will be more challenging and slower. 

We are mitigating risk through diversification in multiple proposals, increasing the chance of receiving funding. We’re also budgeting for the Action Fund, partly to serve as a contingency. 

LFF General - Technology Risk

LFF is developing a strong infrastructure to be able to scale, for that we need the support of a strong development community. The current team is very strong on tech development, with extensive experience, and we are welcoming more developers to join. We are already engaged with the Gimbalabs development community and have their support. 

This proposal - Extensive R&D Requires Consistent, Quality Effort by a Diverse Knowledgeable Group

We need to understand the problem we’re solving at a deep level. Without doing so, we risk economic collapse, as many cryptocurrency projects have found out. We’re building a bridge, it can not be allowed to sway. We must measure many times, and cut once.  

This means the R&D effort must be extensively thorough. A diverse team of individuals with economics, game theory, computer science, ethics, and computer science backgrounds is needed to understand the topic in depth. 

To mitigate the risk, the first step of our plan is collecting this group of people from the LFF and Catalyst community as a token engineering learning cohort. This will get us to the starting line locked and ready to perform quality R&D work. 

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

Workload Management at LFF

How we make work visible - LFF Modules 

Module 1: Token Engineering Learning Cohort

Stakeholders: LFF, Catalyst community members

Primary Work Group: Dream Engine

Duration: July 2022 - February 2023

Resources: 150 hrs + module operations budget 

Token engineering is a complex field. A broad baseline for knowledge is necessary to grasp the complexity of token economies. Economics, game theory, ethics, computer science, optimization, governance all come into play. First, we need to learn, and teach each other the necessary skills.

This is serious expert level learning. The participants will be asked to commit after a trial period. The learning cohort will be open to everyone who wants to join in. 

Through this stage, we will build the team to work on the R&D.

Activities:

• Gather individuals with interest into a learning cohort
• Take the Token Engineering Fundamentals course as a cohort. Details here.
• Weekly study sessions on covered and other related topics,
• Take cadcad course with interested developers,
• Identify cadcad use cases to study, then study together, 
• Weekly cadcad workshops we learn together,
• Build R&D team from the cohort.

Key milestones and expected deliveries:

• February
• 10+ littlefish graduates Token Engineering Fundamentals course
• 3+ devs get certificate for the cadcad course 

Module 2: Applying Token Engineering 

Stakeholders: LFF

Primary Work Group: Dream Engine

Duration: November 2022 - September 2023

Resources: 

300 hrs + module operations budget 

This is the module where we take our learning from module 1, and apply it to the Littlefish Foundation. 

We want to implement two features on Action sales. Together they are the catalyst in the Littlefish Action Model, incentivizing further Action with each Action sale. This module will focus on formalizing these features.

1. Reward Sharing: Every Action sold comes with an agreement that specifies percentages of sales rewards for multiple parties. Instead of the funds going to the single seller of Action, rewards are shared between these parties: the Action producer, seller, colony, and third parties. 
2. Reward Aging: Shared rewards for parties should decay with time/additional sales. This is to incentivize all parties to further Action.

Activities:

• Topic based discussions on the ethics, economics, and game theoretical aspects of the systems
• Identifying possible issues, edge cases, weaknesses of the system,
• Ideating alternative approaches to the problems. ie. Bonding Curves,
• Create stock and flow models of the system,
• Analysis of models, 
• Iterative next step setting for module 3,
• Publishing results, collecting feedback from other token engineers,
• Formally specifying requirements, technical specifications for sharing and aging

Key milestones and expected deliveries:

• March 2023
• Formal specification of LFF reward sharing system
• Formal specification of LFF reward aging system
• June 2023
• Finalized specifications

Module 3: Design, Simulate, Test, Validate 

Stakeholders: LFF

Primary Work Group: The Forge

Duration: January - September 2023

Resources: 450 hrs + module operations budget 

The features need to be modeled conceptually, then their economic implications simulated using cadcad, a Python package that helps design, test, and validate complex systems. 

Activities:

• Developing models from module 2 into code with cadcad
• Simulate, test, and validate using cadcad,
• Identify customizable parameters, test boundary conditions,
• Create reports of simulation results, 
• Analysis of simulation results,
• Analysis of real world use (data collected through test client),
• Publishing results, collecting feedback from other token engineers,
• Determine parameters for LFF reward sharing and aging. 

Key milestones and expected deliveries:

• February   
• Basic reward sharing model using cadcad
• April
• Reward sharing analysis report 
• September
• Reward aging analysis report

Module 4: Smart Contract, Off-chain, and Frontend Development

Stakeholders: LFF, Cardano users

Primary Work Group: The Forge

Duration: September 2022 - September 2023

Resources: 450 hrs + audit budget + module operations budget 

In this module, we iteratively implement reward sharing and aging features. We develop the smart contract for Action sales, the off chain code to build transactions, and the frontend to put Actions on sale. 

The features will be iteratively added, starting with a basic model of equal share reward percentages, then extending that functionality according to work in other modules.

Activities:

• Developing a sales smart contract with Plutus,
• Developing off-chain code to build transactions and interact with the smart contract,
• Design UI/UX for frontend,
• Developing front-end code,
• Developing a backend to collect data on Action sales, rewards shared, as they’re put on-chain.

Key milestones and expected deliveries:

• December   
• Basic sales contract, frontend ready
• April
• Complex reward sharing (arbitrary number of awardees, percentages) implemented in smart contract, frontend integrated
• September
• Reward aging implemented

Module 5: Marketing Action

Stakeholders: LFF, Catalyst and Cardano community

Primary Work Group: Love House

Duration: January - September 2023

Resources: 200 hrs + marketing campaign budget + module operations budget

Once we have a working smart contract and a frontend that can interact with it, we’ll start the Beta phase where we invite close communities to interact with these tools. 

We’ll find these communities through organic marketing efforts: in ours and others’ community meetings, and hold workshops showcasing product capabilities. 

Once we’re ready with a full-fledged feature set, we’ll also embark on a more classical digital marketing strategy, using Twitter, and other mediums to market our efforts.

Activities:

• Workshops, meetings, to showcase features, discuss developments
• Digital marketing through Twitter, and other mediums 

Key Milestones and expected deliveries:

• April 2023
• 1000 Action sales
• September 2023
• 50000 Action sales

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

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All LFF proposals follow the same budget structure. They are made up of the module budgets and the Action Fund allocation.

Module budgets

Each proposal is made up of modules. Each module has a specified budget. The sum of module budgets makes up the first part of the overall budget.

1 - Personnel budget

Each module has a personnel budget and an operations budget. The personnel budget is the total estimated hours * the hourly rate for the module.

The base hourly rate for LFF proposals is 50 USD. This is a living wage in most parts of the world. It will bring financial stability to participants.

The hourly rate for a module may change from this default, based on the expertise needed. 

2 - Module operations budget

Each module is allocated an extra budget sized at 1/5th of the personnel budget to enable operations.

This budget is a pooled organization wide resource used to cover expenses. It will be used to purchase digital work tools like Zoom to be used by all members of LFF.

A part of it will be spent with the discretion of the module team. For example, it can be used to pay for transportation, buy personal digital tools, purchase other teams’ Actions, etc.

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LFF Action Fund

LFF Action Fund has multiple purposes.

1 - Contingency

Proposals may not be funded. The activities in the proposals will still take place if we can account for this with additional funding. Action Fund will provide that funding if and when it is necessary.

The Action Fund can be used to extend a module budget, fund an unfunded proposals’ module, or fund new modules as need arises.

2 - Incentivizing further Action

We are creating a new economy. LFF is the first colony in this economy. Its members are producing Actions, the supply. But who will buy them?

There is a need for stable demand for Actions to bootstrap this new digital economy. Action Fund provides this stable demand.

3 - Admin and other work

There is a lot of unmentioned work that goes into building the Littlefish Foundation. This includes general admin work like setting up meetings, scheduling, scribework, as well as other activities like community building.

The Action Fund will prioritize buying those Actions that aren’t covered by the proposals.

Action Fund Sizing

The Action Fund allocation is sized at 1/4th the total budget. This is common across all LFF proposals to provide financial safety to the project for the next 12 months, allowing us a healthy runway to create the new earning economy.

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Modules 1, and 5 use the default LFF hourly rate of 50 USD/hr. Modules 2, 3, and 4 is expert level work. In order to incentivize the contributors, the work is valued at 100 USD/hr. This rate is still low when considering the expertise needed in these modules. If additional funding is needed for this work, we have the Action fund to support it.

Module operations budgets are 1/5th the personnel budgets.

• Module 1: Token Engineering Learning Cohort
• Personnel Budget: 7500 USD
• 50 USD/hr * 150 hrs 
• 40 hrs: Promoting, signing up individuals to learning cohort
• 50 hrs: Preparing, managing, and running token engineering study sessions
• 50 hrs: Preparing, managing, and running cadcad study sessions
• 10 hrs: Team building
• Operations Budget: 1500 USD
• Total: 9000 USD

• Module 2: Applying Token Engineering 
• Personnel Budget: 30000 USD
• 100 USD/hr * 300 hrs
• 100 hrs: Individual study and application of concepts by team
• 50 hrs: Preparing, managing, and running discussions
• 50 hrs: Modeling systems
• 100 hrs: Formal specifications
• Operations Budget: 6000 USD
• Total: 36000 USD

• Module 3: Design, Simulate, Test, Validate 
• Personnel Budget: 45000 USD
• 100 USD/hr * 450 hrs
• 300 hrs: Python development using cadcad
• 50 hrs: Preparing reports 
• 100 hrs: Simulation and real world use analysis
• Operations Budget: 9000 USD
• Total: 54000 USD

• Module 4: Smart Contract, Off-chain, and Frontend Development
• Personnel Budget: 45000 USD
• 100 USD/hr * 450 hrs 
• 350 hrs: Smart Contract, off-chain, backend development
• 100 hrs: Design, Frontend Development
• Operations Budget: 9000 USD
• Audit Budget: 10000 USD
• Total: 64000 USD

• Module 5: Marketing Action
• Personnel Budget: 10000 USD
• 50 USD/hr * 200 hrs
• 150 hrs: Marketing campaign 
• 50 hrs: Promoting the work in meetings, workshops
• Operations Budget: 2000 USD
• Marketing Budget: 20000 USD
• Total: 32000 USD

Module Total = 195000 USD

Action Fund Total =  65000 USD

Total = 260000 USD

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

This proposal is run by the Dream Engine and The Forge work groups of LFF. 

This is a year-long proposal. The team required to deliver on the promises of this proposal will be crafted through the work outlined in it. 

In Module 1 we start building this team. We’ll start this part of the work early in July, promoting the learning cohort to build a team of systems thinkers with background in economics, game theory, computer science (algorithmic game theory), behavioral psychology, ethics, and other relevant fields. Through the learning cohort, we’ll have a solid core with a diverse background to tackle the problems.

And we already have a good start on that team:

The Team

Cem - I completed a Master's degree in Electrical & Electronics Engineering. My thesis was about to create a complete Video on Demand system with client-server architecture with its own network protocol called Reliable UDP. After graduating, I set up a high-security financial data center in 2004. Then, in 2019, I started a new cyber security startup with three of my staff. The same year, the startup was funded by the largest bank in Turkey. 

I started programming when I was 12 years old, and about 6 years later, I met the Internet, which introduced so many things to me. Open source was the biggest among them. Later on, I wrote a book about Linux and open-source systems. For me, open-source philosophy was the key to real human potential. It was making the secrets of the institutions public. 

In the corrupt financial system we are used to living in, a person or group named Satoshi designed the decentralized digital currency called Bitcoin. And afterward, new techniques that were not part of our current order began to develop. Then, in 2021, I met Cardano, where like-minded people find each other. So when I dig deeper into Cardano, I suddenly found myself in the Cardano4Climate community trying to do things to stop climate change with a bunch of people all around the world. 

With friends from Cardano4Climate, we formed up littlefish Foundation. It is a system, a reason for being. Encourage people to do anything for the good of the common. It is an experiment to build collective intelligence. 

Now, I decided to retire from all of my real-world business to solely think, dream and work for the littlefish Foundation.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ckaraca/

https://github.com/ckaraca

Proposal Focus: Modules 1, 2, 4, 5.

ChaKhan - 3+ years experience as a Backend Developer. Python, REST, Postgres, data modeling. Electrical and Electronics Engineering Major. Found Ikigai working on LFF, thinking/working on it 24/7. MBA Thesis in progress on the LFF, focus is pricing Actions in the context of LFF payments. Learning within the Catalyst/Cardano ecosystem for 7+ months. Focusing on organization building, governance, token engineering with long term interest in economics, game theory, behavioral psychology, political science, and history.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/%C3%A7a%C4%9Fkan-acarbay-b2210b136/

https://github.com/cagkanacarbay/

Proposal Focus: All modules. Organizing the learning sessions at module 1.

James Dunseith - Co-founder of Gimbalabs, funded Catalyst proposer, contributor to projects across the Catalyst ecosystem, and currently leading the development of Plutus Project-Based Learning initiatives at Gimbalabs. Prior to committing full-time to Cardano and Catalyst development, James taught high-school math and developed teacher-education programs at two ed-tech startups. 

Proposal Focus: Smart contract development. Advisor on all things Plutus.

Yoram Ben-Zvi - 20+ years of business experience working with technology companies (strategy, partnerships, investors). In recent years, Yoram is focused on combining impact and business. 4 years ago he left his comfort zone and worked for 2 years for an NGO Earthworm.org focusing on sustainable business models across agriculture supply chains. Yoram is very active in Catalyst as a CA, successful proposer, and at Cardano4Climate. Yoram is part of the AIM team and is involved with the Catalyst SDG tool cardanocataly.st/proposer-tool-sdg/#/ (which is included in the proposal process) and the Catalyst alignment to SDG research. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/yoram-ben-zvi-446836/

Proposal Focus: Modules 1, 2.

Sebastian Pereira - 5+ years of strategic planning for public institutions as an Economist. 2 years in the blockchain industry EMURGO Academy instructor, content writer for EMURGO Blog and CT team leader.  

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastianpereira33/

Proposal Focus: Modules 1, 2.

Donald Isufi - Electrical and Electronics Engineering Major Senior Year, Self-taught programmer, JavaScript, React, Python, HTML and CSS, 1 year experience as Front-End Developer. Recipient of MITx Certificate for Introduction to Computational Thinking and Data Science. Blockchain enthusiast and participant of Little Fish Foundation for 1+ month.  

https://www.linkedin.com/in/donaldisufi/

https://courses.edx.org/certificates/39a936e9f5454dac823297795d81b9c1

Proposal Focus: Module 3. Python cadcad development.

Seomon - CA, Challenge Team, funded proposer. co-founder: littlefish, CardanoAfterDark, Cardano4Climate, Catalyst-School. IT-consultant, project manager, community manager, former poker professional (background in applied game theory), token engineer

And many others who contribute to the Littlefish Foundation.

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Getting involved with Littlefish Foundation

LFF is an open community. We accept community members who show initiative to join us in delivering these proposals. The only condition is curiosity. If you find something you like, let us know on our Discord server, join our community meetings, and ask questions.

But first, it’s good to learn.

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

Yes, we will return to Catalyst for further funding, until we build sustainable business models around Action. Catalyst allows us to take our time, engineer systems well without rushing to market, potentially risking an event similar to what happened to Luna.

We are an evolving decentralized organization. We expect solid community and contributor growth in the near future. These individuals, along with existing ones who have time from existing commitments, will be starting new initiatives. Until we get to a sustainable business model using Actions, Catalyst will be the place where we come for funding. This allows us to experiment until we can figure our way. Thanks Catalyst!

We aim to become sustainable with the launch of our token on mainnet, which we tentatively aim to deliver by Q3 2023. 

Meanwhile, we will be providing Catalyst and the broader community with ongoing services. We will be publishing all our research (DAOs, governance, economic, technology, tools, ...) on the Littlefish Vault. These will be made sustainable through experiments in Action, in due time.

[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?

Where to check our progress?

At Littlefish Foundation, everything we do is public, and we like documentation. We will publish major progress updates on Obsidian, sharing our learning with the Catalyst community. Our Miro boards are open to the community, there they can see our progress, comment, and contribute. Discord will be the best place to find daily updates, and Actions.

All LFF proposals produce Action, work done by individuals to achieve a goal. Until we have a working system with NFTs, we will use Discord to broadcast our Actions. There are many examples already on the #action channel, showing our early work. As our community grows, it will contain Actions taken by many different littlefish who are building the LFF.

We will track these posts specifically and incentivize team members and contributors to share their Actions, preparing them for Actions on the mainnet.

LFF General - Community Tracking

The general success of LFF is dependent on a strong community. We will track it from several sources:

• on Obsidian using Google Analytics: number of visitors, average time spent, and multiple other metrics
• by activity on Discord using server statistics bot: number of members, unique posters on discord per month, Action per month, Action per unique user

We’ll review this data monthly and share updates through our communication channels.

This Proposal - A Diverse Team of Token Engineers

The first indicator of success is the team we build to deliver the proposal. The first metric to measure this is the number of graduates from the Token Engineering Fundamentals and cadcad courses. Second, it is the number of unique contributors in modules 2, 3, 4, and 5. In code related work, we can see this through unique contributors on our github repositories. For other work, we’ll observe it through participation in workshops, token engineering meetings. 

This Proposal - Delivering on Promises

This is a research and development oriented proposal. There are many tangible parts to the proposal that will indicate success. In smart contract, off-chain, and frontend development, success will be measured through the delivery of features. How much of what we want to implement have we implemented? 

With token engineering and cadcad, our success will be in generating a robust token economy. This is a difficult thing to measure numerically. We’ll publish all our findings and ask others to review our work. We can measure success through feedback by other token engineers.

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

LFF General - Solving our own problems through experimentation, building applications the community loves

Our approach to problem solving in this space is experimentation. Trying out new methods of doing business, creating new processes fit for a decentralized organization built from the ground floor.

One example is our Ikigai onboarding model. The bubbles at the top represent work groups and business functions. We walk through the bubbles with newcomers, discussing what they mean in Littlefish Foundation, and ask them to fill their Ikigai board with them. The result is a fun learning experience for everyone.

We create such systems with the aim of turning them into software. First we practice with existing tools, learn, iterate, and experiment, then we'll build it into software that others can use. See our Ikigai proposal here.

Some other experiments relating to publishing Actions by:

• Financial tracking of rewards
• Actions published on #action Discord channel,
• Older Actions published on the Adventures of Littlefish

Success means these experiments turn into learning which turn into applications loved by the community.

LFF General - A strong community of creators and builders

We are a growing community of 100+. Yet pure numbers aren't enough. Growing the number of meaningful contributors is the key to long term success. Since the F8 proposal, the number of consistent contributors has grown from 2 to 10+ and growing fast. Newcomer numbers are also ticking up. Maintaining a sustainable, healthy growth in these numbers is critical.

LFF General - Littlefish Vault is the knowledge hub for decentralized organizations in the Cardano Space

Building a decentralized organization is tough. There are so many moving pieces, and time goes by quickly. By making our learning public we aim to make it easier for others to build decentralized organizations. A successful LFF means our knowledge base has become a popular place for others who are building decentralized organizations. Our target is 10000 unique visitors by the end of February 2023.

This Proposal - Littlefish Foundation, the blueprint for reward sharing organizations 

LFF is built on Teal organization principles. We value self-management, freedom of the individual, natural, dynamic hierarchies. We believe these principles will help us unlock new methods of human organization that are human-friendly. 

A well engineered reward sharing mechanism is the glue that binds and supercharges this type of organization. With success, LFF will become the first of its kind, the blueprint for reward sharing can enable the next generation of organizations. 

This Proposal - Catalyst and Cardano communities reward sharing

Reward sharing will be designed to enable digital communities, DAOs, projects. Catalyst communities will be among the first users to run reward sharing schemes. With success, we’ll have 100 colonies using Actions and sharing rewards by the time this proposal is delivered. 

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

Littlefish Foundation Kiva-like DAO - Unfunded F7 Proposal

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/384063

Littlefish Foundation was born with this proposal from the Cardano4Climate community [2]. The aim was to create a DAO and build a Kiva like product that would allow the funding of on the ground SDG activities. 

The proposal wasn’t funded, but we kept working. We held weekly meetings, brought in experts for discussions, and worked hard to understand the domain of problems. Through that we’ve developed the idea further and generalized it to what it is today.

Littlefish: Coordinating Action - Funded F8 Proposal

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/404668

In F8 we came up with a new vision for the Littlefish Foundation: littlefish, colonies and Actions. We got to work before it was even funded.

We were relatively new to developing on Cardano and found a steep learning curve. Weak documentation slowed development down, and we realized there was more to building a successful Littlefish Foundation. 

During this time we have completed many important steps:

• Finished the whitepaper
• Built a strong core of contributors from our community
• Created an organizational model to fit our needs
• A Radical Method of Organization
• Why Cardano > Proposals Experiments and Teams
• Formed work groups and started to produce on all of them. See these on the Action Board
• Tech Help Collective - Working on wallet research&documentation, preliminary DAO tools research on Ethereum and Cardano, reworking Littlefish Discord
• Love House - the littlefish AI art collection
• Organization Labs - Research on Teal organizations, determined necessary business functions, created organizational model
• The Forge - Tested out serialization library, lucid, and multiplatform library, created early UI/UX designs
• Dream Engine - Created Littlefish Action Model, User Flow Models, Detailed Action Flow, Organization Funding Model, and more

Here's a shot of that board as of the 10th June:

Our proposals in Fund 9 aim to supercharge this holistic vision of the Littlefish Foundation.