Swahili Learn to Earn

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

The idea for this project sprang from a popular feature of a mainstream crypto-exchange mobile app (Coinbase). In that app, users can earn small amounts of cryptocurrencies by engaging with learning modules and taking a brief quiz. The reward is usually worth about $1 per quiz and capped at $3-5 dollars worth of any single currency. Interestingly, even though it is a "token" amount of money, the gamification* incentives have led me - and thousands of other users - to learn about many projects and currencies that we otherwise would not have done.

Gamification is the business/tech concept of making tasks more engaging by introducing elements of game-play to the experience. It has proven useful in the workplace, in learning environments, and anywhere that it is desirable to encourage enthusiastic, dedicated users. Leaderboards, point systems, badges, graphic elements, and winning prizes are elements often used to introduce “Gamification” to everyday tasks. 

What We Already Have:

Our Website, LidoNation.com, provides education about Cardano and Project Catalyst in English, Spanish, and Swahili in written and audio formats. Topics include:

• How to open a Cardano wallet, reviews, and overviews of different wallet types
• How to buy ADA
• Articles about many facets of Project Catalyst and how to participate
• News about Cardano
• In-depth, newcomer-friendly insights about blockchain and the vision of a decentralized future that works for everyone.

We already have 40+ articles published and translated to Swahili, including contributions from native-Swahili speakers in Kenya. New content is published each week.

What is needed now:

Gamification,* incentivization, & marketing for Swahili speakers to engage with our content, learn about Cardano and Project Catalyst, and to get hands-on experience working with blockchain tools and products, like wallets, ADA, NFTs, and on-chain transactions.

How will we do it?

• We will add a multiple-choice Swahili language quiz to each of our translated articles.
• Logged-in users will be able to take quizzes to earn ADA - $1 in ADA per successful quiz.
• Logged-in users can take 1 quiz per day. This encourages more regular use of the website and limits the potential for abuse.
• Overall rewards per user will be limited to ~$25 in ADA.
• A user who reaches 25 completed quizzes will be sent an NFT - like an achievement badge!
• Ongoing engagement with more content quizzes will earn an additional NFT for each additional 25 completed quizzes, up to a possible 3 NFTs per user.

The monetary-reward budget for this proposal is $12,500, which would reward at least 500 unique Swahili-speaking users to read 25 educational articles about Cardano - if every single person MAXED OUT the benefit! In the likely scenario that many people will not reach the max benefit, the potential reach is hundreds more. The NFT reward extends the potential pool of users even further; a total of 1,500 NFT badges will be available, allowing us to incentivize up to that many more new users in Swahili-speaking Africa.

Users will set up a wallet and connect it to our site with a receiving address to participate. In the course of reading articles and taking quizzes, participants will learn the basics of buying and using ADA, read news about Cardano developments and partnerships, and learn about many ways to participate in the ecosystem, including Project Catalyst.

Spreading Awareness

Marketing will be an important aspect of the project in order to attract new users. Funding from Project Catalyst allowed us to found a Cardano Blockchain lab in Kenya in Fund 7. Participants at the Lab spread awareness of Cardano through both local, on-the ground influence, as well as using social platforms like Twitter. Swahili-language marketing work from the Cardano Lab staff will kickstart the effort to attract new users and spread the word about this new way to earn ADA, learn something useful, and engage with new financial tools. This project will result in:

--> Thousands of new Cardano Wallets created in Swahili-speaking Africa

--> $12,500 worth of ADA seeded into 500++ new wallets, allowing new users to participate in staking, DeFi, and other network activities

Market Size

Swahili is one of the world’s 10 most widely spoken languages in the world, with 200M+ speakers. Swahili speakers spread over more than 14 countries, including 12 in Africa: Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), South Sudan, Somalia, Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, and Comoros. Furthermore, most of these areas are economically depressed, meaning that the value and impact of the monetary reward system are significant. This impact area (Africa) is central to this campaign and to the core values and goals of the Cardano ecosystem.

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

This project takes aim at many key areas of the "Grow Africa, Grow Cardano" Challenge!

The Challenge brief states:

"We need to look at the fundamentals that are preventing Africa from being a Cardano adoption leader, rather than a perpetual follower."

The first step toward adoption is awareness and education! The proposal aims to make a clear, measurable impact on African awareness and education about Cardano.

The brief also states:

"Practical innovations offered on tackling the unique challenges faced by the continent. A clear roadmap that points to increased adoption."

This project is both clear and practical, while taking on relevant considerations of language, local context, and monetary incentivization.

The Challenge brief lists a number of Key Metrics that are directly addressed by this project:

Number of proposals addressing the fundamental issues preventing Cardano adoption in Africa.

We contend that the basic elements of awareness and education about Cardano are absolutely at the foundation of adoption!

Number of proposals offering solutions to infrastructure and education concerns.

This project takes direct aim at education, through a well-organized website and "Beginner level" blockchain interactions.

Number of new Africa-based users onboarded onto Cardano (wallets, platform sign-ups).

Many websites have content that can be read and learned. This project takes the learner to the next level: to receive monetary rewards, the user must first create a Cardano wallet, by following step-by-step instructions in Swahili. Then as they learn, they earn small amounts of ADA and NFTs. These prepare the user to participate in Staking, DeFi, NFT marketplaces, and more. We believe this way of bringing new users through a series of easy and successful "micro-interactions" as they learn is the most effective way to launch new users onto a successful blockchain learning path.

Number of new Africa-based Catalyst members (proposers, voters, CAs).

Our content library includes articles about how to become a CA, how to become a successful proposer, and more -- so far we have more than 10 in-depth articles about Project Catalyst, with 12+ more planned for this year! Users will read these articles in Swahili and answer quiz questions to prove understanding. While we will know the number of new wallets created (Because they will link to our site to receive rewards!) we may not be able to measure or know definitively how many people take part in Project Catalyst as a direct result of this project - except perhaps anecdotally! Nevertheless, we know that raising awareness through compelling educational experiences is the first step!

Local impact (measurable through user activity and reach).

We believe that the monetary incentivization scheme will lead to successful adoption of the learning tools! Baseline success would involve at least 500 new Cardano users. We think the likely reach will be far higher, as some users will only dabble, while others will get sucked in and continue learning as much as they can! Even the dabblers constitute a level of success. Once they have a wallet and some ADA, we think they will start paying attention to the ecosystem and finding their way forward in the community! We will know the exact number of new wallets that connect to our website to participate. We will also be able to measure website activity and geographical results through Google Analytics reports.

Local partnerships formed (size of institution + influence).

We will be working with the Ngong Road Blockchain Lab in Kenya, which was founded with funding in Project Catalyst Fund 7. Lab members in Kenya will serve as Swahili Translators, Local and Online Marketing leads, customer service, and beta testers. Their local network will likely form the first wave of Swahili learners and quiz participants, which is exactly the kind of local networking and cooperation that the Lab was founded to engender! Through social media campaigns and online networking, we expect the reach to expand beyond the Nairobi area and into other corners of Swahili-speaking Africa.

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

Team turnover is always a risk on a small team. We have experienced some staff turnover already, and we know it will continue to be a factor as our team grows and changes. The best is when turnover is planned and predictable. But we must also maintain a certain amount of flexibility to expect the unexpected. While we have identified preferred leads for all essential roles in this project, we have multiple people in our team and network who could be tapped-in if needed. If and when we experience staffing issues, we may experience temporary delays, but the work will continue.

The other risk for success is that no one wants to use it -- we feel this is often the trouble with educational resources because busy people don't have the time or sufficient interest to engage with it. We believe the monetary/NFT incentivization will adequately address this. The areas of the world that speak Swahili are, broadly speaking, economically depressed. Therefore, even what may seem to some as small amounts of compensation will likely be compelling enough for people to want to participate and to tell their friends, given the relative value of the rewards. At the same time, the amount of rewards available is small and restricted enough that it is not likely to incentivize abuse.

Finally, some will have concerns about the potential for abuse in this system. What is to stop people from cheating or stealing the prize money? First, we must acknowledge that it will not be possible to prevent every instance of misuse. Unlike the Coinbase app, which ensures 1-person-1-prize through the KYC (Know Your Customer) protocols to use the app, we don’t yet have access to DIDs (Decentralized Ids) that would make a similar security mechanism possible for us. However, inserting hurdles will make abuse more challenging and highly inconvenient.

To achieve such a goal, we will require users to be registered on our website and connect with a unique wallet. Additionally, each wallet can only earn $1 per day for reading an article and taking the quiz. Furthermore, we will monitor IP addresses which will help with security as well as assisting all users to easily stay within the parameters.

According to our calculations, to abuse the system, a user would have to open multiple user accounts, each with their own wallet, and then use different devices to take a single quiz per day for $1 on each device (all on separate IP addresses). Since our objective is to teach people how to use blockchain tools while reading educational content and taking quizzes, it seems this imaginary “Bad Actor” might, in fact, be our star student!

However, we don’t take our stewardship of community funds lightly. We will tighten security even further if we have reason to suspect abuse. Requiring users to provide a unique email address with their registration could serve as another inconvenience, among others. In an extreme scenario, there is the possibility of requiring “proof-of-life” by attending our monthly Lido Nation public meeting “in person” to get validated to participate with an approved account. Time will tell, but we greatly doubt the need to go that far. To the extent possible, we want to keep the barriers to entry low to encourage more new people to participate.

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

Getting Started

--> Create multiple choice quiz questions for 50 Swahili articles on LidoNation.com . After quiz questions are created for existing articles, they will be created for each new article that is published (We publish 1-2x/week. Quizzes will be first created in English before Swahili translation. The lead resource for Quiz writing is writer and educator Stephanie King. 

–> We use a customized database to track our work in article writing, translating, audio recording, and other project details. This database has already been customized to support an organized and ongoing effort of quiz creation. (See screenshots)

--> Start Development work on Lido Nation website to support Quizzes and reward system. The website already supports user login, account creation, and Cardano wallet transactions! New development will focus on the quiz infrastructure and reward system specifically. Development work will be started in month one. Darlington is the lead developer for Lido Nation website and blockchain integration, working with a small group of developer mentees at the Kenya lab.

Getting Started effort complete by end of Month 1

Build out

--> Create supporting content, such as program description and overviews, to be translated into Swahili. Lead content writer is Stephanie King.

--> Swahili translation of all quiz questions, supporting content and instructions, and new article translation. Our lead translator is Sallyanne Atieno, working out of the Ngong Road Blockchain Lab in Kenya. She has been working with us on Swahili translation of blockchain content for 6 months. She works with a small team of Swahili translators at the lab, so there are multiple hands on deck to keep translation work moving forward.

-->Complete Development work to support end-to-end user interactions: logging into the site, taking Swahili quizzes, receiving ADA & NFT Rewards.

Build out effort complete by end of Month 3

Testing & Rollout

Beta Testers and phase 1 rollout will start with Kenya Lab participants and their local affiliates. This community is all native Swahili speakers and represents our target audience of native-Swahili speakers in Africa. This gives us an ideal situation for Beta testing because this first group of users can help each other, and we will also have a direct line of communication with them to receive feedback. We already have a regular cadence of zoom meetings and email communication with the core lab mates. Their feedback will be valuable for us to make any final tweaks to the form or function of the onboarding processes, quizzes, or reward mechanisms.

Beta Testing and initial rollout complete by the end of Month 4

Global Rollout!

Stemming from our previously funded project to establish the Cardano Blockchain Lab in Kenya, one of the roles of the lab participants is to work on Cardano-related community building and online marketing to an African audience. As such, we have people on the ground in Africa who are in the perfect position to lead the marketing effort, locally and online.

--> Local efforts will be grass-roots oriented, as lab mates network among their friends and professional colleagues. Since the program has a monetary incentive for participants, it won't be hard to convince friends to try it out. It's exciting to think of how this will lead to a localized cohort of new Cardano users in Nairobi, Kenya!

--> Online marketing will leverage Twitter as a primary platform. We will also tap into the Cardano community by participating in the Africa Town Hall and reaching out to other Africa project teams who are working in Swahili-language regions to spread awareness of our learning and onboarding tool.

The Global rollout phase will officially last for 3 months, or until all reward funding is exhausted. For the purpose of project closeout and reporting back to the community, we will be able to close out the project after the 3 month rollout, and report on total new wallets opened, and more (See Auditability section for full reporting KPIs)

Based on this roadmap, the total project length is 7 months.

Relating to other Funded Projects: The Lido Nation team has been funded for other projects in Funds 6,7,8, whose timelines may overlap with this project. Since all of our work focuses on building educational tools for newcomers to be able to learn and use Cardano blockchain tools and making these tools available in English, Spanish, and Swahili -- all of our projects support each other in one way or another! Here are some details about our ongoing projects and workload:

Newcomer Resources en Español:

Stephanie Headed up the Spanish Translation project, which will be completed on schedule in July 2022.

https://www.lidonation.com/en/proposals/newcomer-resources-en-espanol

Swahili News, Insight, Onboarding

Stephanie managed the Swahili Translation project, and Sallyanne is our lead translator in Kenya. This project will be completed on schedule in July 2022.

https://www.lidonation.com/en/proposals/swahili-news-insight-onboarding

ADA Pay Plugin - Wordpress/Laravel:

Darlington is the lead developer on this project, and he would be the lead dev on this proposal as well. Darlington recently went to part-time at his day job to make more time for Cardano Dev work, so the addition of this project to his workload would be a welcome addition, and in-line with his hopes and plans to devote more of his time to Cardano.

https://www.lidonation.com/en/proposals/ada-pay-plugin-wordpresslaravel

Treasury & Catalyst Proposal API:

This project is complete (Finalization process in progress with IOG)

https://www.lidonation.com/en/proposals/treasury-catalyst-proposal-api

Translation for Proposal API DATA:

This project is complete (Finalization process in progress with IOG)

https://www.lidonation.com/en/proposals/translation-for-proposal-api-data

Cardano Blockchain Lab in Kenya

The Ngong Road Blockchain Lab was founded with Project Catalyst Funding in Fund 7. The founding team at the lab will be the incubator and core support team that will allow us to ensure great success with this proposal! Far from being a hindrance, their participation is our greatest asset. The Developer Mentees at the lab will be learning about Blockchain Development along with Darlington, and will be able to assist with building details and ongoing support of the final system. The Translation and Community outreach team will be tapped to help with translation and marketing efforts for this proposal.

https://www.lidonation.com/en/proposals/cardano-blockchain-lab-in-kenya

Real Journalism = Cardano Insights

This funded proposal allowed us to hire a new staff writer for LidoNation.com. This new writer is working with the team, but is not involved directly with this project. (Although his articles will result in quizzes, which will be translated and used for this project!)

https://www.lidonation.com/en/proposals/real-journalism-cardano-insights

Content & Insights: Multi-Channel

Stephanie is the main writer for this project, which entails writing 12 articles about Project Catalyst. 3 have already been written, and another 3-4 would be complete before voting even begins on this fund - thus the project would be more than half complete. In terms of effort and timelines, this does not present any issues. Furthermore, this content will lead to more content and quizzes to feed the educational outreach effort of this project!

https://www.lidonation.com/en/proposals/content-insights-multi-channel

Migrating from ETH: Newcomer Setup

Darlington is the main writer for this project, which entails writing 16 articles to support cross-chain migration from Ethereum to Cardano. Darlington's involvement with this project will be concentrated on the front-end build in the first couple months, allowing him plenty of flexibility to attend to his other projects.

https://www.lidonation.com/en/proposals/migrating-from-eth-newcomer-setup

Relating to other Proposals in Fund 9:

Stephanie and Sallyanne are not directly involved in any other proposals in Fund 9. Ben may be involved in another proposal in Fund 9, but he is not involved in this one. Darlington has a couple other proposals in Fund 9; if multiple proposals are funded, all of the proposed work is in-line with his goals to spend more professional time devoted to developing on Cardano.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Quiz & Content Writing: $3000

This pays for 75 quizzes plus content writing & design for landing pages related to the program.

Quiz & Content Translation: $2500

This amount pays for 75 quizzes translated into Swahili plus 7000 "words"-worth of content translation (ie, how-to docs, landing pages, etc), plus 10 additional/recent articles translated to Swahili, at a rate of ~$0.05/per word

Create NFTs: $1000

Pay an artist to create 3 Unique Achievement NFTs.

Marketing: $1400

This pays 2 Kenyan lab mates to work for 10 hours per week multiplied by 7 months, at a rate of $100 per person per month.

Website & Blockchain Developer: $13000

This pays for 200 hours of Senior Developer work time at a rate of $65/hour. We estimate that 2/3 of this time would be spent in the first three months for this initial build/test phase. The remainder would be maintenance and break/fix support for the final four months of the project.

Project Manager: $1,800

This pays for a Project Manager to manage 2 meetings per week, plus 1 hour per week of prep work, for 30 weeks, at a rate of $20/hour

Participant Rewards:

ADA Rewards: $12500

At a reward rate of $1 in ADA reward per quiz, this amount pays for 12,500 unique quiz interactions. With reward amounts capped at $25 per wallet, the reach is a minimum 500 wallets belonging to Swahili speakers (Likely much higher because some users will not max out the benefit)! Depending on how the tool is designed, the reward scheme may need to change in some way, but we would only change it in a way that the impact would increase, not decrease. (ie, our calculation mechanism may need to change if the price of ADA is especially high, or especially volatile, but we would stick with a scheme that will safeguard the overall impact of the reward program)

Mint & Send NFTs: $3000

The network cost to mint and send an NFT is 1.6 ADA. Since the cost of ADA is variable, this estimate is a little flexible. If the price of ADA stays under $1, we will be able to send well over 1500 NFTs to quiz participants who complete 25+ quizzes. If the price surges significantly over $1, then the NFT program might run out of cash before the 1500 goal. Either way, this budget line item will be dedicated to minting and sending NFTs to quiz participants until the benefit is exhausted.

TOTAL BUDGET

$38,200

**Of the total budget size, note that ~40% is destined directly to the new wallets of new Cardano Users, in the form of quiz rewards and NFT badges!**

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

We are Cardano enthusiasts and a growing collective of dreamers who believe in providing insightful education about Cardano in plain English, Swahili, and Spanish. Most online blockchain content is written by and for developers and finance geeks. We break down complicated technical ideas for everyday people, provide relevant news in quick bites, and build tools that everyone can use.

Our website is a resource for anyone who wants to learn what Cardano is, why they should care, and how they can participate. We want to make these resources accessible to as many people as possible.

Stephanie is a teacher and technologist passionate about helping non-profits navigate and capitalize on technology. She applies her communication skills at Lido Nation by writing and editing articles and helping to organize ideas in a way that people can understand.

Darlington is an engineer by day, at all times, a dancer, humanitarian, idealist, and entrepreneur. Darlington has deep knowledge about blockchain technology and broad experience in the Cardano ecosystem.

Sallyanne has been working with Lido Nation since January, translating our content library into Swahili. She has also been conducting independent research about Cardano and watches the weekly Town Hall recordings. She is one of the founding members of the Ngong Road Blockchain Lab in Nairobi, Kenya.

Our team at the newly-founded Friends of Ngong Road Blockchain Lab in Nairobi, Kenya, helps with research, translation, and content creation.

Linked In Pages

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

https://www.linkedin.com/in/profd2004

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sallyanne-atieno-6501a6212/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/lido-nation

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

This proposal builds on work from previous funding, and if the work results are successful and compelling, it could lead to future projects. However, like the latest mystery adventure from your favorite author, this project is designed to stand alone. On its own design and merits, it will bring in hundreds of new Cardano wallets and users from Swahili Speaking Africa and build a toolset for learning and engagement that will continue to serve the community well beyond the 7-month timeframe of this project.

Lido Nation looks to build on the success of this project in the future, although the shape of those plans will depend on what we learn here! We will have all the quizzes in English as a natural byproduct of this work, even though the focus of this project is Swahili We also anticipate finding ways to allow the global English-speaking community to use these learning tools. We are building partnerships with several educational and community-oriented collectives, exploring possible avenues for long-term monetization. Project Catalyst would continue to be one possible way to sustain our work.

[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?

Number of Quizzes created:

We will create a minimum of 75 new multiple-choice quiz questions on 75 different articles about Cardano, Blockchain, and Project Catalyst. (A minimum of 75 quizzes allows quiz takers to earn the maximum of 3 NFTs per user.) These are reportable from our content database and can be included with monthly and final reports. These will be completed in English by Month 1, and in Swahili by Month 3. Once translated, they will be visible on the site to any user in Swahili-language mode. Eventually, they will be visible in English mode as well! This content will live on as a new Educational resource for the community beyond the end of this Swahili-focused effort!

Number of new wallets linked to the site:

Based on the rewards budget in this proposal, we expect to reach more than 500 wallets in Swahili-speaking Africa, and then many of them with be new wallets. We will report on wallet reach in our monthly reports, project closure report, and on our website. (On the website, we will be able to report on ongoing new-wallet growth, even beyond the timeline of the project!)

Number of Quizzes taken:

This will be evident as a direct correlation to the amount of Rewards Paid out, and NFTs awarded. We will report on results in monthly reports, final report, and on our website. Based on the rewards available, we expect to reach a minimum of 1500 quizzes taken.

Number of NFTs awarded:

We will continue sending NFT rewards to quiz participants for as long as the NFT Budget lasts. The exact number of NFTs awarded will depend on the price of ADA, as each winner will incur minting and transaction fees that we will cover. However, we expect the requested budget to cover minting and sending 1500+ NFTs to Swahili-Speaking Quiz participants. We will report on NFT rewards in monthly reports, final reports, and on our website. NFT rewards will be visible on the blockchain for anyone who cares to look! If the budget for NFTs lasts longer than the 7-month timeline for this project, we will continue sending the NFT rewards to Swahili Quiz participants until the funds are exhausted.

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

• Participants from Swahili-Speaking Africa will learn about Decentralization and Blockchain technology - many for the first time, in a real way or with deeper understanding.
• They will understand why Cardano is an especially exciting blockchain project.
• They will have read about a variety of important Cardano news, projects, and partnerships.
• They will have learned and practiced basic blockchain interactions, including opening a wallet, connecting to a blockchain service, and receiving funds and NFTs.
• They will understand the basics of DeFi, DApps, DAOs, and DEXes, and will have demonstrated their knowledge by passing quizzes.
• They will know about Project Catalyst, and will have read about how to participate in various roles, including Voting, Proposing, and CA/PA work.
• THEY WILL BE EXCITED TO SHARE with their friends and networks in Swahili-Speaking Africa. The incentive mechanism makes this project a win-win for all participants. There is a cap to what any single individual can earn, but we know that good friends will share the opportunity with each other. (We know because it has happened to us!)

From the thousands of new seeds planted, a large new cohort of Swahili-speaking Africans will be equipped with name-recognition and positive energy for Cardano. Some will be ready to check out the next opportunity that comes their way. Some will be ready to jump into the community and start creating the next opportunities with the rest of us.

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

As previously mentioned, this project builds on previous successes: Funded writing and translation proposals, and funding to establish the Lab in Kenya.

However, it is not explicitly a continuation of that work. Rather, it's a new idea and a unique effort, building further value onto an established foundation.