Connecting Asian Voter and Proposer

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

Provide reliable information, before & during voting to communities in their local language & culture to help voter understand the proposal.

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

Cardano Foundation Ambassadors, Catalyst School & Eastern Town Hall Members, Proposal Assesors (PAs) & Veteran PAs, Challenge Team members, Cardano Stake Pool Operators (SPO), IT & Software Engineering, Blockchain Devs, Plutus/Atala Prism Pioneers, Educators and Accountants

[GENERAL] Requested funds in USD.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Our goal is to establish a process, format, and event stage for voter and proposer onboarding. To bring voters, proposers, and proposals closer together. To establish trust between them. The focus is on six mutually reinforcing areas :

1. Content production to help ADA holders understand the importance of voting
2. Eastern Hemisphere language-specific events focused on voter education & discussion
3. A proposal to create a language translation pipeline to help proposers reach the wider East Asian community
4. Language-specific Catalyst Swarm IdeaFest and IdeaFest Reels as a stage for building voter awareness, engagement and trust
5. Social Media Marketing: socialize voter content and messaging across our social media channels; and
6. Conduct routine surveys and user research to help understand individual attitudes to Catalyst and proposal formats.

The proposal is seeking funds to help develop a program specifically designed to help connect voters with proposals and proposers.

Our cornerstone event is the bi-weekly Eastern Town Hall that is deeply interconnected with the Town Hall. The Eastern Town Hall members are an active part of our Cardano ecosystem. Listening and engaging with members of the community. Sharing what we learn.

For instance Yuta-san, our Community Organizer for Japan has completed one of his many surveys of the Japanese community [ 1 ] that this proposal draws upon. We want to do more of this across all the communities. We would like to help improve the user experience for voters. Feeding our collective insights back into Project Catalyst.

Help us improve decision making across the Eastern Hemisphere by making Catalyst voting more accessible.

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

Language differences and cultural exclusivity prevents governance initiatives from scaling globally. The constant experimentation of Catalyst means we need to be mindful to include different languages and cultures. Avoiding one culture dominating the narrative.

Misaligned incentives, scams and information overload prevent ADA holders from voting. In Asia and other non-native English speaking cultures, language barriers compound this. Language barriers are evident at every Catalyst stage.

Survey results showed that in the Japanese community the biggest problem of Catalyst voting was the lack of Japanese support (45.61%). Over 37% of respondents highlighted issues with understanding the process ; "I didn't understand the meaning because it was in English, so I voted randomly". The weariness of scams and lack of trust between proposals and voters were highlighted too. Another 16% mentioned incentive misalignment issues.

As a result, events to connect proposers and voters are a necessary and an important task that must be completed as soon as possible to assist the community in joining as an unifying space.

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

One of the team's main challenges is guaranteeing that the translation quality is not just translated correctly but can be understood easily by their respective community and represents as close as possible to the original source material.

Finding the best method to effectively distribute the translation content to the community in a timely manner through the preferred and existing communications method of the respective community will also play a role in reaching the highest audience volume.

These efforts correlate with keeping voters informed, engaged and encouraged to either communicate with the proposers so they can fully comprehend the proposals benefits and so they might become beacons to spread the proposals intent to the rest of their respective community.

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

The bi-weekly Eastern Town Hall is our primary stage where ADA holders and the Eastern Hemisphere communities interested in Cardano can come and meet other members. People learn and feel comfortable going further through this platform and its social media. These would be our following actions plans to deliver our intended solutions : 

1. Month one:
2. Continued production of our Voter Education videos, including subtitles in three languages
3. Coordination with Catalyst AIM to provide proposals with explanatory videos for voters, including subtitles in three languages in the voters' tool
4. Continued translating Catalyst voter materials in three languages (ID, JP, VN)
5. Incorporated the content and practices needed to engage with the Eastern Hemisphere voters and proposers through all marketing materials and channels
6. Month two:
7. Continued production of our Voter Education videos, including subtitles in three languages
8. Continued coordination with Catalyst AIM to provide proposals with explanatory videos for voters, including subtitles in three languages in the voters’ tool
9. Continued translating Catalyst voter materials in three languages (ID, JP, VN)
10. Incorporated the content and practices needed to engage with the Eastern Hemisphere voters and proposers through all marketing materials and channels
11. Month three:
12. Continued our language specific Eastern Townhall – Catalyst Swarm IdeaFests
13. Continued our IdeaFest Reels speed round presentation
14. Completed six voter surveys across three countries (ID, JP, VN)
15. Incorporated the content and practices needed to engage with the Eastern Hemisphere voters and proposers through all marketing materials and channels
16. Translated our content and Catalyst material to more languages across the Eastern Hemisphere
17. Completed a retrospective on our activities

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

The following is our budget breakdown that of our action plans spanning 3 months :

1. Continued video production in various formats of Voter Education : $4,000
2.  Caters to 4 (four) countries (in alphabetic order; Indonesian, New Zealand/East Africa/English, Singaporean/Korean/Philippines/Thailand (tbd), Japan and Vietnam) : 
3. Video production of proposal presentation through Catalyst AIM voter tools : $5,000
4. Provide video production service to proposals who are interested free of charge
5. Marketing and communication : $3,000
6. Informing the respective community of this service through Eastern Town Hall marketing channels and materials
7. Informing beyond the Cardano communities/business of this service through direct/influencer marketing
8. Website maintenance : $1,000
9. Maintaining and updating the easterntownhall.com website to accommodate the following communities; Indonesian, New Zealand/East Africa/English, Singapore/Korean/Philippines/Thailand and Japanese
10. Project Management : $1,000
11. Coordinating with partners (creating bridges, realizing synergies)
12. Controlling timeline (meeting KPI’s, submitting proposals, etc.)
13. Controlling the project costs
14. Project documentation and housekeeping: $1,000
15. GitHub admin across all communities

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

The team represents the initial Eastern Town Hall (ETH) Trusted Seed and incoming new members.

There are no roles, no leaders. Rather people establish themselves over time, through participation. We overlap and collaborate with Catalyst Swarm [ 2 ] and Catalyst School [ 3 ] and other community groups across Asia.

This collaborative effort brings a wealth of cultural and technical experience to Cardano. We are all very active in Catalyst, and community groups across our ecosystem. We are a diverse bunch united by the promise of Cardano : (in alphabetic order)

1. Core Team
2. Andreas Sosilo @andreassosilo - Indonesia: Software Developer, Cardano Foundation Ambassador for Indonesia, Cardano Indonesia Community Manager, Eastern Hemisphere Town Hall Team
3. Angela @AWG - Haskell Plutus Lecturer, Eastern Town Hall Team Member, Gimbalabs PPBL Team Member, CA,VCA, Plutus Pioneer, Atala Prism Pioneer, Challenge Team Member, Boostcamp Alumn.
4. Jack @PardusEidolon Financial markets software engineering, Haskell Developer, Music & Video Production, Eastern Townhall Co-Organiser.
5. Linh @elpidanang - Australia: Digital Forensic and Cyber Security academic staff since 2004. Fund 7 and 8 Challenge Team member, Co-host for ETH.  
6. Mie Tran @mie.tran.0407 - Vietnam: English and International Business major by trained, experienced in working cross-continent corporations. Funded proposer, a Challenge Team member, Co-host for ETH. 
7. Robert O'Brien @wolstaeb - New Zealand: Financial systems Software Engineer, Community Co-Organizer and Entrepreneur
8. Tien @tienna - Vietnam: Computer programmer, Cardano SPO (VILAI), Cardano community activist since 2018, funded proposer, a Challenge Team member and Co-host for ETH. 
9. Yuta Yuta @yutazz - Japan: Cardano Ambassador, Community Co-Organizer, Catalyst Fund 2 & 7 Recipient, Certified Public Accountant
10. Yan Tirta @yantirta - Indonesia: Cardano Indonesia Organizer, Community Advisor, Veteran Community Advisor, Eastern Catalyst School member, Catalyst Challenge Team member, Entrepreneur
11. Andy Sibuea @zicozibu - Indonesia: IT & Blockchain Educator, Eastern Catalyst School member
12. Consultant Team
13. Felix Weber @felixweber - France: Cardano Ambassador, Founder of Catalyst Swarm/School, Co-Founder of numerous other Cardano Communities
14. Stephen Whitenstall @swhitenstall - England: QA DAO Founder, Catalyst Swarm member, Challenge Team member and process documentation of Catalyst Circle and numerous other Cardano Communities

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

Yes, we will submit proposal in the next Catalyst Fund to operate our Town Hall, as this Town Hall operates to build communities in Eastern Hemisphere zone in the long run.

[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?

Our primary tool for measuring performance is our voter survey. We will conduct these on a regular basis across Eastern Hemisphere countries. Based on the surveys during and after a fund, we expect to :

1. Increase Eastern Hemisphere voter participation by 25% from the previous Fund
2. Increase Eastern Hemisphere participation in Catalyst by 25% from the previous Fund through various channels from Proposal Assessors participation, Veteran Proposal Assessors participation, proposals submission etc.
3. Uncertainty around Catalyst and voting decreases 25% from the previous Fund

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

Key engagement metrics that indicate our success in bridging voters and proposers are as follows :

1. The Easter Town Hall average bi-weekly numbers increase 25% for each Fund
2. Catalyst Proposals available in three languages (ID, JP, VN) increase 25% for each Fund
3. Proposals from the Eastern Hemisphere are widely voted on and receive funding with a growth of 25% from the previous Fund
4. Survey results show an increase of voter engagement by 25% from the previous Fund
5. Eastern Town Hall Social Media accounts increase followers by 250 new followers in three months

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

This indeed is a proposal continuation of the continuously funded Eastern Town Hall proposal spanning from Fund 6, 7, 8 and now 9.

Previous proposal: https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/399473

Additional information

By close communication, coordination and collaboration with the Catalyst Swarm, The Catalyst School, the Ambassadors Guild and the Bridge Builders, we build a Network of Community initiatives able to provide an A to Z onboarding process which allows newcomers to appreciate a fast and safe onboarding process.

We have also set up an Eastern Town Hall Stake Pool (C3ETH) and are part of the Ryuuki Fund and Network.

References

[1] Japanese community Survey August 2021 - https://t.me/ProjectCatalystChat/53776 

[2] Catalyst Swarm: http://catalystswarm.com

[3] Catalyst School: https://linktr.ee/CatalystSchool