In the context of the ongoing incubation program “Decentralize Impact”, we aim to allocate its goals into the goals of Cardano’s project Catalyst as to dedicate resources and energy to promote Cardano throughout the phases unfolding. More specifically, the program aims to create a new mindset, to set the foundation for a new perception of governance and entrepreneurship based on decentralization and to empower the existing ecosystem, currently operating in Tunisia, while building the tools and infrastructure to replicate it in North Africa. This is a pioneer decentralized experience in North Africa for all stakeholders of the program (students, developers, entrepreneurs, mentors, investors, fund-seekers,…) by which we aim to initiate the DNA of an autonomous fully-decentralized ecosystem supported by a community that is constantly aware of decentralization and its effect on every project and business process.

By the end of the program, we aim to guide at least 3 teams of participants to put their business ideas into a realizable and scalable business model and guide them to find the proper investment through decentralized funding guiding them to the new model of the digital economy, and thus to numerous opportunities for business and technical development.

The program constitutes a stepping stone for the emergence of a decentralized ecosystem in the region. It aims to have an impact by giving big attention to the community-growth side, empowering it with keys and tools to be fairly governed and autonomous in the future. With such a foundation, the local ecosystem could evolve in a sustainable way.

To concretize the desired outcome, the methodology by which the program unfolds:

Sourcing phase:

This phase will be focused on creating interest around the project and marketing it to the local blockchain community. This will be achieved through various tools such as teaser videos, educational videos and events aiming to create community growth.

During the sourcing phase, the community will be incentivized to contribute to the program success and get rewarded through a tokenization process. By the end of the sourcing phase, one or more hackathons will be organized by Dar Blockchain in which the winning teams will qualify for the catalyst program.

Catalyst phase:

In this phase, we mainly focus on building the infrastructure of decentralized governance entities for the community in the form of a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). Then, hosting teams with blockchain related ideas.

We will provide the teams with a nest to mature their ideas from a business point of view as well as technical feasibility and involve the community in the selection phase using a voting system. Community involvement is rewarded by the token.

Incubation phase:

In this phase, we will incubate 6 to 8 projects that have been voted on via the DAO. Incubation is a training and mentoring program that aims to help participants create advanced proof of concept, strengthen their community, gain access to industry experts, and confirm utility as a product market fit solution. Experts and mentors are evaluated by the teams, and rewarded by the community token.

Funding phase:

Incubated teams set a soft cap and hard cap for their funding needs. The program delegates the decision making of fund allocation to the community. Based on the following token distribution percentage, the community stakes their tokens to their chosen projects: 50% to the engaged community rewards, 20% to the experts and mentors, and 30% to the program partners.

The projects that reach their Soft cap, are funded.

Risks:

Regulatory framework in certain blockchain use case

Lack of understanding of technology reduces confidence among participants

Ability to bring together a community on the DAO

Scalability of supported projects

Conversion toward decentralized decision making methods

Maturity of early Dapp users

Summer and holidays impact on project adoption

Mitigation Measures:

Integrate legal support

Educational videos and trainings

Community growth and management

Expert support

DAO implementation and testing

Partnerships with international blockchains

Adapting the calendar

10 Dec 2021: Ideation > Application [ON] | Launching event > To prepare Typeform (same questions as on the platform).

10 Jan 2022: Deadline for internal filtration and Application closure [OFF] > Migration towards the platform.

24 Jan 2022: Vote [ON].

30 Jan 2022: Vote [OFF].

31 Jan 2022: Winners announcement.

10 Mar 2022: Catalyst [ON]

11-13 Mar 2022: Bootcamp

15 Mar 2022 : Vote [ON]

21 Mar 2022 : Vote [OFF]

22 Mar 2022 : Winners announcement.

23 Mar 2022 : Incubation [ON].

23 May 2022 : Closing ceremony | Demo Day | Winners announcement

The following budget breakdown refers to the contribution brought to Gow Africa, Grow Cardano, comprising the sourcing activity to grow the Cardano community and educate them around its technology:

Educational videos: 9,600 USD

Set up key messages: 100 USD

Content research & schedule: 1,800 USD

Develop scripts: 3,400 USD

Shooting: 700 USD

Post-production: 3,500 USD

Deployment V1, V2, V3: 100 USD

Event organization, Digital Communication & PR: 15,640 USD

Event organization: 8,550 USD

Social media marketing: 2,600 USD

Public relations and sponsoring: 4,490 USD

Total: 25,000 USD

Mohamed Mnif:

Graduated as a Certified Chartered Accountant, Mohamed has 9 years experience around consulting and entrepreneurship. He worked for 4 years in auditing and financial services with EY in Tunis and EY Paris. In 2017, he dedicated his full attention to the role that plays technology and innovation in favor of decentralization.

He co-founded Lightency in Paris, a Startup that tokenises renewable energy with a focus on the African market, and Dar Blockchain, a technology hub in Tunisia that supports organizations in their digital transformation and helps startups in their strategy of growth.

Jaafar Saied:

Jaafar is a Blockchain entrepreneur since 2017, CEO of Lightency.io, a crypto cleantech startup and co-founder at DarBlockchain. Previously, he co-founded Decentral Magazine, a crypto web magazine, where he worked as a crypto journalist.

He provided several consulting services for Blockchain and crypto related projects, in the field of Supplychain, Energy, Security tokens, Nfts & DFI. Before his entrepreneurship experience he worked in technical and business positions at Paris based startups; Ecovadis and TheBubbles company.

Zeineb Kadhkadhi:

Graduated with a BBA in Business Administration from Tunis Business School with a major in Marketing, Zeineb had 4 years of experience working for NGOs and startups with a focus on strategic marketing and project management. With an optimal balance between big picture and detail orientation, her experience in planning, budgeting, evaluation, and monitoring experience continue to enrich the Dar Blockchain projects.

Khalil Brahem:

Graduated in a master’s of Digital Management & Information Systems last year, Khalil is a writer and Dar Blockchain’s innovation consultant and content creator. Eager to know more and motivated to make an impact, his understanding in editing and content creation enables him to grasp and translate abstractions and concepts to remap it to explicit documentation.

Sarah Arbi:

Senior consultant, Design thinker and communication strategist , Sarah combines strategy, communication and design thinking in a holistic approach to come up with innovatives methods, training approaches and intuitive problem solving tools. She strongly believes in human resourcefulness. Sarah started her career in the media before turning her own Marketing agency G-Dice and had a portfolio of leader campaigns and won the Best artistic production during the Tunisian Web Awards.

Salmen Slimi:

Global citizen and young graduate in Economics and Financial studies. Despite starting his career in late 2018, in Corporate Finance, Salmen has been a Financial Markets enthusiast for over 6 years. He later developed a deeper passion and focus in the Blockchain & Crypto Market. 2019 is when he first started investing both his time and money into various innovative and revolutionary projects in the industry.

The following metrics relate to the contribution relative to the Grow Africa, Grow Cardano F8 challenge, not to the actual KPIs of the incubation program:

2 Educational Videos

1 Conference

1 Webinar

1 Workshop

1 Virtual Hackathon

200-400 persons educated through (Workshops /Webinars/ Hackathon)

Our goal is to create a new mindset, to set the foundation for a new perception of governance and entrepreneurship based on decentralization and to empower the existing ecosystem.

By the end of the program, we target to guide at least 3 teams of participants to put their business ideas into a realizable business model and find the proper investment through decentralized funding guiding them to the new model of the digital economy.

The first proposal plan was to fund all the incubation programs. As succeeded to finance the program through IFC Tunisia, and as we believe in the Cardano vision and we want to participate in its mission we decided to participate in fund8 to have dedicated events only for Cardano, we believe that this is a great opportunity to onboard Cardano to North Africans and this collaboration will be only the beginning of very bigger collaboration.

Below is the previous affiliated proposal for Fund7:

Title: Decentralized Impact Incubation

Link: <https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/383823>

Previous requested fund: $200,000

Digital channels:

Discord Server: <https://discord.gg/uGwefqFD>

Facebook Page: <https://www.facebook.com/DecentralizeImpact/>

YouTube Channel: <https://www.youtube.com/c/DecentralizeImpact>