MCA: A Model School in SA - Part II

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

OUR VISION:

ORIGINAL PROBLEM STATEMENT from Fund6

Our goal is to create a model school in South Africa by merging the critical systems of the Cardano protocol including treasury, incentive, identity and governance systems with our existing school, MCA, to both enhance the educational experience of our students while at the same time demonstrating the real-world utility of the Cardano protocol in an educational environment.

This is, however, complicated by the following issues:

• An internet communication infrastructure which is unreliable.
• A lack of the basic tools required for making use of the Cardano protocol.
• A lack of knowledge workers with technical backgrounds.
• A limited supply of developers who know Haskell/Plutus and can build smart contracts.

Above reflects a summary of the Original Proposal (August 2021).

RESULTS OF INITIAL PROJECT from FUND6

Phase I: BUILDING A FOUNDATION

INTERNET CONNECTIVITY ISSUE

Fast and reliable internet access continues to be an issue. 

• MCA has begun construction of a new facility on its new site. Phase I of this facility illustrated below includes 9 classrooms, 4 offices, a medical room and a kitchen and is scheduled for completion in January 2023. 

• MCA has received from Vodacom a proposal to build an internet tower on this site. While this proposal is being considered by the MCA board, our own preferred option would be to establish a World Mobile node at this location and provide internet connectivity to both the school and surrounding community.

• Just recently on May 2022, one of our associates, Robin Kelly-Goss, during a visit to MCA to make a presentation on the FirstRoot participatory budgeting program (see below) was told that the school no longer had wi-fi connectivity. This is an issue we are currently exploring.

A LACK OF BASIC TOOLS AND TRAINING FOR USE OF CARDANO

• Tools for MCA and key implementers: We have upgraded some basic equipment at MCA. 
• For our school secretary who is a key facilitator for this project, we have provided a new, 16” MacBook Pro. 
• We have also provided a new Epson Ecotank printer for the school. 
• We have provided two MacBook Air computers for key individuals, the board chairperson, and an individual for training our teachers.

• Tools for faculty: 
• An assessment of teachers’ smartphones revealed poor battery life, limited storage, slow processing, poor quality photos, broken screens, and slow internet access issues. 
• Our initial plan was to provide new smartphones to the teachers and seed their phones with some ADA to give them some practice and training with the technology. The declining price of ADA made this strategy cost prohibitive. It was also concluded that providing free phones to teachers was incompatible with the idea of smart contracts and the concept of “build to earn”.
• Instead, we have decided to provide new smartphones only to those teachers who volunteer and become involved in working on a pilot program.

• Training: 
• On May 6, 2021, the MCA Board Presentation (May 2021) was favorably received.
• Between February 26 and March 5, 2022, Ed and Austin Rettig visited MCA for six days of training and meetings with the faculty, staff, and other critical individuals. On both Tuesday and Thursday, we conducted 2-hour training sessions during which we presented Teacher Training Presentation (March 2022).
• Below is a photo of the group that participated in the teacher training sessions.

• Profiles of our teachers and initial responses to the training can be seen by clicking on MCA Teacher Profiles.

• On May 17th, 13 participants including 10 teachers, the principal, office administrator and an office intern, a former student of MCA, attended a training to discuss the First Root Participatory Budgeting program which we see as a precursor and introduction to the Cardano idea of self-governance. Prior to the session Robin discovered that MCA was no longer purchasing internet data, such surprises are not an unusual experience when working in Africa. Adapting quickly Robin reworked her presentation in a manner viable either manually, on paper, or when data allows, using the actual software platform.

• Two teachers are interested in learning more about the FirstRoot methodology and sponsoring a student led pilot project. Robin is in contact with them to discuss next steps. Robin and Ed are meeting to discuss an initial budget to begin the process and will communicate this to the lead teachers as it is determined.
• Cost of these trips to South Africa from America were not paid with grant funds but with personal funds.

• Implementers
• MCA’s secretary is the primary contact and implementer at the school. She is very competent and critical to the school’s functioning. We are in contact with her several times weekly.
• We initially hired a young engineering student to study the Cardano protocol and program and coach teachers in its use. Due to electrical brownouts in South Africa, lack of personal funds for purchasing data, communication issues, slowness of project development, lack of available task assignments, and personal transportation issues, this agreement has been scaled back significantly.
• It has been concluded that it will be more cost effective to provide some additional pay to an involved teacher to serve as an implementer who, like our secretary, is on-site and available daily.

• Legal and Financial Structure
• During our March 2022 visit we met with the lawyer who works on behalf of the board of directors of MCA. She has drafted and we are in the process of reviewing the legal structure required by South African law for transferring donations to the school. The current idea is to create a separate entity to serve as a funding vehicle for the school to protect the school from potential liability.

• CREATION OF A WEBSITE TO DESCRIBE OUR PROJECT

The website www.amodelschool.com is currently under construction. While in its early stage, it will provide an overarching framework for listing multiple use-case schools utilizing critical elements of the Cardano protocol to improve school and student performance.

• Treasury System - to facilitate for participating schools a treasury account for receiving funds from donors via a smart contract. We anticipate smart contracts requiring donors to have ADA in a Cardano wallet as a way that donors can be “Doing Good while Doing Well”.
• Incentive System - to incentivize high levels of school and student performance by designing smart contracts that automate the reward process and reduce management overhead. 
• Identity System - to utilize Cardano’s Atala Prism system built into Cardano’s new lite wallet, LACE, as the vehicle for providing students, staff and faculty with a digital identity that secures their identity for a lifetime.
• Governance System - to promote the values of self-reliance, self-determination, delay of gratification, innovation, and self-governance. 

• Going forward we anticipate that MCA: A Model School in South Africa will be the first on a long list of other schools who decide to utilize this open-source model. We are inviting other schools to work with us in building out this model.

• SMART CONTRACT DEVELOPMENTS

Work on smart contracts has proceeded more slowly than previously anticipated due to contract complexity, our developer learning Plutus and the still developing Cardano suite of tools.

• INCENTIVE SYSTEM from Fund6 - Incentivizing Student Performance:

#1 Our Math Pilot Program

• In early May 2022, we began collecting baseline data of weekly math scores from 16 students in the seventh grade. Weekly data was collected for the January through June period and the composite score for the class computed 77 percentile.

• A rewards account was created for both the teacher and 16 students in the teacher’s Eternl light wallet as well as on MCA’s new MacBook Pro. When the Cardano lite wallet, LACE, is available we will transfer these and all other new accounts to this lite wallet. 
• On June 24, 2022 MCA breaks for winter vacation for four weeks and will resume classes on July 18, 2022  
• When school resumes in July students will be informed of the program and told that they will receive an equal reward for every week the class’s composite score is greater than the baseline score. Community is a high value in Africa, and it is our hope that this program motivates better math students to help and tutor slower students.
• Meanwhile, we have been at work turning this program into a smart contract in which the reward is specified and the reward trigger will activate when the composite class score is entered by the teacher weekly and if the composite weekly percentage score is better than the baseline score. Improving weekly scores will trigger payment to MCA’s Treasury account and which will then be distributed according to predetermined percentages to the teacher, students, and school.

• GOVERNANCE SYSTEM - Pilot Program from Fund6

#1 Governance Pilot Program - FirstRoot.co Pilot Program on Participatory Budgeting.

• We first learned of FirstRoot.co from an individual interested in our first grant proposal.
• This program called Participatory Budgeting teaches democratic and financial literacy skills and appears to be well-suited for introducing Cardano’s goal of implementing self-governance to a younger school population.
• FirstRoot seems to be a microcosm in the school environment of Project Catalyst, a model that we increasingly want to emulate at MCA. It is a microcosm in that it makes some predetermined amount of funds available to a class which then goes through a process of five phases:
• Discover Phase - a theme is set to help student focus around a topic, a budget fund is established by administrators.
• Dream (Ideation) Phase -Initial student submissions and feedback period.
• Design (Refinement)Phase - Details are added to general proposals. Students use design thinking to refine proposals utilizing the following questions:
• Desirability - Who wants this?
• Feasibility - Can it be implemented?
• Sustainability - Can the school or students sustain this?
• Financial Analysis - is it financially achievable within the budget?
• Civic Analysis - Does this benefit the whole school or just a small group?
• Develop a draft plan for implementing.
• Decide (Voting) Phase - Students will vote on proposals - Students explain their ideas and classmates study what they think will be a feasible project.
• Do (project implementation) Phase - Students begin to build trust in the democratic process, their administrators and themselves as they work to achieve the goals and deadlines.

MCA: A MODEL SCHOOL IN SOUTH AFRICA - PART II - NEW PROPOSAL DETAILS

Values guiding us: Some years ago, in a book entitled When Helping Hurts we were warned against charity work creating cultures of dependency. More recently other sources have warned of how philanthropy can be used for control and promotion of donors’ self-interests rather than recognizing the rights of beneficiaries to foster their own independence and realize their own individuality. We are sensitive to these risks and are committed to creating a culture of independence rather than one of dependency. 

So, what have we learned?

• That, while we believe very strongly in the value of the blockchain technology and the Cardano protocol’s implementation of it, we need to approach this project with great humility, respect for cultural differences and concern for fostering local adaptation and assimilation of the technology.
• That, this project, much like the Cardano protocol itself, will develop more slowly than anticipated and like Project Catalyst will mean experimenting with different strategies to discover what works best in a given environment.
• And finally, that going forward we will only be able to move as quickly as the developing technology allows and the culture can handle, that our project will increasingly start with pilot programs, and that as much as possible and funds permit, we will try to imitate the Project Catalyst model and fund innovative, local, and school adaptations of the protocol. 

DETAILED PLAN GOING FORWARD - PART II: PHASE II

• SMART CONTRACT DEVELOPMENTS

• TREASURY SYSTEM - Linking donors with MCA

#1 Smart Contract - Our Website Treasury Pilot Program.

• We are in the process of incentivizing students at MCA to not only contribute to the design of the website but also provide and update content for the website through a students’ blog. A smart contract is being written that will pay students for selected and accepted submissions to the website’s student blog. 
• An assumption is that students at MCA and other schools, if incentivized, can contribute to promoting and raising funds for their school.
• Another important assumption is that there are thousands of well-intentioned individuals within the Cardano ecosystem who will support such efforts to demonstrate the utility of the Cardano protocol to improve educational performance around the world.

#2 Smart Contract - Linking Individual Donors to MCA.

• We will initiate and implement our first smart contract linking donors in the United States with students at MCA.
• We have identified 5 students who want to participate in a “pen pal” relationship with a donor whose response to the donor once the contract is activated will trigger the release of funds to MCA and the participating student.
• We have identified 5 donors who are prepared to commit the equivalent of $30 worth of ADA monthly to this smart contract.

#3 Pilot Project - Providing a link to MCA’s Treasury in our website through Shopify

• MCA’s website is built on Shopify which provides an opportunity both for students to sell items through the Model Stores function as well as individuals to make a direct donation to MCA.
• As visitors to amodelstore.com explore the site and particularly items for sale under Model Stores they will be directed to a button for donating directly to MCA.

 #4 Pilot Project - Starting our own stake pool.

• Our team has explored the process and costs associated with setting up our own stake pool and will implement this program as resources become available.
• We have identified individuals who are willing to delegate a minimum of 2,000,000 ADA to this stake pool which may make it viable from the beginning.
• Following the lead of a stake pool created to support assistance for Ukrainian refugees, we will design a smart contract for delegators that will allow them to commit rewards from selected epochs, weeks, months, or specified time periods to be donated to the model school of their choice. 
• Once operational we will invite participating model schools to encourage their major donors to establish ADA accounts and delegate some of their rewards to the model school of their choice. This is what we mean by our motto “Doing Good while Doing Well”. 

• INCENTIVE SYSTEM

The project will continue to build a smart contract-based reward system to motivate positive behaviors that support academic excellence and the development of strong character.

#1 Smart contract will be the Math Performance project described above.

#2 Smart Contract will be the FirstRoot.co program which is envisioned as pre-training for an eventual self-governance system described above.

#3 Smart Contract will be a contract motivating contributions to the student blog on the website.

#4 Smart Contract will utilize a “learn to earn” model to motivate students to grow in their knowledge of God’s redemptive history through biblical training. It is our belief that the beneficial use of current technology best occurs in the context of a deep knowledge of ethics and values represented in the Bible. 

Further smart contracts for students and teachers will be guided by the following principles:

Students

The process of identifying and developing smart contracts for improving student performance will be driven by teachers volunteering to develop a program as a pilot project

• Starting with the South African government’s curriculum we will identify and define age and grade specific academic achievements and assign some relative value to their completion and work with the teacher to develop acceptable measures of student achievement.
• Other behaviors and activities which contribute to character development will also be identified, defined, measured, valued, and reinforced.
• Performance of identified tasks when confirmed by the teacher will trigger rewards through the system.
• Each student will eventually be set up with a Daedalus account available for review periodically upon request and with permission. For the student this may be called his or her Education Fund.

Teachers and/or Staff

• Behaviors for which teachers and/or staff will be rewarded will also be defined with assigned values and rewarded.
• As the program develops and funding through the Treasury account increases we anticipate that eventually each teacher/staff will be provided with a Daedalus account available on their own smartphone. For the teacher or staff this may be called their Futures Fund.

• IDENTITY SYSTEM

Integrate Atala Prism with our school and students. Our plan to introduce Atala Prism and provide a digital identity for our students has not been implemented. We have not been able to acquire more information regarding when the Prism system developed for Ethiopia would be available for introduction in local, individual schools like ours. Since Cardano’s lite wallet, LACE, was introduced during Consensus 2022 in June, we will as soon as possible switch from the Eternl wallet to Lace and use it to introduce Prism at MCA..

• We will integrate Prism as much as possible with MCA’s current management system.
• We will work with each student and his or her family to load identity information (birth certificate, family information, academic certificates, etc.) into Prism.

• GOVERNANCE SYSTEM

We will build on the FirstRoot program to teach envisioning, planning, defining and implementing self-governance skills into the school’s planning and development process and as such will involve the following.

• Identify individuals and organizations who should have a voice in determining the direction of future development and continuing improvement of MCA.
• Assign relative weight to individuals and organizations’ voting rights.
• Submit continuing improvement proposals (CIPs) to the community for assessment, voting and selection.
• This may be the most difficult task: trying to adapt the Project Catalyst model to governance at the local level.

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

• Our project will demonstrate the utility of the Cardano protocol to improve school and student performance in the educational environment by utilizing the critical elements of the Cardano protocol.
• Our project will demonstrate how Cardano can be used to fund schools by using smart contracts to link donors with the school.
• Our project will increase Cardano's adoption by providing ADA accounts to students and teachers both at MCA and in other schools that might adopt this model.

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

Financial risk:

• If the price of ADA continues to decline in this crypto winter, it makes it ever more difficult to pay personnel and finance the project. But this is something we can't control and don't expect.
• Since this project will take some time to implement a risk is having enough funding to keep going. Winning a grant is very important, but even without the grant we have some funding that may allow us to continue working on this project albeit at a slower pace.

Technology risk:

• The Cardano protocol development has proceeded at a measured pace. Our ability to implement certain aspects of this project is dependent on the continued development of its protocol and smart contract tools. Again, something we can't control and in fact expect continued ever more rapidly developing technology

Personnel risk:

• The loss of key personnel, especially our smart contract developer. We only have one currently, but he is reasonably young and works for my son's firm and is doing our development work on a part-time agreement. If we lost him, we would have to recruit a developer which might cost more than we now have to pay.

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

As much as possible we will continue implementing projects initiated under the Fund6 grant with some carried over and/or personal funds in anticipation of potential funding from Fund9. If that is not forth coming we will then have to make a decision about how far we can go on alone

AUGUST 2022 -

• INCENTIVE SYSTEM: #1 Smart Contract for Math Performance Project will be initiated by the end of July once students are back from winter break. Managed by Ed, Travis and Cinderella.
• TREASURY SYSTEM: #1 Smart Contract for Website Treasury Pilot Program incentivizing submissions of blog posts for the website by students. Managed by Ed, Travis, Roscoe and Cinderella.
• Visit by Austin Rettig for five weeks working at the school training teachers and meeting with board members and lawyer on infrastructure issues.

SEPTEMBER 2022

• GOVERNANCE SYSTEM: Initiate and fund FirstRoot.co Pilot Program introducing participatory democracy and budgeting skills to a class of students. Not sure at this point whether this will utilize a smart contract. Managed by Ed, Travis, and Cinderella.

OCTOBER 2022

• TREASURY SYSTEM: Start our own stake pool and begin work on #4 Smart Contract to facilitate delegators ability to delegate a portion of their rewards to the treasury fund of the school of their choice.
• INCENTIVE SYSTEM: #2 Smart Contract linking individual donors to MCA's treasury accout.

NOVEMBER AND BEYOND

• If we are fortunate enough to be funded with $60,000, $5,000 per month for 12 months, we will simply continue experimenting and innovating by improving on initial contracts, writing new contracts for incentivizing performance on other school subjects, nurturing our website and stake pool, marketing our programs to potential schools and donors.
• We will also provide some equipment including smartphones to teachers and students involved in programs as it makes both financial and program sense.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Viewable pdf can be found here

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

OUR TEAM

• Edward B. Rettig, Ph.D., a Behavioral Psychologist, is co-founder of MCA with his deceased wife, partner with Keith Brown in Friends of Mukhanyo and a former Executive Director of Friends of Mukhanyo. He and Keith Brown have been partners for 10 plus years in the creation of MCA. Ed is also the author of ABCs for Parents and ABCs for Teachers, training manuals which apply behavior modification strategies to training parents and teachers. Ed Rettig is a graduate of Princeton University, Princeton Theological Seminary and Fuller Graduate School of Psychology with a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology whose doctoral dissertation was based on schedules of reinforcement in the work of B.F. Skinner. 

• Keith Brown is Chairman of Friends of Mukhanyo, the funding organization of MCA, an entrepreneur and Chairman of Indlu, a South African company building affordable rental units in South Africa. The original motivation for Indlu was as a vehicle for funding MCA. See Charles Hoskinson’s Indlu comments here. Keith Brown is an entrepreneur, architect, real estate and software developer and graduate of North Carolina State University. Keith was named “Entrepreneur of the Year in 2000” by Ernst and Young for his efforts in creating BuildNet. He and the South African team have been the driving force behind the creation of Indlu which provides affordable rental housing to the disenfranchised of South Africa. He has written books on the impact of software and technology in enhancing community development.

• Isaac Maleke is a pastor, Chairman of the Board of MCA, and Professor and Dean of Students at Mukhanyo Theological College in Kwamhlanga township. Isaac has been involved with the school since its inception and will be integral in managing the development of the definition and implementation of the grade- and age-specific learning performance objectives that will underlie the motivating token economy.

• Travis Carney is a full-stack web application and blockchain developer with over 25 years of development experience. He has worked on applications for companies including AT&T, Citibank, Nestlé, and Stamps.com.

• Roscoe Lamontagne is an art director and platform designer, who has directed artwork for Harvard Medical, Springer Nature, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

• Austin Rettig, co-Founder and CFO of onecommune.com, a community driven wellness platform providing online health and well-being education courses. Mr. Rettig started his career in investment banking and has spent the last 25 years developing and running operating businesses in his finance and CFO capacity.
• Cinderella Makgoba, MCA school secretary, is the key administrator and liaison with staff, faculty, board members and project implementers

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

We will leave open the possibility of returning to Catalyst for further funding under certain conditions. If we are successful in achieving the goals of this MCA: A Model School in South Africa - Part II and if the price of ADA returns to a positive trend once this crypto winter ends, we may be able to self-fund this project and sustain it independent of assistance from Catalyst. On the other hand, if the response from the Cardano community is sufficiently positive, if we can successfully integrate the Cardano methodology with lower grades and younger students and broaden its impact, if we can demonstrate significant impact, if we can attract other schools to join us in this project, and if our model begins to be seen as a disruptive technology within the educational environment and potential beyond our one school, we might not only come back to Cardano for more funding but seek even greater funding through efforts like Cardashift's launchpad and their focus on social businesses.

[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?

Measure our project against:

#1 The number of students and teachers at MCA with Cardano accounts involved in smart contracts or other identified projects.

#2 The number of smart contracts or identified projects implemented.

#3 Whether we have established an operational stake pool.

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

This project will be considered successful when

• at least 1/3 of the student body, 40 students, have been or are involved in smart contracts or related projects,
• we have a minimum of 5 donors in a smart contract with MCA students through which donations are flowing to MCA and involved students,
• we have established a stake pool through which delegators to the stake pool have the ability to delegate some of their staking rewards to MCA or other involved schools for a delegator defined period of time,
• the board, faculty and staff vote to keep the program going.

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

This project is a continuation of MCA: A Model School in South Africa which was funded in Fund6 for 8 months. Our number for the project in Fund6 is 600092. There is a link to the prior project within the current proposal.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

Our project falls within the United Nations Development Goals #4 Quality Education