Please describe your proposed solution.

Problems/Current Status:

After years of teaching at the university and engaging in regular discussions with employers, we have come to realize that the availability of Cardano blockchain talent is still severely limited (detailed data). The primary reasons for this limitation include:

• Insufficient testing environments within the university to facilitate practical experience in developing blockchain applications.
• Absence of mechanisms to motivate and inspire students to transform their ideas into tangible products.
• Students and developers are predominantly drawn towards platforms like ETH, Polkadot, Near, Solana, and Cosmos due to their extensive promotional efforts.
• Blockchain enthusiasts among students lack opportunities to collaborate and share ideas on significant projects.
• Students possess limited knowledge about Catalyst and tend to apply for funding through traditional models.

(we were teaching at universities)

To address these challenges, We are forming a Cardano developer club at the university:

• The club will provide project based labs on Cardano platform encompassing test-net node, main-net node, Plutus playground, Mesh’s examples and other resources, creating an ideal testing environment for developers to deploy their preferred dApps.
• This club will serve as a platform for like-minded blockchain enthusiasts to connect, form friendships, and collaborate on dApp development projects.
• Regular seminars will be organized within the club to foster the sharing of Cardano blockchain knowledge among its community members.
• Hackathon events will be held to encourage developers to conduct in-depth research and exploration

With the support of the community through voting and the positive backing of the university, we firmly believe that the Cardano ecosystem will witness the development of diverse dApps, creating a ripple effect that fosters increased developer adoption, productivity, and creativity. Furthermore, it will attract developers from beyond our existing community, encouraging their active participation in the Catalyst platform.

How does your proposed solution address the challenge and what benefits will this bring to the Cardano ecosystem?

The campaign brief states 03 points:

• What would make a developer motivated to grind through the docs and code no matter how hard it is to create a dApp?
• How do we attract developers from outside of our current community to participate in Catalyst?
• What are enterprise dev managers looking for in order to be able to build out enterprise projects -either internal or commercial?

We believe that our project will be able to address above requirements because:

• Most blockchain platforms such as SOLANA, NEAR, and BSC often offer web-based online training courses. However, many students participating in these programs tend to lose motivation, become bored, or lack interaction, resulting in discontinuation midway through the course. In this project, we prioritize providing a hands-on experience where students can actively engage with instructors and support staff for discussion, problem-solving,fostering a truly interactive learning environment.
• The Learning Pyramid indicates that 'practice doing' is an effective learning method as it activates elements of auditory, visual, and kinesthetic.This approach will attract more students and foster a sense of motivation throughout the learning process

(Learning Pyramid learning experience)

• The labs within the club are oriented towards Project-based learning. This approach enables students to gain practical problem-solving experience. which is valued by enterprise development managers when selecting candidates for enterprise projects.
• Organizing regular Hackathons and seminars within the university campus will attract young and dynamic developers to the Cardano ecosystem in general, and Project Catalyst in particular. These activities also serve as motivations for developers to deploy innovative ideas and products on our platform.

Based on the above arguments, it can be said that the project will equip and support students - potential developer with the knowledge, tools, and ideal environment to choose Cardano as their first option when building dApps.

How do you intend to measure the success of your project?

To measure the success of the project, we will use these indicators:

1. Attracting developers: We will monitor the number of students and developers actively involved in the Cardano developer club, attending seminars, joining hackathons, and utilizing the project-based labs.
2. Employment Impact: Monitoring the impact of the club on employment outcomes. It will provide insights into the project's success in bridging the gap between student talent and industry demand.
3. Project Catalyst engagement: Tracking the level of engagement and participation of club members in Project Catalyst initiatives will indicate the club's success in fostering active involvement in the Cardano community.

Collaboration and partnerships: We will evaluate the extent of collaboration and partnerships established with industry stakeholders, blockchain companies, and other educational institutions.

Please describe your plans to share the outputs and results of your project?

To share the outputs and results of our project, we have the following plans:

1. Project Reports (PoM and PoA):

We will submit a Statement of Milestones (SoM) which will be published, reviewed and approved by Community Reviewers. In each Milestone, we will public Proof of Achievement (PoA) to provide evidence that the milestone for which we have already been paid has been achieved.

1. Release outputs/results on our website

We will outputs/results on our website at UBA, VOER, C2VN where interested individuals can access our update proactively. Discuss or query us any topics they prefer.

1. Share outputs/results to social platforms (Cardano Forum, Facebook, telegram, twitter, youtube and github):

These will be places we share updates, success stories, and best practices. These will allow us to reach a larger audience and gather feedback and suggestions from the community, fostering a collaborative approach to decentralized identity adoption

What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability?

1, Expertise and Experience:

The members of the project are the core team who organized the Community-Led Events Cardano Summit 2022 and are currently organizing the Community-Led Events Cardano Summit 2023. We consist of technical experts from Cardano2vn.io and professors from 5 major universities.

(This is the picture of the summit)

We have been funded for 8 proposals (Fund6: 1, Fund7: 3, Fund8: 4) . All 8 projects have been successfully implemented, delivering impacts beyond expectations and marked as completed on IOG's tracking board . Here are some our activities we delivered for our community:

• Organizing 8 webinars on web3 and building web3 on the Cardano blockchain

(this is picture of our class)

• Supporting students in conducting scientific research on blockchain, building, and integrating their applications with Cardano
• Organizing and participating in “Together we learn Haskell”
• Introduce and promote Blockchain and AI research and development to Universities

• We are collaborating with Gimbalabs to bring the Gimbalabs PPBL2023 course to Vietnamese in our native language.

2, Accountability:

• Metrics and Evaluation: We have established clear metrics and indicators to measure the success of our project. By regularly evaluating and reporting on these metrics, we hold ourselves accountable for delivering the desired outcomes.
• Transparent and Open Approach: We prioritize transparency and open communication in all aspects of our project. We are committed to sharing progress updates, project plans, and outcomes with stakeholders, ensuring that everyone is informed and involved in the process.

Overall, our capability to deliver the project with high levels of trust and accountability lies in our expertise, transparent approach, and evaluation measures. We are committed to upholding these principles throughout the project lifecycle, ensuring that our efforts are reliable, trustworthy, and accountable to all stakeholders involved.

What are the main goals for the project and how will you validate if your approach is feasible?

The main goals of the project include:

Attract developers from outside of our current community to cardano ecosystem:

Attracting and motivating students, especially promising developers to engage with Cardano Ecosystem is our primary goal in this project. These goal is measured by a number of KPI as:

• Total number of developers who get involved with our club
• Total number of developers who are going to use labs
• Total number of developers who join the Seminar, sharing sessions
• Total number of developers who participate in the hackathons
• Total number of Proposals submitted to ideascale in the first round

We mentions these Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in the below objectives

The impact form Club execution:

• After 6 running club, we anticipate achieving the following:
• 100+ developers join in clubs
• 150 students attending the regular seminars and sharing sessions
• 15 developer participating the hackathons

Lab utilization:

• 30 developers using the labs in the first 06 months.
• 1800 lab hours in the first cohort (3 hours/session, 2 sessions/week, 10 weeks) = 60 hours x 30 developer=1800 hours.

Project Catalyst engagement:

• 10 Project submitted to ideascale

Employment rate:

• We set a challenging target that students (30) who complete lab challenges will get a job right after graduation.

In addition to the aforementioned quantitative KPI, we also have qualitative indicators such as:

• Prototype: This club will be built as a model that could be replicated to other communities.
• Self -sustainable organization: with the support from University and Faculty, We aim to have students as the operators of the club. The current generation will guide and mentor the next generation in managing and operating the club. The members involved in operating the club will receive additional points in their academic records.

How is this approach practical in nature?

During the bear market, the project team regularly organized sharing sessions and networking events with universities, thereby collaborating with them to schedule both fundamental and advanced training. Below are some of the activities:

• Introduce Cardano and Project Catalyst at Nguyen Trai University
• Share oppotunies on Cardano and Project Catalyst for Students and lecture at ITI - National University, Hanoi
• Organizing 8 webinars on web3 and building web3 on the Cardano blockchain
• Cardano student showcases at Student Scientific and Research Conference at the University of Transport and Communications in Hanoi, Vietnam
• Promoting Blockchain, and AI research in universities

And we did deliver a initial course at a University as a sample case, here is our course’s outline and this event was posted on meetup

Based on the experiences gained from these activities, we have observed that establishing a blockchain club and organizing seminars and hackathons will attract developer to the Cardano platform. With over 600 students, we anticipate that the mentioned solution is entirely feasible for achieving the stated objectives.

Please provide a detailed breakdown of your project’s milestones and each of the main tasks or activities to reach the milestone plus the expected timeline for the delivery.

The detailed breakdown of our project’s milestones and activities is avalable at this Google sheet . it is summarized here for your quick reference.

Milestone 1: First month

• Key activities:
• Lab decoration (Cardano branding, Standee, backdrop)
• Club content planning ( Programming language intro, integration, dApp,..)
• Forming core team, selecting University, getting approval from university
• Creating procedure to operate the club, forming regulations
• Project Management (creating a project plan, allocating resources, managing timelines, monitoring progress, coordinating team members, and ensuring successful project delivery)

Milestone 2: Second month

• Key activities:
• Build exercises for labs.
• Writing lab guides.
• Creating detailed plans for other activities (hackathon, seminar, sharing knowledge…)
• Promote blockchain club launching event, hackathon, seminar events

Milestone 3: Third month

• Key activities:
• Place and order with Virtual Private Servers (VPS) on Cloud in 04 months
• Setup and get labs ready for students (testnet, mainnet, haskell,plutus playground, aiken, opshin…)
• Order Internet connection from internet provider
• Buy a LCD screen/Project
• Organize Blockchain lab launching event
• Assign Lab support/Assistant

Milestone 4: Fourth and Fifth month

• Key activities:
• Hosting at least 03 seminars
• Organize one Hackathon (planning, organizing, prize for winners, gift for judges)
• Catalyst introduction to developer
• Connecting Employers

Please describe the deliverables, outputs and intended outcomes of each milestone.

Milestone 1: First month

• Deliverables/ outputs:
• A lab room with Cardano branding images, which has logos, standees, banners in the room.
• It is a playbook that outlines the events of the club, including what events will take place, where they will be held, who will organize them, and when they will occur.
• Approval evidence from the Faculty of university and physical place we will run the lab.
• Lab regulations

Milestone 2: second month

• Deliverables/ outputs:
• A set of proven labs and its exercises
• A schedules for hackathon, seminar, sharing knowledge events with
• A series of posts and articles on twitter, facebook and websites (VBA, C2VN and University website).

Milestone 3: Third month

• Deliverables/ outputs:
• Nodes are up and running, ready for ssh connections from blockchain lab
• Labs and exercises are ready for students to practice
• Able to access the internet from the lab room. Capacity is enough for 30 concurrent users
• Picture and recording of launching event
• There is a person who assigned to be Lab support/Assistant

Milestone 4: Fourth month to sixth month

• Deliverables/ outputs:
• Posts and articles on social network/website about Seminar/Hackathon program and schedule
• 03 seminaries were organized with pictures, recordings for reporting & lessons learnt.
• A successful Hackathon event was conducted.
• 02 sharing session with developer about how to engage with Project Catalyst.
• 03 meetings with Employers to connect them with our talented students.

Please provide a detailed budget breakdown of the proposed work and resources.

The detailed breakdown of our project’s milestones and activities is avalable at this Google sheet . it is summarized here for your quick reference.

Budget summary:

Milestone 1: First month

Estimate cost to achieve this milestone: 21.467 ADA =15,11%

Milestone 2: Second month

Estimate cost to achieve this milestone: 41.933 ADA =29,52%

Milestone 3: Third month

Estimate cost to achieve this milestone: 40.233 ADA =28,33%

Milestone 4: Fourth and Fifth month

Estimate cost to achieve this milestone: 38.400 ADA =27,04%

Total Estimate cost: 142.033 ADA

Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

Our core team member are:

Nguyen Anh Tien

Role: Project Manager, Product Owner, Blockchain Developer

Bio: the founder of the VILAI stake pool, and a computer science expert working in the Cardano/Crypto space since 2018. Cardano Ambassador, Funded Proposer, member of Plutus, Atala Prism Pioneer Program, a Challenge Team member and Co-host for Eastern Town Hall.

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tienna/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/tiennganh
• Telegram: t.me/tiennguyenanh

Nguyen Van Hieu

Role: Senior Blockchain/Full stack Developer,

Bio: founder of HADA stake pool, member of Plutus Pioneer Program, and Lead Technical Support at many successful startups.

• Telegram: t.me/nvhieu1978
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nguyen-van-hieu-b4410121b/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hieu.nguyenvan.794628

Do Ngoc Minh

Role: Blockchain Lab Development Manager

Bio: Computer Science Researcher, and Lecturer at the Information Technology Institute, Vietnam National University, Hanoi. Advisor for Open Educational Resources (OER) programs of UNESCO, ASIA, and Vietnam.

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dongocminh/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmMinhDo
• Email: [email protected]
• Telegram: t.me/amminhdo

Hoang Van Thong

Role: Blockchain Lab Quality Assurance Officer, Blockchain lab manager

Bio: Lecturer (since 2001) and Dean of Faculty of Information Technology (since 2020), University of Transportation and Communications, computer science experts, developed many websites

• Fields research: fuzzy logic, soft computing, data mining, machine learning.
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thong-hoang-van-28261b227/
• Email: [email protected]
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thonggtvt

Trinh Van Chung

Role: Blockchain Lab Development member

Bio: founder of the DEVMASTER ACADEMY, Dean of Faculty of Information Technology – Nguyen Trai University.

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chungtrinhj/
• Email: [email protected]
• Telegram: https://t.me/chungtrinhj

Nguyen Kim Sao,

Role: Blockchain Lab Development member

Bio: Lecturer (since 2011) of Faculty of Information Technology, University of Transportation and Communications, received a Ph.D. in system information at the Vietnam National University, Hanoi (since 2021), data hiding experts, developed many applications.

• Fields research: watermarking, data hiding.
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nguyen-kim-sao/
• Email: [email protected]

Cao Thi Luyen,

Role: Blockchain Lab Development member

Bio: Lecturer (since 2001) of the Faculty of Information Technology, University of Transportation and Communications, received a Ph.D. in mathematical assurance in computational systems at the military academy of science and technology (since 2018). developed many applications.

• Fields research: watermarking, data hiding, machine learning, blockchain.
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/luyen-cao-11a846241/
• Email: [email protected]

Nguyen Duc Du

Role: Blockchain Lab Development member

Bio: Lecturer (since 2001) and Director of Library Information Center (since 2020), University of Transportation and Communications, computer science experts.

• Fields research: fuzzy logic, soft computing, data mining, machine learning.
• Email: [email protected]

Mai Manh Trung

Role: Curriculum Development member

Bio: Lecturer (since 2007) and Dean of Faculty of Information Technology (since 2004), University of Economic and Industry, computer science expert.

• Fields research: Security, application programing, data mining, machine learning.
• Email: [email protected]

How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

The project can effectively address the challenges posed by the following challenge settings:

• How do we attract developers from outside of our current community to participate in Catalyst?
• What do developers want, and how can they obtain it from the Cardano development ecosystem?
• What factors would motivate developers to persevere through documentation and coding challenges in creating a dApp?
• What criteria are enterprise development managers seeking to build enterprise projects, whether internal or commercial?

The project's cost is reasonably calculated based on labor hours of experts. Furthermore, It aims to target education and adoption, two of the three key focus areas of the Cardano Foundation in 2023.