RemoStart: Africa Job Shadowing

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

PROBLEM:

Part of the SDG goals is no poverty, decent work and economic growth, and reduced inequalities. With 85% of Africans living on less than $5 a day according to the world bank, we can say that Africa is far from the realization of these goals.

CONTEXT

While many laudable approaches are being employed to solve this problem, for us we identify the need for more Africans to have access to decent work as a precursor to solving this problem. But unfortunately, many people from our African background lack the in-demand skills, and requisite experience, and technical know-how needed by global startups and companies.

APPROACH

So we will be building a job shadowing platform powered by the Cardano blockchain. Through this platform these talents from our background get to shadow for startups for a period of time where they garner requisite knowledge and experience which will go into their CV, they receive payments and receive authentication and recommendations from these reputable startups which goes into our blockchain and can be used to validate their working experience and competence by future hirers.

The platform is solely agnostic to your educational background but on your skills and willingness to shadow for a startup. It is also agnostic to your country of nationality but solely on your passion and job ethics, and the platform is only for remote jobs only.

IMPLEMENTATION:

A block diagram showing how this will be implemented can be seen below

We can see from the image above, the Startup and the talent have different interfaces on the job shadowing platform, identifying the different needs that both have, and underneath we can see that all of it is built on the cardano blockchain. In our image above we can see two talents whao are shadowing for a startup, and they are able to receive feedbacks, certification, ratings and payment from the startup. The feedback, certifications and node remain in the chain, and become digital identities that future employees can hire them based on.

IMPACT

The impact of this solution is multifaceted with impact on many persons and groups but primarily the beneficiary is on the African who will be using our solution. Our target is to onboard and connect 10,000 persons from Africa in the next 6 months after launch to shadow jobs, those 10,000 persons are infact the primary beneficiary.

The second beneficiary is the Cardano community, from our block diagram we can see that everything is done on the cardano blockchain, this means that everyone onboarded on our platform has indirectly onboarded to a Cardano utility solution. Both the talents and the startups onboarded. Moreover all payments are made through cardano, because this is the most Africa centric payment solution, therefore a potential of 10,000 new persons will be added to using of cardano blockchain and up to a million in the next 5 years.

And lastly the Remostart team, we will benefit from market validation and will also gather much experience building this as well.

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

Our solution is directly addressing the challenge question which says

How do we prepare Africa for a future of wide-scale Cardano adoption? How do we continue to seed and grow adoption in 2022 and beyond?

Obviously to drive mass adoption and continuous adoption of Cardano in Africa in 2022 and beyond we need to see more use cases that will drive adoption, these use cases must solve real problems that affect the people. This is exactly what we are achieving with our solution by creating a utility through Cardano that answers to a fundamental problem of poverty, decent work, and inequality, and by ensuring that every account on the platform is automatically opened on the Cardano blockchain. In the first 6 months of the launch of this project, we are estimating to impact about 10,000 Africans and in the long run 1000000 Africans. This aligns clearly with the challenge of Cardano adoption and growth beyond 2022.

[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 following are some risks that can affect this project

Risk1: Technical: As with most development some unforeseen errors are very prone to occur which can affect the development

Solution:Deploy an agile project management method, and deploy real-time testing to minimize such errors, while working with competent cardano developers with experience in project of likely similar magnitude.

Risk2: Language: Africa is multilingual and our platform is primarily in English this can disenfranchise the inclusion of persons from other countries.

Solution: We will start with English, run the first pilot with only English countries and take the relevant lessons. Then build on the lessons and include French, Portuguese and other languages translation web pages of the platform for subsequent pilots.

Risk3: Coverage: How do we reach all of our Africa with this solution as wide and diverse as Africa is?

Solution: Instead of conventional marketing approach, we will use grassroots approach, by using community platforms to spread awareness of our solution.

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

FIRST PILOT

Phase 1[2 Months: September31st-October31st]: Product Build

Sketch,Design and Documentation: This stage we will be doing the UI/UX for the total platform and putting down the necessary documentation to help the developers when building

Product development: At this point the developers will be building the blockchain platform according to predefined UI and documentations given.

First product Testing: This is a week of testing where testers use our product and give us potential bugs and instances that need corrections or better updates.

Bug Correction and Update: At this point theteam corrects the bugs and updates changes

Second Product Testing: We give it out for testing to check the corrections from user perspective

Evaluate, Update And Launch: We evaluate the product, make corrections if any from the second test and then launch

Phase 2[2 Months: November 1st- December 31st ]: Onbarding Phase

1 Outreaching to Startups: At this stage we will be reaching out to startups to use our platform to help African talents gain relevant experience, we will also be showing them how the platform can be used and all they need to do with the platform.

2 Onboarding talents: fromHere the talents come to the platform and base on the available jobs and opportunities they are interested in, they directly apply to such startups

3 Interviews: We interview each candidate to ensure they have the ready and willing to work with the startups before recommending their application to each startup

4 Orientation: Once placed and accepted by the startups, all applicants undergo orientation on what the program will be like, what to expect and how payments will be received through Cardano blockchain.

Phase 3[3 Months: January1st- March 31st]: Deployment and Monitoring

1 Shadowing Begins: At this stage, our talents begin working with their linked startups

2 Follow up: We follow up to ensure that the startups are giving them ratings and feedback through our platform, and with every other issue that may arise we stand in between to ensure an effective flow of operations.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Phase 1:

Budget Breakdown:

Wages: 2 UI freelancer wages: 2* 500= $1000

4 Software Development wages: 6000(1500 per developer)* 2(months)= $12000

1 Product manager: 1500(I month salary)* 2 months= $3000

1 Project Manager: 1500(I month salary)* 2 months= $3000

Testing:

Breakdown:

10 testers paid $100 each per test for 2 tests = $100*10*2= $2000

Total for phase 1: $21,000

Phase 2:

Budget Breakdown:

Online Marketting: $2000

Community Engagement: $3000

Publicity Campaigns: $2000

Wages: Product and Project manager for 2 months = $4000

Total For Phase 2: $11,000

Phase 3:

Budget Breakdown:

Wages to the Product and Project Manager for 3 months = $6000

Wages to the virtual assistant, social media and content manager for 3 months= $2000($200 for each worker for each month)

Total for phase 3: $8000

Contingency: $1000

Please note that the rates used are applicable to the approximate payment for these in Nigeria where most of the working team are currently resided.

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

Ubio Obu: CEO of RemoStart, A Blockchain Researcher and an AI expert and researcher with 4 years experience in developing ML models. He has product management experience and has managed product that are in Agriculture, IoT, health, app development etc. He has experience working with range of tech stacks and has about 6 research publications in the field of Artificial Intelligence. His wide experience in tech development makes him ideal for the product management position in this solution.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ubio-obu-71927276/

http://github.com/ubiodee

Ediyangha Otogho: Full stack software and Blockchain developer with 8 years software development experience and 2 years blockchain development experience. Ediyangha has won several hackathons and techatrons and was the chief technology officer behind Send funds, a fintech solution building a Bharatpe for Africa. Funfact Ediyangha can code efficiently in more than 7 programming languages. For this project, Ediyangha will be the Software team lead.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/edinyanga-ottoho-02801517a/

https://github.com/EdinyangaOttoho

Daniel Effiom: He is a co-founder at RemoStart, a Reconcilliation analyst at ETransact international PLC. With 5 years experience in data analysis, process monitoring and operational procedures. He has managed several projects for RemoStart and ETransact and is why he will be the project manager for this project.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-effiom-a2b377199/

Blessing Izirein: Blessing has a 5 years experience in HR while her academic qualification is in global and local creativities. A previous founder at VOR and a co-founder at Virtual Farm. Blessing Embodies the academic skills of marketing, the business operational experience of startups and the real time experience as a talent recruiter.

Advisor:

Thorsten Pottebaum: Enterprise Architect, DLT360 co-founder, 4 years experience in the Cardano development community, a Cardano veteran and community builder.

linktr.ee/DLT360

Others:

Yash Ambekar: 4 years full-stack development Experience

Aniket Somkuwar: 4 Years Front end development Experience

Seeking:

2 Software developers vested in Cardano blockchain development.

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

In the long run yes we will need further funding. But for this stage of just creating a job shadowing platform, this is enough as it contains in itself a self-sustaining business model which will last even after the completion of this project. However, subsequently, we are planning that on the success of this project and repeated reiterations, we will now move into building a full-fledged Cardano blockchain hiring tech platform for Africa, using AI and blockchain recruiters hire based on competence, experience, etc without recourse to their identity backgrounds, etc, that platform will fully eliminate hiring biases against Africans. That is the future plan and what subsequent funding requirement will go into, however for now, for the job shadowing platform this is just enough for it

[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 measure the following metrics

Product Quality:(i) Did the product launch on time?

(ii) Does the product perform all its proposed functionality

(iii) What is the product rating? This will be done by taking periodic reviews of users' ratings of our product every 2 months

Impact: (i) What is the number of talents onboarded on our platform and invariably using Cardano blockchain to enjoy job shadowing solutions.

(ii) What is the number of talents who were linked to shadow for a startup

(iii) What is the number of persons who completed their shadowing program

(Iv) How many of the talents who completed their shadowing program were retained by those startups or we were able to further connect to job opportunities or sound jobs by themselves. To get this particular metric we will be reviewing all our talents on the project at the end of every month to know their status.

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

In the next 6 months after the launch of the job shadowing platform, we hope to have onboarded at least 10,000 African talents to our cardano-powered platform, help at least 5000 get connected with startups where they will be job shadowing and have at least 1000 persons actively working with startups or elsewhere on the premise of the skills and experience they gathered through the Job shadowing period, long after they are done with the job shadowing program.

[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 an entirely new project.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

SDG Goals

1 - End poverty in all its forms everywhere

8 - Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

10 - Reduce inequality within and among countries

SDG Subgoals

1.2 - By 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions

10.b - Encourage official development assistance and financial flows, including foreign direct investment, to States where the need is greatest, in particular least developed countries, African countries, small island developing States and landlocked developing countries, in accordance with their national plans and programmes

8.5 - By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value

8.b - By 2020, develop and operationalize a global strategy for youth employment and implement the Global Jobs Pact of the International Labour Organization

Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

1.2.1 - Proportion of population living below the national poverty line, by sex and age

1.2.2 - Proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions

8.5.1 - Average hourly earnings of employees, by sex, age, occupation and persons with disabilities

8.5.2 - Unemployment rate, by sex, age and persons with disabilities

8.b.1 - Existence of a developed and operationalized national strategy for youth employment, as a distinct strategy or as part of a national employment strategy

10.b.1 - Total resource flows for development, by recipient and donor countries and type of flow (e.g. official development assistance, foreign direct investment and other flows)