Please describe your proposed solution.
Background
This proposal came about through observation during the first semester of school in March 2022 when I wanted to do a project on Cardano and its impact on tertiary education students. When I started to deliberate and talk to my colleagues, almost all the ladies interviewed said they have never heard of Cardano or any other cryptocurrency. Most of them did say they know of Bitcoin and nothing more. Through this, I saw the great disconnect between what women know against what men know because most of the men I interviewed gave me great insights into blockchain and what they use it for, but just 5% of the women could give me good answers. It was at that moment an idea came to my mind to start educating women on the campus about blockchain, especially Cardano because I was part of Cardano and knew a great deal of what Cardano does in Africa. Through these interactions several people especially the women showed genuine interest in the topics and whenever there is a program related to Cardano we do go together as a group or as individuals, when we returned back to campus we hold discussions on what we have learned and discuss how best we can use it to help ourselves. I am happy to say that through this venture most of the women have been able to become PAs and vCAs and some became developers through the ecosystem.
Furthermore, from this point interest in the group grew because outsiders got to know that the women were making good money from helping the ecosystem by assessing proposals and doing other great things in the ecosystem but we kind of found it hard to organize meetings and carry out sensitization about the Cardano because with population growth brought about its own problems and it became very difficult to find spaces within the campus where we can meet as a group to ideate, share and discuss the new challenges which have been launched by the Cardano community or even find places where resource person's can come to campus and train us on more things the Cardano ecosystem have developed or is doing. This problem has led to retardation of our works and makes it difficult for members to congregate successfully at one place at a time.
As fund 9 has been launched we, therefore, see it necessary to apply for some funding in order to establish a women-centered hub at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana. This is because when one comes to school especially the women and they see themselves as belonging to such a hub they will do everything necessary for the hub to achieve the mandate to which it was established. The primary source of attachment they will see and the commitment to be part of something large is inextricable and endearing. Added to the opportunity to be trained as trainers, developers, and entrepreneurs which are the three main core opportunities the hub will provide to these women will lead them on to unimaginable success in the Cardano ecosystem.
This hub seeks to offer them the opportunity to learn meaningful and informational activities especially technology which will lead to them gaining experiences, and skills to become developers, entrepreneurs, and trainers in blockchain technology. In Africa, a lot of women lack the knowledge, and skills to partake in the blockchain world. Taking into account the population of the Africa Continent one can see that women form the majority and these women because they lack this knowledge in the blockchain industry have led to the poor visibility of Cardono Africa's growth.
Therefore, "the proposal" Cardono Ladies Hub will offer them the necessary knowledge and training to be part of the ever-growing ecosystem.
We believe that by offering them the three tenants of training we shall have the following numbers graduating from each cohort :
a) Developers (have at least 5 developers coming out of the hub in less than three months of consistent training )
b)Entrepreneurs ( have at least 10 entrepreneurs graduating from the hub in less than three months of entrepreneurial training )
c)Trainers (have at least not less than 15 trainers in core topics graduating from the hub in less than three months of intensive training in the blockchain ecosystem )
In total, we shall have a contribution rate of 30 people who will graduate and add their expertise to the Cardano ecosystem.
The proposers of this project believe that this is the way to lead the growth of high skilled-based women in Cardano Africa, which is urgently needed for growth. The main impact of this proposal is getting women on board with the Cardano ecosystem from the University of Cape Coast and growing the hub subsequently to all tertiary institutions in the country under a single umbrella to learn about blockchain, Cardano, and explore other avenues under the ecosystem as something which they are part of and own to become, developers, programmers, entrepreneurs amongst other.
The reason for this approach is to increase the number of women in Cardano at the same time remove the misconceptions about blockchain technology, and cryptocurrency among others. To ensure that women patronize the" Cardano Ladies Hub" and participate in all activities of the hub. A reward system will be instituted to push more people into Cardano. Also, through this, we will have more women in Africa developing interest and therefore ensuring it is sustainable to meet challenges of the continent with regards to Cardano and Blockchain.
The main beneficiaries of this proposal are mainly women at the University of Cape Coast. Through these women, more people from their various communities such as their families, and friends, among others will intend also learn about Cardono from them which will increase the number of people who will use Cardono exponentially in the long run.
Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.
Amongst all the continents in the world, Africa is said to be the continent where there is low patronage of Cardano and Blockchain technology. The proposers of this proposal seek to address this challenge by increasing the feasibility of the ecosystem in Africa through women and we believe that if women are well educated and adequately trained in the blockchain ecosystem they can contribute enormously and add more value to the growth of Cardano and Africa at large.
To succeed in this field we need women who can grasp the essence of the project to grow it and own it as their own which necessitated the use of women at the University of Cape Coast. This is necessary because they have a higher level of intellect and can learn these things easily at a go. When the women have been empowered, the likelihood of empowering their families and their community is high. That is if these women become developers, entrepreneurs, and trainers there is a percentage that they will teach, employ, and develop technology in the blockchain industry that will put it ahead. Africa is the new unchartered territory where Cardono can make its mark, thus if Cardano grows we all grow with it as a community.
Therefore, during the training scheme, every woman will be given training on pertinent issues affecting the African landscape to understand it better and bring out solutions to why most Africans find it hard to adopt Cardano into their daily lives, open Yoroi wallet, and get signed on into the idea scale will be a mandatory field which will be done across the board.
The Grow Africa Grow Cardano challenge needs visionary leaders who can think on their feet and serve the needs of the continent in the long run. We cannot stay ideal and watch as most of our women are not educated in this priceless field and we need to scale up our efforts by training as many women as possible to up the challenge and help change the narrative.
Also, for instance, assuming at the end of the project we have more than 30 people who amongst some become so good at coding to develop apps, trainers, and entrepreneurs we are definitely adding so many quality human resources to beating the Africa challenge and shaping the continent on the path to success.
And, there are more than 100 public and private tertiary institutions in the country, and assuming we are able to set up Cardano-centered women hubs in almost all the major universities in the country let us imagine the talent pool we will be drawing from these schools, if for example, we have a range of just 20 from each school, that means that we have a total pool of not less than 200 plus dedicated and well-trained women coming into the Cardano ecosystem every three months, with Yoroi wallet and registration on idea scale. And these talent pools will go on to help push the Grow Africa Grow Cardano which will be a win-win situation for us all. This is the vision of the Cardano Lady's Hub, which I sincerely ask to be pushed for Africa made by Africans for Africa.
What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?
The main risks that might affect this project are the traditional misconceptions of blockchain, bureaucracy, and legal issues. This is because most of the school's authorities already have predetermined ideas about blockchain and are vehemently against its training and education in all levels of school work and the project will mainly be using students from the University of Cape Coast. This means we have to first and foremost educate the authorities and remove any kind of misconceptions from their mind to gain their trust and loyalty and also ask the management of the University for permission to use their students and explain to them the reason why we are using the students, how the project will benefit the students and the University at large, and go through the legal rudiments of setting up such a hub in the school.
Therefore, these are the main risks that will affect the project and how we will deal with each risk involved in executing the project, research has taught us that we can successfully mitigate against all these risks if we put in place measures that will remove them against the school not allowing us to operate.
- Firstly, the space we will use for the hub will be outside the school but nearer to the campus to reduce transport costs for our members who will be coming for training and meetings at the hub therefore, the hub does not fall under the direct supervision and jurisdiction of the school and it will not affect our members from coming to the hub willingly.
- Secondly, to ensure we have the support of the University authorities we will carry out adequate consultation before we start operation with all stakeholders in the University of Cape Coast right from the department lecturers to the Vice-Chancellor of the school to ensure we all understand each other. This will allow us to gain a written consent document from the school authorities and express permission to operate as a hub in order to engage the students of the school. Also, the government of Ghana, the Ghana Education Service, and the Ministry of Education will all be consulted before we operate. And the agencies necessary for giving licenses to operate as a hub will also be consulted so that we acquire all the licenses and do the necessary paperwork to ensure we are on the same standing with all these institutions and agencies before we start operation.
We might also need to maneuver and find solutions to problems associated with the implementation of this project at the University of Cape Coast due to the strict internal mechanisms of teaching, and learning and also their timetable for academic work in order not to overburden and burnout our women in search of achieving our objective over forgetting the reason why they are at the university. As far as we want excellence in what we train them on, failure on the part of their university work will get them expelled from school which we do not want. To solve these issues we will work with every department where our members study to ensure we have at least some of their lecturers as part of our trainers for most of our work so that they can point us to places where we can integrate into our training to suit areas of their academic work. Most importantly, we will be scouting for lecturers who have in-depth knowledge in the field of blockchain and cryptocurrency. In that regard, they can direct us on how best we can serve the needs of our members on both frontiers.