Please describe your proposed solution.

In the past decade, there has been a burst of new technologies which have entered the global commons. They are digital in nature, and stimulate a process of decentralizing traditional power structures. In particular, DAOs and DeFi are spearheading the process, and they are contextually intertwined with the development of Web3 and the widespread use of crypto-based tokens and currencies.

In reality though, these developments cannot be fully understood by examining the past 10 years alone. They are the outgrowth of a deeper historical trend which is seeking to destabilize and adjust a global political-economic order founded upon extractivism, oppression, and inequality. This "genealogy" traces back at least 500 years if we consider the cultural transition into modernity, another millennia if we really consider the monopolizing tendency of power correlated with the rise of monotheistic religions, and another 11,000 years if we consider the deep influence of the agricultural revolution.

The Decentralized-Autonomous-Organization is an absolutely revelatory phenomenon and its meaning and implications in terms of big historical context, philosophy, and praxis must be better understood, and these findings shared with the world.

In the active participation in DAOs, the spearhead group of this Transdisciplinary Taskforce has observed the ubiquitous yearning amongst DAO members to be able to make the world a better place in a profound way. We want to pull this story from the very lips of DAOists, Founders, Members, Creators, Developers, etc., in a Multi-Media Production which connects this movement to its big context.

By leveraging our network in both Transdisciplinary Research, Development, Media and Marketing, we will investigate and tell this story not only for the community itself, but to raise awareness globally and begin to foster the shift in the hearts & minds of people. This will position Cardano as the responsible new world blockchain solution, aligned with the evolution of global civilization.

The end product of this project will be a publicly available series advocating for Cardano, DAOs, and Blockchain technologies. This requires thorough research into academic literature, individual use cases, and broader cultural opinions. Our project will begin with extensive research that explores these areas and use those findings to inform the creation of our new media solution.

We will judge our impact based upon two criteria: (1) the technical fidelity of the research (qualitative) - how it holds up under scrutiny & critical review (2) the reach of our media (quantitative) through our New Media partners - Better Worlds & dStudio DAO.

Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community.

This project will bring immense value to the Cardano Community. Listed below are some of the reasons why:

1. It will provide the community with a deeper sense of purpose, unity and vision about what we are really doing. It's not just a new technology, it's not just a new version of money, it's actually editing the very memetic significance of culture and how society cohabitates with itself, planet earth, and the cosmos.
2. The State of the DAO will also embolden the ethos of the peer-reviewed Cardano Community because the Cardano Community can boast that it directly invests in high grade technical research into history, philosophy, society, and evolution.
3. Another key benefit is prominent Cardano brand recognition as a lead underwriter/sponsor for the "State of the DAO" show, podcasts, and blogs. This will include key Cardano community members and developers being invited as guests on the show.
4. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the Cardano Community will be positively impacted because it does not live in a silo, it is a part of the web of life, and totally embedded in the socio-ecological nexus. Our work's primary focus is understanding how DAOs, and their correlate DeFi, have the capacity to evolve humankind's relationship with a world in metacrisis - the crisis being socioecological in nature.

We are excited to work intimately with the entire Cardano Community, collaborate and share our work directly with them.

Alongside of this, we are developing this multi-media production in partnership with Better Worlds (nonprofit DAO) and dStudio (DAO). It will be a primary objective for the reach of this work to be broad leveraging the media distribution network of our partner organizations.

The measurement of this work will be done in both a qualitative and a quantitative sense, (1) the technical fidelity of the research - qualitative (2) the reach of our media through our media partners - quantitative.

What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?

<u>Capability</u>

This application brings together decades of experience, network and assets in transdisciplinary research, multimedia production & distribution. Our research director actively works with the international centers for transdisciplinary research in France & Russia on subjects of global governance and socio-ecological development (e.g. Human Mediation & AI, 2023). The Transdisciplinary Method formulated by Jean Piaget, Eric Jantsch, Edgar Morin, and Basarab Nicolescu is entirely unique and mediates the issues seen in the siloed & fragmented approaches of contemporary academic & scientific research.

To accompany this, our team currently produces all the video/podcast and web content and global events for Better Worlds, since 2022, with which features many of the world’s bright minds on topics of tokenomics, artificial intelligence, carbonomics, ecology, nature tech, and sustainability. In addition, our Creative Director's Film work portfolio speaks for itself. This is an excellent demonstration of the quality of production and craft we provide.

We will also add that our Operations & Communications Coordinator is the current Marketing Director of Hypha DAO.

<u>Oversight</u>

As “State of the DAO” will be established as a DAO, all internal policy, program, HR, and fiscal decisions will be individually proposed to DAO with a passing vote threshold set initially at 20% quorum with 80% favorability. This will be transparently recorded on-chain.

With regards to the research gathered and prepared in the final “State of the DAO Report” and any additional published materials on-line will have source attributions, links, and/or requisite appendices.

<u>Validation</u>

Due to the nature of this project - breadth, width, and ambiguity are all benefits. As is mentioned in the title, we are embedding Cardano in the New World Paradigm. This means that Cardano will be primed to be put in a position of new connections, exposure, and interests. We cannot predict the results of these outcomes beforehand, because this would defeat the purpose. We want to actively and authentically discover what Cardano’s—and the extended network of DAOs and Tokenomic Actors—role is in transitioning Global Civilization from an extractive & unecological model, to one of equilibria & balance.

To do this, our method should be iterative, transdisciplinary, and informed by the active crafting of a media agenda & narrative.

We have an excellent research team which will be able to find the deep meaning & significance of the DAO emergence, coupled with an experienced, equipped, and globally distributed media production studio.

We estimate that the final milestone of a 'Report' & ‘Media Anthology Web Portal’ will become the alpha-point for the compounding development of further research, education, and inspiration.

What are the key milestones you need to achieve in order to complete your project successfully?

Create Research Plan

Output: Documented Research Plan & Interview Contact List

Criteria: Research Plan structured to (1) identify prevailing opinions about Cardano, Blockchain, DAOs, and Web3 technologies, (2) identify innovation trends and focuses of current technology, (3) identify areas of untapped opportunity for innovation.

• Contact list of individuals, organizations, and research authorities to interview

>Complete Interviews

Output: - Documented interview notes - Complete literature review - Interview Video repository - Multimedia Design & Scheduling

Criteria: The synoptic & completed literature review should provide a provisional, yet comprehensive contextualization of the State of the DAO in relationship to the New World Paradigm. Multimedia Design & Scheduling should provide a robust degree of detail on the production method & stylization behind podcast interviews and any other media concepts. The multimedia approach will be informed by the findings from interviews and literature review. Furthermore, key stakeholders should be identified, contacted and scheduled to complete this milestone.

>Pilot Series Episodes Produced

Output: Complete production on at least 5 different media artifacts and video pieces. Preliminary impact assessment

Criteria: Approved by dStudio & Better Worlds for post-production completion & distro. Assessed for audience reach and engagement

>Peer Review Articles

Output: Completed Draft of the Final Report for first rounds of Peer-Review

Criteria: Completed Draft should be suitable for distribution for select network peer-review

>Project Completion - Dual Submission

Output: (1) Comprehensive 'State of the DAO' 2024 report, Online Version (2) Multimedia Research Anthology Web Portal

(3) Fully launched web-series with research-backed content

Criteria: The success of the Project will be determined by a qualitative and a quantitative factor. The qualitative factor is the research & aesthetic fidelity judged by a technical reception of Cardano Stakeholders, and the wider ecosystem. The quantitative factor will be the measurement of the reach of our media distribution.

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

Basil Childers acts as the Media Production Lead, Series Director, and DAO Catalyst/Architect. He has worked in film, photography, and multi-media production for over 30 years, with hallmarks related to the documentation and amplification of regenerative businesses and organizations, human-rights and environmental activists, artists, and investigative journalists. He co-founded and leads the media production company, dSTUDIO DAO, which has been operating as a DAO since 2020, which also produced BetterWorlds.com. <https://www.basilchilders.com/>

Dominic Chequer is the Research Director. He is an award winning published academic on global governance and political-economy. For the past 5 years he has developed a niche working in the interstice of Academia, Entrepreneurship, and Nonprofits. Today he works actively with the French & Russian research institutes of Transdisciplinarity (CIRET; ITT). He is a founding member of New World X.

Rob Hurwich is our Operations & Outreach Coordinator, as well as a researcher and writer. He currently leads the team for Holistic Systems Cooperative DAO, and is the Marketing & Content Strategist for Hypha DAO. His work with the coordination and implementation of sales and marketing strategy into digital technology and team processes will help keep this project on track and on time.

Adrian Eaton is a Researcher and Writer on the team. As an independent researcher, he is primarily interested in providing research support. Furthermore, his active experience informs our team about how to connect these findings to traditional models of organization. Adrian runs an SME in California focused on information technology (IT) and cybersecurity.

Alongside of the core team, we will be incorporating the aid of consultants, specialists and assistants for tasks in research along with media production, postproduction, distribution, and marketing. The entire process will be managed in a DAO structure, on-chain.

Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources.

For this Cardano Open: Ecosystem project, requested funds from would be used as follows:

<u>Budget Breakdown</u>

Milestone 1 - Create Research Plan

• ₳5000/month Part-Time Salary
• split between project leads
• Expected completion time: 1 month
• Expected budget subtotal: ₳5000

Milestone 2 - Complete Interviews

• ₳5000/month Part-Time Salary
• split between project leads
• ₳5000/month Interview Overhead Costs
• ~20 Interviews per Month
• 100 interviews total
• Expected completion time: 5 months
• Expected budget subtotal: ₳50000

Milestone 3 - Pilot Episodes Creation

• ₳5000/month Part-Time Salary
• split between project leads
• ₳40000 - Production Costs
• split between producers, crew, talent and hard costs
• minimum 5 episodes (target 10eps)
• ₳40000 - Post-Production costs
• split between Producers, Editors, Artists, and hard costs
• minimum 5 episodes delivered (target 10eps) + social content
• Expected completion time: 3 months
• Expected budget subtotal: ₳85000

Milestone 4 - Final Report Draft

• ₳5000/month Part-Time Salary (split between project leads)
• ₳10000/month Contracting Budget
• split between 10 Partner Researchers
• Expected completion time: 2 months (concurrently with Milestone 3)
• Expected budget subtotal: ₳30000

Final Milestone - Project Completion | Dual Submission

• ₳15000/month Salary
• split between 4 Project Leads + 2 Partner Editors
• Expected completion time: 2 months (sequentially with Milestone 4)
• Expected budget subtotal: ₳30000

Requested Funds: ₳200000

Our project budget may exceed the maximum funding request of 200000 ADA. We will be working with our Strategic Partner Better Worlds (Nonprofit) for any additional funding requirements. All actual contributions and detailed token payouts will be tracked on our Project specific DAO ledger for auditing and analysis. Any unused ADA will be used for additional marketing/advertising of the series.

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

Cardano will benefit from this project through increased brand awareness as the primary underwriter/sponsor of the publicly distributed State of the DAO (SotD) report, podcast and web-series. This project should educate and attract new users to the Cardano ecosystem.

We believe there is exceptional long-term value for the Cardano ecosystem through this project. The assets that will be produced will enhance the knowledge base, strategic direction, and global perception of the Cardano community. This project, by fostering a deeper understanding of DAOs and their impact, positions Cardano at the forefront of thought leadership in the blockchain space, which we see as a long-term boost and strategic investment into the future of the ecosystem.

Note: Traditionally, the cost of two siloed academic researchers for one half year is ~208,224 ADA (USD$94,000). With the assistance of our existing partners, we are proposing to conduct the same research with a larger transdisciplinary team.