L-Earning Bazaar: Platform Building

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

The Problem

There is no comprehensive education platform on Cardano that combines a rewards structure. It is imperative to build a platform to bring educational materials to a wider audience.

And the current learning materials in the Cardano community are created voluntarily by each community, and there is no standard to prove learning after taking a course.

Also, each course is currently taught by an individual on Zoom or YouTube, and there is no suitable online educational platform for the community.

What Is Our Platform?

Our learning platform allows people with diverse tastes to find classes that interest them by giving everyone the opportunity to become a teacher in their field of expertise.

This allows for the creation of a new market for a common category of learning on Cardano.

At the same time, it creates a learning community within the Cardano ecosystem.

In addition, by using the revenue from NFTs issued for specific classes, points issued by this project, and the DID (Digital ID) system, and the revenue generated from the data obtained from the overall community studying will be returned to students who take classes that are meaningful to the specific Cardano ecosystem, selected the will of the community.

The goal of this project is to create a self-sustaining ecosystem that incentivizes development of new talent supporting Cardano (devs), as well as a healthy commercial exchange of ideas and expertise across all fields by and for the community members.

The creation of such a sustainable learning ecosystem will not only increase the number of Cardano developers and provide opportunities for education to the child laborers and the unbanked that Cardano focuses on, but it has the potential to become a breakthrough application of the blockchain by engaging the intellectual desires of everyone in the community, giving individuals the opportunity to both learn AND earn.

 By enabling educators and learners to come together with the power of our research-backed design that gives young people the skills, tools, and opportunities to flourish and thrive as architects of the future. Bringing to life and fulfilling the promise of Cardano in providing the keys, gateways and infrastructure to systematically disrupt the status quo, paving innovative avenues for learners and educators to realize their dreams in their journey of lifelong learning. A journey that can be, with the support of the L-Earning bazaar and its community, not only rewarding but also equitable and sustainable.

Anyone will be able to leverage their expertise to earn as teachers, while also learning as students from others. We will also offer a program that will use Atala Prism's DID mechanism to make it possible to record credits earned through the completion of a class or course, enabling certification in respective fields. Similarly, we will use DID to power quality control of teachers and their courses via votes, reviews, and feedback, so that students can take classes with confidence. This, in turn, will incentivize teachers to step up their online careers through the production of polished content and delivery.

In addition, by offering a variety of live classes, we will create a system that allows both teachers and students to communicate with each other through video, chat, and testing functions during class. A secondary benefit of this is networking, as students and teachers will be able to interact directly with each other, opening up the possibility of job opportunities and collaborations.

In-Platform Economy

During the First Phase of our roadmap, we will use ADA (or Djed instead) of Points/Tokens.

We will establish a test sub-ecosystem, where Points will initially be issued on Web2 as a testing, native Token pre-cursor.

Points will be used:

1. By students to pay for classes
2. To get whitelisted for NFTs (tickets) for special, limited attendance classes/events
3. Distributed to students for completing free classes.

We plan to eventually replace the points system as a Cardano-native Token after sufficient validation on Tokenomics and after rigorous stress testing of the in-platform economy.

As we move through the phases, we would also like to include credit card payments as a consideration to encourage people who are not familiar with crypto to participate in this platform.

Our Four Types of Classes:

• General Classes: Classes in which students pay tokens to a teacher. The teacher holds the class and gets paid in Tokens.

• Free Classes: If the teacher makes the class free, students may voluntarily donate Tokens to the teacher. (The number of slots for these classes will be limited, and the community will vote to determine what classes will fit into these slots.)

• Classes with Rewards: Classes through which participants can earn Tokens. (For example, classes that are funded by Catalyst, IOHK, or have a partnership with a company.) / Instructors who want to receive feedback for their classes or increase their audience, students can receive points for taking the class (if they have completed the feedback).

• Special Classes: For some classes given by celebrities or very popular lecturers, NFTs will be issued and classes will be ticketed. These NFTs can be sold on the secondary market in addition to securing WL slots for those who have accumulated study points. →The RY from the sale of NFTs and secondary distribution on the secondary market will be returned to each teacher after deducting a commission from the management.

[About the class contents： And the Steps]

We will be building a class/community to train Cardano developers, especially in Web3 and Cardano, with relationships with Fence Maker and IOHK, as well as the Catalyst and Wada communities.

Along the way, we will also be adding language classes to reduce language barriers, as well as categories of classes based on common interests created within the learning community.

First, we will build a community that can satisfy the intellectual needs of the Cardano ecosystem, and then we will partner with major companies to bring more general learning platform users into the community.

[Connection to D I D(Atala PRISM)]

Connecting to DID through Atala PRISM benefits both teachers and teachers.

●Teachers

Teachers can guarantee the quality of their education by earning a badge for their work and good evaluations of their classes.

The more teaching quality and badges you have on your DID, the more you can step up as a teacher, increase the price tag on your classes, and be qualified to give special classes.

●Student

Students will earn badges based on their learning progress, and the system will allow students to earn certifications and credentials by earning a certain number of badges and passing tests.

Students can then become teachers and can guarantee their skills when they teach, as well as improve their chances for employment.

This will motivate teachers to develop better quality classes and motivate students to learn properly.

【Interactive classes】

By setting up a variety of interactive live classes, teachers and students will be able to interact with each other through video functions, chat quiz functions, etc., and create a system that allows both parties to communicate during class.

This will allow the teacher to accurately grasp the level of proficiency of the students.

In addition, students can be given opportunities to output their own work.

Students who have earned a certain number of badges can become teacher's assistants and follow up with students in beginner classes.

In this way, students who have studied on this platform will be able to become teachers and take advantage of the strengths of interactive classes to create recruiting opportunities.

Some example use-cases

Eg. 1: Someone who is a specialist in Ghanaian traditional textiles, wants to become a CNFT developer, but is new to the platform.

1. They accumulate tokens by taking IOHK-supervised classes that are offered free of charge and obtain some initial tokens.
2. They give a class on Ghanaian cultural garments in order to promote their region and earns taken from the students for attending.
3. Then, they spend the combined tokens to take a class on CNFT mint machines by Fencemaker, receives a certification of completion to his Atala Prism wallet, and can now take advantage of their certification by either earning off-platform as a CNFT minter OR on-platform an assistant lecturer to Fencemaker.

Eg. 2: A Japanese person who is an expert on Japanese home cooking techniques, but also loves K-Pop.

1. They want to share their unique knowledge of accessible cooking methods, and give a class to attendants from overseas and gets paid in tokens.
2. They can use those points to watch a limited run course by a Korean celebrity entertainer that they are a fan of.

Eg. 3: Someone who simply sees an opportunity in the limited NFT tickets, but they out of their budget.

1. They accumulate tokens by taking IOHK-supervised classes that are offered free of charge and obtain some initial tokens.
2. They use the accumulated tokens to purchase an NFT ticket for a celebrity class.
3. They trade the NFT ticket on a second marketplace for actual ADA.

[Profit Structure of the Management Side]

1. Commission from regular classes

2. Commission from classes sold as NFT

3. Advertising fees from companies, organizations, DAOs, etc.

4. Marketing income from various data analysis

※The amount of the operation side's revenue, excluding the operation Fee, will be returned to the community as points.

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

Our Dapps allow for the creation of a new market for a common category of learning on Cardano.

At the same time, it creates a learning community within the Cardano ecosystem.

Also, this platform allows the teachers and students to continue to teach/learn by the reward system, so we can get more developers to Cardano Space.

[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 Revenue Structure as a Project

One of the challenges of this project is that it is difficult to predict income until the scale of the community grows, and it will be difficult to maintain the platform.

Therefore, before launching the platform, we will use Discord, Twitter, etc. to build an international community of people who want to learn from the early stages of the project.

This community building will be done in cooperation with various organizations such as Japan Cardano Community, Wada Community, CNFT Community, and Cardano communities in Europe, and the U.S.

About Cardano's Development Status

The development status of Cardano itself will play a major role in the product development phase, in terms of managing a large amount of data and associated transactions, as well as connecting to digital IDs and wallets.

First, we will create a community on Discord and proceed with the design of the non-DID so that the product can be released without waiting for Cardano's development of DID (Atala PRISM) part.

From there, we will take measures to connect with DID and blockchain as quickly and flexibly as possible, in conjunction with the development status of Cardano.

Market Risks

The market for crypto assets is currently in a very difficult phase, and attracting new users can be a challenge for projects in the bear market.

However, the sharing of knowledge within the Cardano community and the development of the Cardano ecosystem, and the resulting demand from developers will continue to grow as long as Cardano development continues.

First, regardless of market conditions, we will continue to solidify our user and community membership, independent of market conditions, by educating and enhancing the knowledge of Cardano technicals and language and the categories of interest to the Cardano Community.

We will also set up classes for people in Africa, which the Cardano Community has identified as a key point of interest, as well as classes on African knowledge, etc.

Competitiveness with learning platforms and YouTube which hold a variety of classes

Although learning platforms such as Udemy have a large number of users, there is a risk that it is difficult for ordinary community members to attract students from a huge pool of potential classes.

Also, even with an interactive platform, it is difficult to determine the extent to which students can understand and practice what they are learning through chat alone.

Our platform will develop interactive classes that include a Video, and as people who were students take the class, they will receive certification from the teacher, allowing them to teach the class under the teacher's recommendation.

Generally, the learning retention rate through passive teaching is about 5%. Conversely, the learning retention rate through teaching others what they have learned is considered to be very high.

For example, after taking a dance lesson and receiving points, then you can pay the points to have the instructor evaluate the results of the dance lesson.

The instructor can then obtain what is originally a percentage of the lesson fee back in the Learn and Earn system by evaluating the student.

Then, in this situation, if the student receives a passing grade from the instructor, he/she will be eligible to become a support member of the channel by NFT.

Then, when the NFT is obtained, the instructor will open a channel to support the student in the areas where he/she is lacking.

The fee for this channel will be approximately 70% for supporters and 30% for instructors, and instructors will be able to automatically monetize the more supporters who properly understand and master their seminars.

In addition, as the channel is community-driven, Discord and other mechanisms will be used to allow the actual teachers to take various approaches within the community of potential students.

For classes that the community judges to have strong social significance, we will create a system to attract students by allocating points as a project.

Risk of lost opportunity for users if the teacher side stops delivering classes

If a teacher stops delivering further lessons after having started a class, the user is at risk of losing money and opportunities if the teacher has several courses.

Our platform allows users to make reservations for a single class with points, and the points are paid to the teacher after the class is completed.

We will also build learning communities by category on Discord so that users can find teachers in the community with similar classes or who are certified by the teacher and continue learning.

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

This system is an online learning system and the basic model that leads to the Learn & Earn.

We expect the project will be ready within five months of funding approval.

After the launch, we plan to identify operational issues and prepare to move into the interfacing phase for Digital Identity.

Development Side

1. System Summary & Scope

An online course with reviews and learning history. The system aggregates other services to support real and on-demand.

The system also scores and awards students with points (replaced by a Token in the next phases). These data are recorded in the Discord.

2. Development Team Formation

Project manager & Bridge SE x1

IT engineer x 2

Designer x 1

3. Target Milestones & Deliverables

First month

1. Creation of Requirements and Specifications

2. Finalize the User Specific Features (Admins, Teachers, Students)

3. Design procedures (requirements and workflows/front and back

4. Design database/tables

5. Libraries (repository, programs, video streaming storage)

6. Communications (PM and developers, tools for project management, workflow, or task tracking, files, checklists)

7. Standardization (code, file names, program names, appreciation process, etc.)

8. site maps and header-navigation

9. Evaluation method

10. Course attendance recording method

11. Points assignment system method

12. The UI Design

13. Third-party live system API check

14. Third-party site data automation research

15. Discord API check

Deliverables

Requirement specification

Second month

1. Kickoff meeting with the development team

2. Provide the environment (team communication, progress management system)

3. Technical Architecture (Server, programming language, database)

4. Configure the local development environment

5. Purchase necessary tools (ex. Backlog, Redmine, Zapier, Trello, etc.)

6. Detail Design with team

7. Create Gantt Chart

8. Breaking tasks down into sub-tasks and Assign who does what

9. Create Discord environments (IDs, Admin control)

Deliverables

1. Technical configurations

2. Tools and Third-party list

3. Task list

4. Checklists

Third month

1. Progress check (daily check and weekly meetings)

2. Test the live lesson connection (ex. ZOOM, Webex)

3. Testing the Discord

4. Contract servers (servers, user )

5. System migration

6. Provide a Bilingual screen (or implement a duplicate system)

7. Creation of test pattern, check-list, and data

8. Designing (PC, Mobile, Tablet) UI/UX

Fourth month

1. Deployment

2. System Testing

3. Final Adjustment

Fifth month

1. Prepare Operation manual

2. Prepare technical documentation

Marketing Side

Phase 1

First Month

Start the Official Twitter Account

KPI

Early September

Second Month

1. Website Launch
2. Discord Launch (α ver.)

KPI

End of October

This website is for introducing the project until the α ver. product. Site will be created at end of October.

・During this period, community building will take place in Discord. A simple system of awarding roles based on accomplishments will be incorporated.

Third Month

1. Start a class on Cardano development on Discord (N. Ayotte and others).

2. Survey the needs of those who want to be taught and those who want to be teachers.

3. Search for funding sources from VC.

KPI

Middle of November

1. Aim to have more than 500 members in Discord for a month and begin test lessons for more than 50 members at a time. Using the Discord function, begin testing rewards (points) and classrooms.
2. Selecting first teachers from community.

(Cardano General/Catalyst/Development/Language/Africa/NFTs).

Fourth Month

1. Community Building.
2. Lobbying and marketing to partner companies/communities.

KPI

End of December

1. More than 3000 members in Discord. Using the Discord function, test run of rewards (points) and a test run of the classrooms with more than 500 members.

2. Partner with more than 1 companies/3 communities

Phase 2 (January-March 2023)

Lobbying and marketing to partner companies

Phase 3 (April-June 2023)

Start of classes and gradual point allocation

Start of special classes (issuance of NFT tickets)

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Total 80,000USD

○Building the Platform (α ver.) = 71,000USD

Product Manager

5000USD(/month)*6months = 30,000USD

Programmer (Senior)

4000USD(/month)*4.5months = 18,000USD

Programmer (Junior)

3000$(/month)*4months = 12,000USD

Designer

3000$(/month)*2months = 6,000USD

License Fees for third parties (Web Server/Live platform for α ver./Discord) and Fees for Tools = 5,000USD

○Marketing = 9,000USD

Discord Moderator

1000USD(/month)*3months = 3000USD

Overall Management/PR

2000USD(/month)*3months = 6000USD

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

Yuri Hayashi (CEO)

• 2008- Shogakukan-Shueisha Production (5 years).

Worked as a TV producer in the TV planning division.

Produced the 15th-anniversary event of the "Pokemon" movie at the Pokemon Division of Shogakukan Productions.

• In charge of PR for "Dora Zemi" in the Correspondence Education Division.

• Working on promoting Cardano and Cardano N F T in Japan and bridging with overseas countries.
• The founder of CNFT is a Community.
• Founder of "CNFT Festival Japan Meets the West" funded by Catalyst Fund8.
• She has many connections to the Japan Cardano Community, WADA Community, Sustainable ADA, and other CNFT projects in the US, Europe, etc.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuri-hayashi-2a974b212/details/experience/

Ryu Goto (Business Development)

• A professional violinist since childhood, including charity concerts in Africa.
• Visiting professor at Shanghai University.
• He has a A.B. in Physics from Harvard University.
• Career in business development and Venture Capital, with a focus on Africa.
• He is also passionate about Cardano and founded the CNFT project "Otodojo Nodes."
• He has strong connections in the US and European Cardano and CNFT communities.

https://www.ryugoto.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryu-goto-bb0426180/

Masaki Takakubo (CTO/Project Manager, Bridge SE)

• 4 years of experience working as Project Manager & Bridge SE with Philippine IT engineers
• Optical fiber programming NTT(Nippon Telegraph and telephone)（OS team）
• Developing franchise system for Plumbing & Water trouble shooting company
• Implementing Recruiting matching site
• Implementing Nissan motor corporation campaign site
• Over 16 years experience (10 years experience as IT manager) in Financial firms

FORTIS Investments Japan Holding Co., Ltd. 2006 - 2008

UNITED Asset Management 2000 - 2005

CITITRUST and Banking Corporation 1999 - 2000

BARING Asset Management (Japan) Limited 1996 - 1999

CREDIT SUISSE Tokyo Branch 1987 - 1992

•  Well-rounded background in IT management

(software development, networks, system administrating, helpdesk)

• Implementing LAN and system migration
• Terminal PC installation at Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• 3x experience of Integration of two office System Infrastructure

(Fortis Investments Trust and Commerz Asset Management, Nihon Asia Securities and United Asset Management, CITITRUST and Salomon Smith Barney Asset Management)

• Year 2000 project (building satellite office for dealing rooms) at CITITRUST
• Communication and team-building skill

• Tools: Adobe (llustrator, Photoshop, Premiere, After Effect), Canva, Trello, Camtasia
• Hardware: PC (IBM), Host Server (IBM AS/400)
• OS: SYSL (NTT)
• Language: PHP, Adobe(Flash activeX), Visual Basic, COBOL
• Qualification: MCSE (Microsoft Certified System Engineer) , AFP (Affiliated Financial Planner）

Nick Ayotte (Fencemaker)

• Equine, Benjamin's Club & Group dev, Vending machine operator and developer of over 100 CNFT projects
• Plutus Pioneer
• Physicist

https://mobile.twitter.com/fencemakernft

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

Raz aka Razali Samsudin, (Advisor: Education/ Wada Community)

Credit Joseph Miranda

• Active Cardano community member working to drive the ecosystem to positive impact purposes. 
• 14 years of experience as an international, 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. 
• Co-Founder of Cardojo, Co-Founder of A Samsudin Brothers Projek, Co-Founder of Sustainable ADA, Social and Environmental Impact Projects Director at The Art Suite, UN SDG and Education Coordinator at wada, Contributor at Cardano AIM behind community tools such as the SDG Proposer Tool, SDG Search Tool and Voter Tool, Contributor at PositiveBlockchain, Cardano4Climate, Catalyst School and Adatruth. 
• Trained in MMA and street self-defence by Usman Raja since 2006 (TKO Gym, Canning Town and Roger Gracie Academy, Ladbroke Grove)
• Creator of Streets of ADA, A Samsudin Brother’s Projek as part of the Cardojo umbrella. 
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/razali-samsudin
• https://twitter.com/Razlosophy

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

Yes.

In order to build our Product, we need a budget for connection with DID other than these six months.

We are currently in a very difficult market and would like to receive funding from VCs and other sources, but if market conditions make it difficult to raise funds, we would like to raise one more additional round of funding through Catalyst.

[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?

All the processes we do on the Discord server, so anyone who wants to check or measure to track our project's progress can do so on our Discord server.

Also when we make the Public Twitter Account, we will tweet our development/marketing report every week also we make the document that links to it.

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

The ultimate goal of this project is to allow Cardano and other educational content to be refined in the context of constructive competition and to give the estimated 128 million child laborers as many educational opportunities and earning opportunities as possible.

Also, our goal is for those who use the platform to encounter educational content they have never seen before and to feel their world expand.

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

An entirely new one.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

SDG goals:

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

Goal 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

Goal 10. Reduce inequality within and among countries

Goal 11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

Goal 13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

Goal 16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

Goal 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development

SDG subgoals:

10.c By 2030, reduce to less than 3 per cent the transaction costs of migrant remittances and eliminate remittance corridors with costs higher than 5 per cent

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

Key Performance Indicator (KPI):

10.c.1 Remittance costs as a proportion of the amount remitted

#proposertoolsdg