Africa Stakepool Alliance

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

Develop the Africa Stakepool Alliance, open access database and framework for knowledge exchange, facilitating + increasing impact of mission driven SPOs operating in Africa and the diaspora.

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

200+ team of active Cardano community members. Single Pool Operators, Cardano AIM team (SDG Proposer Tool, SDG Search Tool). Globally diverse multidisciplinary team of professionals: Catalyst, sustainability and impact research. Fund 5,6,7,8 winners. 

[GENERAL] Requested funds in USD.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Our Solution:

Formalizing and developing a framework for an Africa Stakepool Alliance. 

Bridging the gap between the Cardano ecosystem of single pool operators, the impact investing world, and would be delegators. 

Accelerating progress to an equitable and sustainable world supported by an impactful Africa Stakepool Alliance. 

An Alliance collaborating, combining and sharing resources in order to provide a clear, coherent and understandable offering to diverse stakeholders.

An Alliance that will effectively communicate and demonstrate the opportunities for investors/delegators to not only make a return on their investment, but to also have a positive social and environmental impact via supporting mission driven, single pool operators, the change makers on the ground in Africa.

In order to drive change where it is most needed, and to ensure finances are optimally used for maximum positive impact, accurate and trustworthy data is necessary to make informed decisions. Having said that, “statistics alone do not feed the hungry, create jobs or provide social services but they are critical in helping us to better understand the challenges, and to design more effective policies for inclusive, sustainable and resilient development.” - UNESCAP, 2017

What is Impact Investing?

“Impact investing is not an asset class. It is an investment approach, across all asset classes, themes and geographies, and has a full range of risks and returns.”

Why Africa?

Africa is the 2nd most populated continent in the world, and the youngest continent in the world with 60% of its population under the age of 25 in 2019 (Statista, 2021).

With blockchain being the number 1 in demand hard skill of 2020, our proposal seeks to catalyze, cultivate and encourage the burgeoning interest amongst the architects and entrepreneurs of the future in blockchain and related technologies in the digital economy.

Business schools switch focus to people, purpose and planet l FT

“We face an analogous situation in impact investing. Business schools can help to fill the gap. Graduates who are not trained to understand the social impact of the great breakthroughs happening in technology, biology, physics and other essential areas are less likely to understand the risks and rewards of investing in these innovations to overcome poverty and climate change… If business schools can capture this essential interplay between profit and purpose, they will go a long way to teaching their students that impact and a strong focus on environmental, social and governance factors are not just nice things to have, but bedrocks of sound financial investments.” - https://www.ft.com/content/3f1d912e-17b1-4d6e-ad28-20e52ed61ea0?shareType=nongift

Cardano and its stake pool operators operating out of Africa and Asia, the two most populated continents globally, are perfectly situated to drive Cardano towards impact purposes, and provide many services across multiple fronts such as education, financing positive social and environmental initiatives and helping to uplift communities from poverty to prosperity through economic security and financial and digital literacy and upskilling. Such mission driven SPOs should be on the radar of the impact investors coming out of business schools across the world.

“In order to effectively and efficiently ensure that impactful changes are made, it is essential that interventions are based on evidence rather than assumptions. Blockchain technologies can play a crucial part in establishing the required chain of evidence for environmental compliance: validating sources of emissions data, informing policy decisions, providing evidence of compliance, and monitoring impacts in a transparent and incontrovertible way.” - https://static.iohk.io/green-blockchain-paper.pdf

Single SPO’s play an essential and integral role in ensuring Cardano remains a secure and decentralized network. Mission driven pools are also at the frontier of a paradigm shift in disrupting legacy systems and methods of directing finance to solve local and global problems. 

Having said that, single SPOs everywhere have been struggling. A common theme pops up all around the community, the challenge of marketing a SPO and its benefits.

Simply put, they are failing to attract more delegators to their pool. This makes operating one economically challenging and unviable for many.

In the developing world, most people are unfamiliar with web 3.0, blockchain and Cardano. Many are oblivious to the potential benefits of blockchain, staking and what even is a SPO. 

In the spirit of collaboration and collective intelligence sharing, cultural and knowledge exchange, we propose that a structured and organized Africa Stakepool Alliance can bring about many benefits to the Cardano community at large, the Alliance members, and provide a coherent and understandable message to would-be delegators, and potential impact investors.

Stakeholders from ecosystems currently external to Cardano, but who are open to innovative ways to support mission driven causes and actors, whilst making a return on their investment via Cardano’s innovative Proof of Stake model, will be targeted for onboarding into the Cardano ecosystem. 

The Africa Stakepool Alliance can prove to be an inspiration for others globally, with others inspired to follow a path that may have previously been deemed inaccessible.

Alliances currently exist in the Cardano community and we seek to add value to this growing constellation of impact actors in the increasingly decentralized network, by providing a framework for geographically situated mission driven, single pool operators to receive support in finding their feet.

The alliance made up of single pool operators can also collectively explore the research published by IOHK that proposes the idea of Conclave, “... stake pools tend to increase centralization, since they are typically managed by a single party that acts on behalf of the pool’s members. In this work we propose Conclave, a formal design of a Collective Stake Pool, i.e., a decentralized pool with no single point of authority.” - https://iohk.io/en/research/library/papers/conclavea-collective-stake-pool-protocol/

“One day I’d love to see Enterprise employees and shareholders voting on Cardano which MDPs to delegate ESG/CSR funds to for 12mth at a time.

Scores of SDG targets would be knocked down and many missions would be funded ad infinitum

#Cardano #Blockchain #Crypto #CardanoCommunity”

- David Taylor, Global Marketing Director, Cardano Foundation

https://twitter.com/I_Am_DTaylor/status/1507430167991492625?t=P07uzndtLg_G4Z53QZtYuw&s=19

With the Africa Stakepool Alliance, in tandem with other Mission Driven Pools/Alliances, with the support of this proposal the Africa Stakepool Alliance can cover the costs, time commitment and resources needed to produce:

• An Alliance Website
• Social media channels
• External Communication materials such as an Impact Investor Pack

These efforts can support Alliance members in being seen and potentially receiving delegations from:

• financial institutions
• Corporates
• Philanthropists
• Private Equity and Venture Capital Fund managers
• Foundation Directors
• Family Office Principals/Directors
• NextGen Leaders
• Incubators
• Accelerators
• And all those who have access to significant capital, or have responsibility for large investment portfolios and are used to managing assets of High Net Worth Individuals, families or funds. 

Armed with the awareness and knowledge of the happenings in the Cardano impact ecosystem, external stakeholders as listed above, and those such as individuals who are either deploying or intend to deploy capital with an impact investing lens can arrive at an array of options offered by the Africa Stakepool Alliance.

Evidence that there is indeed a desire out there for such a service and information is demonstrated with news announced at the Cardano Summit 2021. UBX, the fintech venture studio and fund spun out of UnionBank of the Philippines, opened their own public stake pool. UBX became the first in the world to run a public stake pool as a regulated institution. UBX Staking provides Filipinos a reputable and trustworthy source to earn rewards on their ADA for helping to secure and operate the Cardano blockchain. - https://www.ubx.ph/2021/10/01/ubx-leads-in-crypto-becomes-first-regulated-institution-to-run-a-public-stake-pool/

More info on the UBX stakepool:

• https://staking.ubx.ph/
• https://pool.pm/92a10197f76a6bf4e27f9c813a80b532d231e5b99da72603b2cd65fb

The Africa Stakepool Alliance will aim to include single pool operators as members from across Africa, representing Africa inclusively and reflecting its richness of cultural diversity. 

Collectively the Alliance will work to improve the digital and financial literacy among its members and population, its delegators, and all those who stand to benefit from being part of this revolutionary Web3.0 digital movement, bringing power, ownership and value to all that wish to participate.

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

According to UN forecasts, Africa is expected to double its population by 2050, from 1 billion to nearly 2.4 billion inhabitants. Half of that population will be less than 25 years old.

World Bank figures show that young people represent 60% of the unemployed population in Africa. Among those who do have a job, the majority work in the informal economy. A report published in 2018, by the International Labour Organization (ILO) on the topic, indicated that 94.9% of people between the ages of 15 and 24 in Africa work in the informal economy. In West Africa this figure is as high as 97.9%.

DRC has the 7th youngest country in the world according to the UN. This presents a unique mix of challenges and opportunities.

The success of the GOMA stakepool in DRC as led by Genty and his team, is testament to the strength of the Cardano community with the support of the funded proposal : https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/369320.

GOMA pool, and others that will join the Africa Stakepool Alliance can and will prove inspirational to others as to what is possible. 

As they say, where there’s a will there’s a way! 

Why is it necessary?

Impact investing is at its nascent stage in Africa. Although it is now getting an increasing level of attention from various actors in the social investment ecosystem, there are only a handful of impact funds and foundations that are actually practicing impact investing. 

The obstacles that are hindering impact investing from gaining traction in Africa amongst wealth holders, asset managers and their advisors include the perception that it will necessitate a trade-off on financial returns, a lack of an investment-ready pipeline, inexperience in managing a portfolio, and the complexities in defining and evaluating impact measurement. - https://avpa.africa/africa-asia-impact-investing-fellowship/

With the support of this Catalyst proposal and the Cardano community, developing the Africa Stake Pool Alliance, will enable, equip and empower populations across the world’s youngest and 2nd most populated continent. 

The creation and formalization of this framework and Alliance will open up new pathways for stakeholders and impact investors from the world’s largest markets.

As a coherently organized Alliance, with professional, high quality materials and resources, the Alliance can approach and be approached by stakeholders from impact investing fellowships and networks and beyond.

An Africa Stakepool Alliance can capture external stakeholder’s attention and bring attention and real financial flow where it is needed, to who needs it, by providing capital and resources to those who are best placed to understand the problems and how to solve them, those on the ground. This in turn can catalyze a positive multiplier effect with new inflows of capital unlocking the potential of grassroots change makers and organizations, helping to accelerate their progress and giving them the means to scalably have the most impact on the ground.

This proposal will work to bring all interested members/SPOs in the ecosystem, to be part of the group of ‘founding members’, to lay the groundwork and continue building towards a common vision and mission of a better world for not just those in Africa, but the whole world!

$1 Billion Impact Investor Explains How She Makes Money While Making The World A Better Place

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

Working on this project whilst managing an existing workload: 

Working and managing diverse responsibilities and workloads will require constant communication between team members. Group members must be clearly aware of individual responsibilities and plan accordingly to meet project expectations. We are all deeply invested in ensuring we have sustainable work practices whilst bringing our visions of success for this project to life.

Working in a decentralized team:

Similar to the above, communication is key. With project members in different time zones, communication and consistent meetings are going to be keys to the Alliance’s success. On the other hand, what is perceived as a challenge can be a strength - with a decentralized, global team, team members will be that much more effective in the onboarding process and be ready to respond to questions or concerns from stakeholders. Our core team are all experienced in this regard.

Working in a space with legal and financial uncertainty: 

We are seeking to find the appropriate legal and financial professionals in the jurisdictions of the locations of the alliance members, and work to ensure transparency is respected when dealing with external stakeholders to ensure operations and practices are legally compliant.

Currency exchange volatility:

Can exchange ADA into a stable coin (Djed TBC) or fiat accordingly upon receival of funds

Operating in a context that may be sensitive with cultural awareness:

We are a diverse team made up of individuals from across the world, with experience of living and working in numerous countries and continents. Between us all we have a deep understanding of the cultural norms and nuances, and interpersonal skills needed that will prove beneficial in communicating and onboarding processes. Crypto can be seen as a subject of contention and we are all well versed in handling such discussions and topics with patient understanding and sensitivity with regards to privacy and non disclosure agreements where appropriate.

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

Collaborating with the following teams that received Catalyst funding and the support of the Cardano community :

• Fund 7 - https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/384782 - SPOs Supporting Community Projects 
• Fund 6 - https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/366840 - Strengthening Stake Pools in Africa

3 month roadmap:

September

• Establish a panel of project peers to evaluate and determine "proof of soul" for community projects.
• Establish a panel of SPOs to verify the security, configuration, and ensure candidate stake pools are following best practices
• Establish best practices around wallet management and margin allocation between stake pools and projects

October

• Begin working with Cardano4Climate to find projects that are interested in stake pool support
• Outreach to xSPO and other SPO communities to find interested stake pools to come meet the projects
• Begin peer evaluation process and matchmaking

November

• Publish open-source documentation on how peer review happens for projects and stake pools

OKRs:

• Have a set of criteria and documented procedures for peer-reviewing stake pools and projects by the end of September, 2022
• Forge alliance between Africa Stakepool Alliance, Asia Stakepool Alliance, and the newly formed Community Pool Network comprised of Cardano4Climate projects and aligned stake pools by the end of October, 2022

3 months: SPOs all completed their reporting and contributed significantly to the documentation, which is well received by the community.

Longer term vision:

6 months: Feedback gathered on both the program and the current state of SPOs in Asia, what their risk profiles are and how to address their main challenges.

12 months: Second iteration of project launched, with a focus on software tools, dashboards and data management to support a larger number of SPOs.

The deliverable/s and KPIs will be:

• Onboarding process how to guide A-Z Africa SPO document
• Telegram managed channel for Africa SPOs and community support
• Open access database of Africa SPOs (Africa based and those supporting Africa with mission driven causes - once vetted) - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1C8dG__cEmiScN1YTk8jZL_efV4Ih4p1rMeRRgiWa5Gk/edit?usp=sharing

• Input Metrics (leading indicators):
• number of promotions for the service on public forums, telegram groups, and twitter
• number of qualifying projects (peer verified)
• number of qualifying stake pools (peer verified)

• Output Metrics (lagging indicators):
• number of SPOs and projects that work together
• amount of delegated ADA to these pools before and after partnering
• amount of rewards generated before and after partnering

Managing workload:

As we have a globally decentralized, experienced, multi-skilled and diverse team, working across timezones, and connected to various networks and communities, we can tap into our multiple connections and resources, to ensure we have a sustainable approach to managing our workload if we are to receive funding from Catalyst.

Here is a link explaining how members of our team, who are actively working on previously funded proposals and supporting this proposal, shall manage their workload:

Raz: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SdUYlUODbPxgipIHgZ5uQDO3MoksnIqdONU1MGm5Uvw/edit?usp=sharing

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Project Management = 12 months x $1000 = $12000

Website 12 months + Maintenance = $2660

• ADAHandle, Unstoppable domains and yoroi compatible web 3.0 domain and handles for addresses:one off payments for life = $100

Marketing Campaign (to SPOs and projects) = $40/hr * 10 hrs = $400

Community Management = $50/hr * 40 hrs = $2000

SPO security review process = $50/hr * 40 hrs = $2000

Pool Network Coordination = $50/hr * 20 hrs = $1000

Communication Hub Management (Discord, Telegram) = $25/hr * 10 hrs = $250

Technology and infrastructure = $500

Resources: $6000

• Translation of How to be a SPO in Africa into multiple African languages
• Template video for marketing and communications
• Youtube subtitles
• PDF packs (brochures)
• Website resources and translation plug ins

SPO incentives $10000

Total = $36910

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

Core team:

Raz aka Razali Samsudin, Paris & London 

• 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 Africa Stakepool Alliance, Co-Founder of Sustainable ADA, 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. Co-Founder of Cardojo, Co-Founder of A Samsudin Brothers Projek, Social and Environmental Impact Projects Director at The Art Suite

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/razali-samsudin
• https://twitter.com/Razlosophy
• https://twitter.com/SustainableADA

Josh F - Wada Global Lead 

Frederic Samvura (Genty) - DRC GOMA SPO, wada Business Initiatives & Democratic Republic of the Congo Hubs Oversight Lead 

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric-samvura-907aa53b/

Baba Elliot (Evans Kisanga) - Tanzania

• Director and Co Founder of RFFXTZ
• IdeaScale: @babaelliot
• Discord: NYS#7565
• Linked in : https://www.linkedin.com/in/evans-kisanga-3b4316181
• Fullstack Web and App developer ( rffxtz-a57bb.web.app/#/ , https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lordkisanga.rffxtz
• Member and active contributor in Catalyst communities ( Sustainable ADA, Catalyst school, GTH, C4C, CATH, CETH), Catalyst Proposal Assessor

WADA Stakepool

GOMA Stakepool

Up-To-Date Developers (DRC)

and wada team

https://wadalliance.org/about-us/

Other stakeholders/support team:

• Joshua Akpan, Proof of Africa
• Cole Bartlett:
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/cole-bartlett
• https://twitter.com/cole_vt
• Yoram (Connectality)
• Ron Hill, Mandala Core Team Developer, Adosia Operations Team, SPOCRA SPO
• https://www.enterthemandala.io/
• https://adosia.com/
• https://spocra.io/
• Nori and Jeremy (SAMON SPO)
• https://mobile.twitter.com/pool_salmon
• Cardano4Climate
• Sustainable ADA

https://t.me/ASPAlliance - Africa Stakepool Alliance Telegram chat

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

If this proposal is funded, we aim for our project to enable us to progressively work towards demonstrating and establishing a sustainable framework and model whereby value is created and shared amongst the members of the Alliance. Nonetheless, we cannot be 100% certain as to whether or not we will return to Catalyst in a later round as we seek to scale further afield in the long term, and therefore may require further Catalyst support to enable the Alliance to do so.

[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?

• #no of existing Africa based single stakepool operators joining the alliance
• #no of new Africa based single stakepool operators that are created with the help of the Africa Stakepool Alliance and join the alliance
• #no of partnerships created between stakeholders external to the Cardano ecosystem and the Africa Stakepool Alliance, based single stakepool operators, that are created with the help of the Africa Stakepool Alliance and join the alliance
• #no of partnerships created between stakeholders external to the Cardano ecosystem and Africa single stakepool operators, thanks to the support of the Africa Stakepool Alliance
• # of new delegators staking with Africa Stakepool Alliance members
• Total amount in ADA (and in $USD) being staked with Africa Stakepool Alliance 

Participatory monitoring and evaluation from beginning to the end of the pilot project.

We will measure and have sign ups using google forms/sheets and have publicly accessible information that we will share via the website (soon to be made) and on the open access publicly viewable sheet

Number of sign ups that meet our criteria for the African SPO Alliance, to become listed in our open access database (google sheet)

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

With the support of Catalyst funding and the Cardano community, this proposal would have enabled our team to have the resources and capacity to direct focused efforts that facilitate a significant inflow and redirection of ADA, and capital from stakeholders that were external to the Cardano ecosystem before the proposition of the Africa Stakepool Alliance. 

ADA is now flowing towards and being staked with single pool operators in Africa and parts of the world that were originally marketed as the key beneficiaries of Cardano’s ambitious, innovative and disruptive solutions, including to bank the unbanked and underbanked.

The grand vision of Charles Hoskinson is a daily reality for millions more people across Africa and the diaspora. 

Change makers are able to drive positive action with the support of a decentralized network of impact oriented actors and SPOs, all aligned by common values and connected by their passion and drive to build a better, equitable and sustainable world for all.

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

This is a new proposal.

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

SDG subgoals:

4.7 By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development

8.6 By 2020, substantially reduce the proportion of youth not in employment, education or training

9.c Significantly increase access to information and communications technology and strive to provide universal and affordable access to the Internet in least developed countries by 2020

11.4 Strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage

#proposertoolsdg