Please describe your proposed solution.
<u>The Catalyst School: what is it all about?</u>
The Catalyst School is a place created to enhance the impact of Catalyst as a whole by improving the contribution of all its different players and roles. We onboard new members and help improving their skills along the way, in any way they decide to engage with Catalyst: as a Proposer, a Proposal Assessor, a Veteran Proposal Assessor or without any specific role within the process. In order for Catalyst to flourish and reach its full potential, all these roles need to give their best contribution within the process.
We understand that different people prefer different learning methods. Therefore, the School aims to help the community through:
- Live sessions and workshops.
- 1-to-1 and group support in many different languages.
- Interactive website.
- Other workshops related to Catalyst.
Today, the main topics covered by the Catalyst School today are:
- Introduction to Catalyst
- Proposing in Catalyst
- How to be a Proposal Assessor
- How to be a Veteran Proposal Assessor
<u>What is the School already doing?</u>
The Catalyst School is already helping the community since the beginning of Fund 6. We are doing that so we can receive feedback from the community and improve our teaching methods and content so we reach the highest Return on Intention we can.
You can check our last announcement during a Catalyst Town Hall here:
<https://www.youtube.com/embed/rNZJvzjgduM?start=3623>We have already run several sessions about the main topics described above, and onboarded more than 1000 new Catalyst members. Some of these sessions were recorded and are now available in our YouTube channel.
In Funds 7, 8 and 9, we have provided Insight Sharing Workshops ( https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/384064 ) to increase the discussion during Catalyst's Insight Sharing Phase. The videos can be checked in our YouTube Channel. For example, this one related to the Cross-Chain Collaboration challenge:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/7coZsTa1apc?start=&t=9sWe have also already ran workshops during the Catalyst Eastern Town Hall, the WADA Conference 2021, Cardano 4 Climate and other events.
<u>Why do we need the Catalyst School?</u>
Catalyst is not a traditional funding platform, it has its own protocol and method of functioning. Therefore, anyone who wants to join this experiment needs to learn about it first.
Until today, learning about Catalyst, how it works, its requirements and the criteria to succeed according to one's role is still not so easy because the relevant information and resources are not easily digestible and findable, in one hub known to newcomers and veterans alike.
There is also no platform to bring together those who are in the process of learning about Catalyst, be them newcomers or veterans, so they can exchange knowledge and help each other.
<u>Our Partnerships</u>
As the saying goes, if you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far go together! With that in mind, Catalyst School will collaborate with other educational stakeholders in the Catalyst ecosystem, building bridges to maximize synergistic optimum impact.
The Catalyst School already has many partnerships, such as:
- Gimbalabs ( https://gimbalabs.com/ )
- WADA ( https://wadalliance.org/ )
- Eastern Town Hall ( https://discord.gg/4xnCdV6Qrn )
- Tutorial for Community Advisors ( http://app.ideascale.com/t/UM5UZBiSh )
- Sustainable ADA ( https://www.sustainableada.com/ )
- BeanChain ( https://twitter.com/beanchain )
- LATAM Cardano Community ( https://discord.gg/VzQCNmWzMr )
Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.
We see the Catalyst School as a service that helps to onboard new all community members, and among them, the developers of the tools that make blockchain more accessible to everyone.
We recognize, although, that the main focus of The Catalyst School is not on building a developer ecosystem only, but a inclusive and open ecosystem for everyone that wants to participate in Catalyst.
We also believe that this is a very important project for the community, as we onboard hundreds of new members every fund, and in the absence of Challenge where this proposal would perfectly fit, this was the closest one that we found.
Nevertheless, we believe we are directly contributing to the following Challenge KPIs:
- Number of developers actively building on top of Cardano
- A sense of community and conversations. Having people around to talk with.
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 risk of this proposal is something that we have faced already: outreach. During Fund 7 we had very low attendance, but we have increased our marketing and improved our outreach strategy since then to get a good number or participants in our workshops and support sessions.