Why is it important?
The success of Catalyst depends on the availability of quality challenge teams, proposers, advisors, mentors and voters.
Young, digital natives and those seeking to connect to the digital economy today are going to be the users of blockchain and crypto tomorrow. However, youth aren’t included nor involved, at scale, in the world’s largest DAO, and experiment in onchain governance and innovation. This can be addressed, leading to participation within all levels of Catalyst.
Why is this problem important?
- Future tech advocates, next generation of blockchain advocates, upcoming blockchain natives + Enabling the blockchain natives of tomorrow.
- Gap/unmet need - Not accessible to all youth + coursework is advanced + protocol communities difficult to enter/engage at the beginning.
- Root cause - New/information is directed towards developer community/working professionals —- there is a need to be more inclusive in sharing and brainstorming on this new technology.
Opportunity:
Why is the problem solvable?
Educational resources exist but are not tailored to the youth. The blockchain conversation is not inclusive of the youth - widening the dialogue around it.
What would the world look like if our team solved it?
The world would have a dedicated open-source youth platform that provides direct access to interact with the Cardano ecosystem and discuss emerging technologies/models of community governance.
Helping close the gap between the digital divide.
See attached document - pitch deck for further information on our theory of change.
Some statistics for context:
How big is the potential market?
Looking at the distribution of internet users worldwide as of 2019, by youth age 18-24 was 18% of the total internet users globally. This means that 4.1 billion of our global population are connected. 738 million youth make up our potential market.
<https://www.statista.com/statistics/272365/age-distribution-of-internet-users-worldwide/>
<https://www.itu.int/hub/2021/11/facts-and-figures-2021-2-9-billion-people-still-offline/>
French people under 35 years old's perspectives on cryptocurrencies 2019.
People under 35 years old's perspectives on cryptocurrencies in France in June 2019: “Overall, French people under 35 years old had a positive opinion on cryptocurrencies: 43 percent of them believed that cryptocurrencies were a good thing, while 31 percent of them believed they were a bad thing. Among those seeing cryptocurrencies as positive, 33 percent viewed them as a good thing and ten percent considered them as a really good thing.” - https://www.statista.com/statistics/1073810/cryptocurrency-people-under-35-opinion-france/
This is pre-pandemic. With Binance seeking to headquarter in France, and the creation of an innovation hub in France with the granting of 100m EUROS, the trends indicate that youth will most definitely play a pivotal role in shaping the future of blockchain and crypto usage. Cardano and the Catalyst community has an opportunity to position itself as a leading choice for youth who are increasingly aware and concerned with being actively involved in activities and projects that have a positive environmental and social impactful. - https://www.binance.com/en/support/announcement/b11c6f68e581478bae0867146af4c258
43% of men ages 18 to 29 say they have, according to a survey of over 10,000 U.S. adults from Pew Research carried out in 2021. - <https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/11/11/16-of-americans-say-they-have-ever-invested-in-traded-or-used-cryptocurrency/>
Cryptocurrency is most popular with young adults: 31% of people ages 18 to 29 have used it, compared to 21% of people ages 30 to 49, 8% of people ages 50 to 64 and 3% of people age 65 or over.
Our solution:
We lower the barriers of entry into the blockchain for impact space, onboarding youth into the Cardano Catalyst Community. By enabling youth and blockchain professionals to connect meaningfully, access professional guidance and expert mentorship, new opportunities are created for synergies that lead to catalyzing collaborative positive feedback loops.
The growth of Project Catalyst depends on meaningful participation from proposers, advisors, mentors and voters who are both eager and capable to fulfill their roles and understand their responsibilities.
Guiding questions:
How might we convert passive ADA holders into active Catalyst members?
- Incentives, compensation as a ‘changemaker/facilitator) to be rewarded to bring more long term value to their passive ADA)
How might we increase awareness of Project Catalyst as the most active open innovation platform?
- Through education, word of mouth and a stellar case study programme with diverse global participants, and broadcast to relevant stakeholders globally. Who else is bringing young people into this space?
How might we increase more meaningful participation from challenge teams, proposers, advisors, mentors and voters? What kind of additional roles are needed?
- Current active community members can be empowering role models, business mentors providing office hour support/masterclasses/mentoring/coaching/1-2-1 for our youth, the future.
- Additional roles are roles young people can fulfill : that act as a bridge Youth Ambassador/ facilitator/coordinator for bringing the youth and the connected stakeholders into the ecosystem once an initial cohort ‘graduate’ from the pilot programme.
- A ‘youth’ member sitting on a challenge team, being a proposer and eventually proposer mentor, an advisor, and a voter (perhaps on behalf of them selves, their family, their school, their club…)
How might we encourage new members to utilize the tools and services available for onboarding?
- We have a team of engaged community members that number 200+, and several online channels to welcome and onboard the youth, as well in physical locations where feasible. Community Education services exist within our network and live demonstrations and completion of live/offline/recording.
- Circles. Why not a youth circle rep?
How might we improve the use of existing text, video and audio materials?
- Research existing Cardano related and non cardano related appropriate content/resources (don't reinvent the wheel).
- Ask for community input and support/resource submission to collate a library of resources.
- Get diverse, international youth testing and giving feedback, recorded and documented - which exposes them to github and open source data sharing recording (QA-DAO) and how this is key to implementing the solutions to achieve the SDGs/global goals in this decade of action.
- An iterative process where young follow a pathway.
- Also design along the way (within controlled context).
- Competition process —> catalyst. Real world impact.
- Mentors from across world, networks
- Graduate as adults, equipped, networked, connected, plugged in to lead, create, collaborate, catalyze disruptive innovation in Catalyst (cohort 1,2,3…)
- Leadership programme for these young people in the programme of the future!
- Grassroots led. Challenge the status quo.
Young people globally should be included in the shaping of this space, technology and have their voices listened to in the ongoing conversation of the future of blockchain, and Cardano4 Good.
Key Metrics to measure:
The metrics can be divided into two sections. General onboarding refers to bringing people in and converting them from mere lurkers to voters and potential proposers. Innovation process metrics refer to the quantity and quality of proposals and activity around them.
General onboarding: With a lead of the cohort group (Active Cardano community members + young person/s eg 10-15 young people for the first cohort - demographics to be diverse, cross sectional, multicultural and inclusive)
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Daily/Weekly sign ups to Cardano Ideascale to interact, send messages, give kudos, make comments, and connect. Each profile has metrics attached to it eg. number of ideas posted, number of kudos etc.
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Lead Cardano Community Member modeling in a live zoom session or workshop to young people who are following along in a session, or watching a recording of a How-to, and following as a self paced exercise. Have a FAQ, and a QA in social channels (Telegram, Discord).
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Town Hall attendance
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Youth can participate in break out rooms, lead a room, and interact
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Our youth will at as leaders, encouraging other youth to take the leap into our townhalls each week.
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Catalyst School session attendance
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Have a young person (trained to be a workshop facilitator).
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We will be helping equip our youth with the skills to lead, and be the next blockchain teachers of tomorrow.
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Swarm session attendance
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Idea fest
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networking
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Applications to leadership positions (e.g. Circle, other programmes offered by our network partners and supporters)
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Graduates of our Youth programme
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Our graduates will have exclusive access into our community, also helping with decision making and future planning of the Youth Block program
Innovation process:
Number of referrers:
- Youth referrals once graduated from the programme and active in the following fund governance
Reduction in the number of unready proposals:
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By equipping our youth with the proper skills to navigate and propose in Cagtalyst it will minimize the number of poor and non ready proposal in the Catalyst funding rounds in the future.
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Growth in the number of 4-5 star proposals
The skills and knowledge captured through the Youth Block program will allow Youths proposals to be some of the best in the community, and with the guidance from our mentors they will receive constructive feedback that will allow them to continue to propose 4-5 start proposals in the future.
- Growth in the number of Community Advisors and Veteran Community Advisors
- Youth CA, VCA
- Percentage of proposals with Excellent assessments
- Growth in the number of voters
- Youth votes if they are awarded ADA (budgeted)
- Growth in total number of votes given
- Youth votes with ADA between 5000 ADA - 15,000 ADA ($1 USD - $3 USD per ADA)
Additional KPIs:
- # youth participation
- # partner organisations
- # expert mentor participation
- # youth enrolled in tech sector related further education programmes
- # youth tech leaders
- # partnerships created
- # youth enrolled in tech sector related further education programmes
- # youth tech leaders
- # partnerships created
- # youth aspiring for tech sector related employment
- # youth employed in the tech sector
- # programme delivery sites
Other approaches exist and have been tried, to name a few:
Unite2030, Surge <https://www.unicef.org/innovation/SURGE>
Crypto Kids camp (https://www.cryptokidscamp.org)
Blockchain Kids (https://blockchainkids.net)
However, our competitive advantages are :
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We aim to offer a program for all youth, and plan to have a lead on each continent, multilingual program, transformative education
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What is distinctive about our approach and team organization is:
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We aim to have a Lead on each continent, community member past 25, mentorship for each member while taking part in the program, help accessing Project Catalyst
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This is supported and made possible through partnerships with:
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The Commonwealth
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UNESCAP
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1 Million Mentors
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Catalyst School
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Wada
How will we ensure sustainability beyond Catalyst initial funding if successfully funded?
If successfully funded via Catalyst, we will continue our research within our network of mission driven stake pool operators, and scope the possibility too generate rewards every epoch (5 days) 5-6% of total stake each year (<https://cardano.org/calculator/>), and create a learn to earn model.
Given the price range of USD/ADA can fluctuate with volatility between $1 USD and $3 USD, between now and the fund winner announcement, we seek : $15,000 USD to provide a sufficient buffer to enable at least 10 youth to have sufficient minimum voting power of 500 ADA. (If ADA remains around $1 USD, enough ADA is allocated for all youth to have voting power, and any surplus ADA will be kept staked in a SPO that aligns with our values, and be used to give youth more voting power via the wallets used eg each of the 10 youth can have between 500 - 1500 ADA voting power depending on the USD/ADA exchange rate during payment schedule on fund winner announcement.
If the price of ADA exceeds $3 USD, we will have to adjust the number of youth we can onboard, or we will seek additional resources from our network of partners and supporters to address the shortfall of ADA voting power to enable 10 youth to vote.