[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.
In order to engage students at the univeristy, we will put on three introductory events to capture the attention of students and then offer several 3-day virtual hackathons to further engage students in a more practical way. Finally, those who excel in the hackathon will be funneled into a more serious training with Wada's Cameroon Hub to become trainers in Wada's Haskell and Plutus education initiative.
The activities we will organize (in French!):
In addition to hosting introductory lectures on the Cardano ecosystem and Project Catalyst, the Student Hub would do the following:
- Organize programming sessions on Haskell and functional programming for computer science students who will be sanctioned by Hackathons
- Create a path for the best products from the Hackathon sessions so that they can receive a scholarship to learn Plutus or Atala Prism
- Encourage the student to participate in Project Catalyst as community advisors by introducing them to decentralized governance
- Accompany students who wish to apply for funding through Project Catalyst
[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.
Cardano aims to be a major player in decentralized digital transformation in Africa. To achieve this goal, it is important to engage with local stakeholders (governments, NGOs, private sector companies) in carrying out projects that solve real problems in the market. But this is only possible if the Cardano ecosystem through Project Catalyst can help in training local developers to find solutions to local problems using the Cardano blockchain.
[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?
People might not be initially interested to participate in these events especially if it comes at a personal cost (in terms of transportation, internet costs, and time).
We plan to mitigate this risk by motivating people to come to our events. Not only will we be providing refreshments, but we will also have small motivations for those who attend to cover their transportation costs (approx $1/person). In addition to the small motivations there will be the opportunity to receive more financial compensation through various prizes at our events, especially the hackathons. Additionally we will provide internet to those who participate.
[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.
Phase 1: The first three events should take place monthly over the three months post funding.
First event: Introduction to blockchain / Cardano
Second event: More on blockchain: use cases, applications, and opportunities
Thrid event: Project Catalyst Ecosystem (Proposal Submission, How to become a Community Advisor, and voting)
Phase 2: Following these events we will then host several virtual hackathons with prizes, channeling the energy we create through our events into practical applications.
Phase 3: Funneling the students who excel in the hackathons into Wada's larger Haskell and Plutus education initiative. We will be working with a project based learning approach in collaboration with Wada's Cameroon Hub, who are working on real solutions to implement in Cameroon and therefore will have real applications to work through to train these future trainers/Wada developers.
[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.
Budget: $12,000
Internet: $1,000
Attendee motivations: $1,000
Refreshments: $2,000
Speaker motivations (travel and logistics): $5,000
Hackathon prizes: $3,000
Not budgeted (provided through school partnership): Conference room, electricity, sound, projector, etc.
[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.
Paul Mupenda: Project lead in Goma, 5th year university student (Computer science), previous experience in Haskell programming, member of the college of ISIG-GOMA students.
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-mupenda/>
Vianney KITUMAINI: Senior Software Architect and Developer, 8+ years of programming experience, Multilingual (French, English, Lingala, Swahili)
Director of ISIG-GOMA Information System & Head of IT Department
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/vianney-kitumaini-b526ba102/>
Wada Cameroon Hub to support with technical training and hackathon implementation and coordination:
Manfo: Cameroon Team Co-Lead, Senior software architect & developer, 12+ year of experience programming, 3+ years in functional programming paradigm (F#, Haskell, Elm), Multilingual (French, English, Italian, Ngiembo)
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/felicienfotiomanfo1642a479/>
Nkalla: Senior software architect & developer, 12+ year of experience programming, 3+ years in functional programming paradigm (Haskell), Mathematics teacher (Education Systems Engineering), Multilingual (French, Italian, English, Mbo)
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/didier-junior-nkalla-ehaw%C3%A9-2a40a463/>
Arcel: Senior Software developer in Closure 7 + years experience, Project manager, Multilingual (French, English, Medumba)
Megan: Cameroon Team Co-Lead, Central Africa Coordination Lead, Wada core team member (Education and Event Lead), Math & Physics teacher, bilingual (French & English)
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/megan-hess-5b853292/>
Wada network of resources
[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.
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Yes
[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?
We will measure the progress of this proposal based on the phases:
Phase 1: event attendance, and feedback
Phase 2: hackathon attendance, feedback, and scores
Phase 3: number of trainees enrolled in Wada's education program
What does success for this project look like?
We will measure the success of this proposal based on the phases:
Phase 1: event attendance 300+ total in attendance for 3 events
Phase 2: hackathon attendance 60+ total attendance for 3 hackathons
Phase 3: number of trainees enrolled in Wada's education program, 12+ trainees
[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?
We will measure the success of this proposal based on the phases:
Phase 1: event attendance 300+ total in attendance for 3 events
Phase 2: hackathon attendance 60+ total attendance for 3 hackathons
Phase 3: number of trainees enrolled in Wada's education program, 12+ trainees
[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.
This itself is a new proposal, however we will be working closely with the Wada Cameroon hub to continue their work on successful proposals, and they will be leading us on the education and events.
<https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Spread-Plutus-through-Africa/381332-48088>
<https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Clubs+hackathons-=-Cardano-adoption/381318-48088>
