CatalystCon 22 - Africa Spotlight

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

A dedicated program at the CatalystCon 2022 for African projects, speakers, demos and workshops.

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

Cardano-based community network of 25+ professionals focused on connecting the world to Africa using blockchain and AI. 20+ funded proposals with strong partnerships within the Catalyst ecosystem. A trusted source for both Africa-based projects and wider ecosystem contributions.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Project Brief:

CatalystCon 22 is a 2-day virtual event taking place in December of this year. Its purpose is to celebrate the success stories of Catalyst and to act as an attraction for external stakeholders to attend. Similar to large annual convention shows, the aim is to strike the right balance between speeches, presentations and live demos of soon-to-be-released products. Think a virtual mashup of ComicCon[1], CES[2] and YC's Summer Career Expo[3].

To achieve this, we need your help. We need to involve our own stakeholders, both on the product and community side, in order make this happen.

To that end, we are starting with an Africa Spotlight. A full program of speakers, workshops and product demos focused primarily on the African market. This program will take place on day 2 of the event and run either concurrently with the main agenda, or become the main day 2 agenda, depending on demand and other factors.

Target Audience:

• Developers, Entrepreneurs and Creatives based in Africa, or with an Africa-focused product.

Marketing Strategy:

• A 3-month campaign beginning in September, utilizing Wada's country hubs for increased coverage.
• Each segment will have its own marketing campaign, highlighting their specific interest on posters and promotional material.
• These materials will be distributed both online and offline, where applicable.

Main stakeholder: Wada (https://wada.org)

We are currently in talks with several other Catalyst community builders in order to host events this year.

If you are interesting in partnering, running a session or holding a booth, contact team@catalystcon.io.

CatalystCon - "By the community, for the community"

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

Challenge Description and KPIs:

Number of new Africa-based users onboarded onto Cardano: (High)

• The pre-event marketing campaign will be targeting an audience beyond Cardano, in order to bring new users in.

Number of new Africa-based Catalyst members: (High)

• The Day 2 workshops will be used to onboard new members into the Catalyst ecosystem, after an introduction on Day 1.

Local partnerships formed: (High)

• CatalystCon aims to be the annual meeting place for external businesses, investors and government institutions to view the best products and services to emerge from Catalyst over the past year.

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

Risk Management:

Event Quality: The Wada team successfully delivered a 2-day Catalyst Conference last year with over 100 participants from 15+ countries. Their team of educators, presenters, technicians and translators will be on hand to ensure the event is delivered to a high standard.

Technical Requirements: For the CatalystCon 22 Africa Spotlight, we will use the same streaming and collaboration platforms commonly used for similar Catalyst events.

Inclusion: By engaging several stakeholders and partners, we can ensure that the event has as wide coverage as possible. Our translation teams will be set up for multiple languages and country-specific teams will have the opportunity to present in their own languages.

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

Roadmap: 

First 30 Days:

• Design & Branding created (Africa-themed).
• Content, Workshops & Agenda outline.
• Outreach to speakers, panelists and products.

3 months:

• Marketing campaign launch.
• Speakers & Agenda confirmed.
• Translators hired & Multi-lingual resources identified
• Event registration opens.

6 months: 

• CatalystCon 22 Event Launch.
• Retrospective and feedback gathering.
• Data published for review and closeout.

Workload Management:

Wada runs several projects in parallel, aided by it's network and partners to deliver on multiple proposals. A new approach to managing proposal completion is to institute a new project manager for each funded proposal, and ensure that each project manager does not have more than 3 funded proposals to deliver on at any time. 

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Budget:

• Team fees: $10,000 (paid for by CC22)
• Events hosting & planning: $5,000
• Website & Design: $5,000 (paid for by CC22)
• Marketing & Social Media: $8,000
• Pre-events & Outreach: $5,000
• Speakers & Panelist: $4,000 (paid for by CC22)
• Software & Services: $1,200 (paid for by CC22)
• Workshops & Onboarding: $2,000
• Additional translation services: $3,000
• Content writing: $2,000
• CatalystCon Main Event Coverage: $11,000 (see original proposal for budget shortfall)

Total Budget: $50,200

Proposed Budget: $36,000

Budget gap: Covered by the CC22 main event budget.

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

Josh F - Project Lead + Global Lead @ Wada

An active Catalyst member since Fund 2, 6x challenge setter, stakepool operator and funded proposer. Josh will be overseeing the successful implementation of this project.

https://linkedin.com/in/joshfielding

Megan Hess - Education & Events Lead @ Wada, Central Africa Regional Lead @ Wada, Math & Physics teacher, bilingual (French & English).

https://www.linkedin.com/in/megan-hess-5b853292

Frédéric Samvura (Genty) - Business Initiatives Lead @ Wada, DRC Coordinator @ Wada, Core Contributor @ Gimbalabs.

M.A in Economics, experienced in banking and public policy. Completed the Plutus Pioneer and Atala Prism Pioneer Programs. Haskell and Plutus trainer in Wada and Gimbalabs Education programs, Smart Contract Developer and entrepreneur.

Richmond Oppong- Marketing & Design Lead @ Wada

Richmond is a graphic designer with over 10 years of experience in logo designs, print and poster designs, business card designs, 3D signage, and mounting billboards. He holds a Higher National Diploma in Graphic Design from Takoradi Polytechnic, Takoradi-Ghana. Richmond is a blockchain enthusiast and is actively part of the Cardano project catalyst community.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/richmond-oppong-054689b4

Daniel Dezu - Website Lead @ Wada

Daniel is a Front End web developer. He holds Bachelors of Science in Information Technology from Bluecrest College and Professional Diploma in Software Engineering from IPMC Ghana. He is passionate about Cloud computing, Cyber Security and Decentralized Applications. He was a Community Advisor in Catalyst fund 7 and Catalyst Challenge Team Lead for ‘Scale-UP Cardano’s Community Hubs’ challenge settings for fund 8. He envisioned using Blockchain Technology to bridge the gap between human capabilities and machine learning (AI & IoT).

https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-david-lezu-7ba04b24/

+ Wada network and advisors - https://www.wada.org/about-us

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

The next funding submission will be for the next iteration of CatalystCon (2023) in either a combined proposal or separate one for Africa-specific content.

[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?

Key Metrics:

• No. of Event Sign-ups
• No. of Event Attendees
• No. of new Proposers/CAs Onboarded
• No. of Collaborations/Partnerships created
• No. of Africa-focused Catalyst project participants
• No. of unique pieces of content created (articles, videos, posts)
• Social media engagement metrics
• Approval rating of attendees (post-event survey)

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

A Day 2 participation number of 50+ from Africa and Africa-focused groups.

At least 20 new Catalyst members are onboarded from Africa, including proposers, CAs and community members.

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

This proposal is an extension of a Fund 8 proposal for the same event.

References:

[1] https://www.comicon.com/

[2] https://www.ces.tech/

[3] https://www.workatastartup.com/events/startup-tech-expo-summer-2021

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Interested in contributing or partnering? Get in touch today by contacting team@wada.org