Katiopa women: The pioneers of DeFi

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Context

In the African local context, women play a key role in designing and running local DeFi solutions on the ground within their communities. Most communities organize themselves into tontine groups, also locally known as Djangui. The main purpose of these groups is to create a community whose members can support each other in so many different ways. They build, strengthen and maintain their relationships through group initiatives and activities of all kinds. New members seeking to join the community are required to secure older members’ endorsements serving as a stake to enter the network. They form what we would call a Web of Trust. This societal organization serves as a base for a reputation system in several area of life, DeFi being the most prominent. Communities usually crowdfund for their initiative and also offer borrowing, lending, and insurances within. The network they build serves as what we would call credit score / credit history in the western world, but here it’s more about the level of trust people have in you and the person that endorses you. Women are truly the owners of local context DeFi algorithms and solutions.

Solution

We plan to extend our education program to train and equip 120+ leader women with the right tools in such a way that they are able to translate their local DeFi practices into designing, and implementing solutions (on the Cardano blockchain). We intend to help these leaders and pioneers to spread the word and serve as a catalyst for other women in their communities.

Our strategy resolve in three parallel and complementary activities. Marketing, Training, Spreading.

The first activity consist of focusing on marketing to search and recruit women into our Haskell and Plutus training Program. To reach this goal, we will be securing a stand at a high profile bi-yearly Devs and Enterprises Conference called PROMOTE. We intend to run workshops and mini prized Hackathons explaining the opportunities offered by the Blockchain technology and Cardano specifically. Our marketing campaign will also extend to schools, universities and technical institutions where we are creating clubs and running Hackathons through our funded proposal "Clubs + Hackathon = Cardano adoption". Lastly, we will running advertising campaign on local TV and radio stations as well as displaying at strategic locations billboards and posters.

Our second activity will consist of funneling pre-selected women into our ongoing Plutus education initiative and providing them with the necessary support to first learn Haskell, Software Architecture, Distributed Ledger Technologies then Plutus for smart contracts development. We currently have one brave women from ISTDI within our program and that on its own has sparked deep interest in many others from her institute. Our aim is to enroll more women into our program through the extra support from this proposal.

Our third and last activity will consist of extending our Plutus Program for women to other countries and educative programs seeking to close the gap we witness between males and females in the IT field and more specifically in Distributed Ledger Technology.

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

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

At the core of this proposal is the creation of a developer ecosystem geared toward women. Women leaders that we hope will serve as catalyst to convince others to join the adventure.

In order for Cardano succeed on the African market we need to focus on providing use cases applicable to Africans and women who are the designers and implementers of local on ground DeFi solutions are the solution.

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

The main risk here is lack of interest due to time constraint and/or financial constraint. We plan to offer training for free and also will motivate participants through hackathon prizes to mitigate this risk. Our previously funded proposal also include incentives for our intern.

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

DITC, Wada Cameroon Hub has already launched its Haskell & Plutus education initiative (On June 1st 2022). and is already providing training content trough its YouTube channel. We currently have 5 interns (including one women) being actively trained in Haskell. This proposal is an extension of the work we are already doing on the ground with a focus on marketing to convince and recruit more women.

Our road map is broken into the following steps / milestones:

Step 1:

Marketing awareness campaign starting in Cameroon. As mentioned above, we will be leveraging the opportunities offered by the bi-yearly PROMOTE event. We will also secure partnerships with more technical institutes (already partnered with 2 local institutes). We will also run short advertisement on local Radio and TV stations.

Step 2:

We will visit local universities (12 total - 1 each month post funding), technical schools, and high schools speaking about Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and Cardano in particular; Highlighting the land of opportunities brought about by DLTs and bringing awareness to our Haskell and Plutus education initiative.

Each of our visits will consist of informative workshops sessions on the Cardano ecosystem and DLT in general. This phase will conclude with the identification and recruitment of women meeting the required profile.

Step 3:

Funnel women into DITC Haskell and Plutus training program then integrate the content produce into the Wada Academy Platform so that we can make it more accessible to eventual future trainees.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Total Budget: $21 000

• Cardano Stand @ PROMOTE $2 000
• Small stand reservation ($500)
• Stand Marketing materials, Decoration & Logistics ($1 500)
• Marketing & Advertisement (Plutus Women Billboard * 2, Posters, TV and Radio advertisements spots ): $3 000
• Live workshops sessions in technical institutes (Internet, Sound Tools, Projector, T-Shirts, Hats, Bracelets ...etc): $3 000
• In person event logistics (Refreshments, Snacks ...etc): $1 000
• Mini challenge / hackathon prizes: $2000
• Team motivations (3 trainers $250 ea per month x 12 months): $9 000
• Project oversight and coordination: $1 000

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

DITC Wada Cameroon Hub:

Megan: Event & Education Lead @ Wada

Megan will coordinate marketing and logistics for school outreach and at PROMOTE events.

Haskell/Plutus Interns: Lafortune, and other interns @ DITC will act as spokespeople encouraging African women in Tech.

Manfo and Nkalla to contact schools and elaborate curriculum and content. They will also speak at schools, and events.

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

No, this is a one-time push for women developers.

[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?

We will track the following metrics:

• Number of school / technical institutes we partner with on the monthly basis (goal will be 1 per month)
• Number of women pre-selected to developer training program at events on a monthly basis (goal will be 10+ per month meaning one for each school event)
• Number of women enroll in our course 12 months post funding (goal will be 120+ after 12 months)
• Number of dApps a leader we trained participated in its implementation (goal will be 120+ after 3 years)

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

120+ fully trained women in Plutus which will be determined by completion of Haskell and Plutus training program and passing of certification process at the end of the courses (DITC/Wada Certification).

We hope that each of the women will become a leader in functional programming, Haskell , Plutus and a source of inspiration to many others that look at software programming (let alone functional programming with Haskell) like something reserved for men only.

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

New proposal