funded

Small Change Wallet

$4,500.00 Received
$9,000.00 Requested
Ideascale logo View on ideascale
Community Review Results (1 reviewers)
Addresses Challenge
Feasibility
Auditability
Solution

Create a native token and a wallet to help collect small change making sure to incorporate an exchange platform with microfinance businesses

Problem:

In Cameroon, finding the right change to match purchases of everyday goods and services is a huge challenge affecting local communities.

Yes Votes:
₳ 63,853,427
No Votes:
₳ 11,189,195
Votes Cast:
232

This proposal was approved and funded by the Cardano Community via Project F7: Mini/Low-Budget Dapps & Integrations Catalyst funding round.

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Detailed Plan

Understanding the context:

Cameroon has a scarcity of small change to the point where everyday transactions can be challenging when you don't have small change. For example, for me to take a motorcycle ride to the market, it should cost 100 XAF. If I have a bill of 2,000 XAF or even 1,000 I could easily spend the whole day waiting for someone who could take me and reimburse me. (I learned this early on when living here when I spent 30 minutes with a 500 bill looking for a ride. I ended up paying double just for the problem of not being able to be reimbursed). So there are two options of what might happen if you do not have small change.

1. You may be forced to overpay for items or services

2. Purchase other small things that you don't really need in order to help make easier change

3. You can sometimes find someone willing to sell you small change for a fee

Now, you may be thinking why is there not a better solution to this. How do people function? To answer–yes, there are a few solutions that do exist trying to address this huge issue. For example, many vendors are reluctantly starting to accept mobile money, however when you look closely at how much these mobile carriers charge for this service you realize that it ends up being pretty much the same scam as described above. Additionally it is common to form relationships with local vendors and establish informal IOUs when the change issue comes about.

Even in large grocery stores such as Carrefour (international French grocery chain)where you might think they should not have this problem, they have the following solutions: 1. Pay with credit card (uncommon for everyday people to have a credit or debit card) 2. pay with mobile money 3. purchase extra items at the register such as gum, chocolates etc, trying to make easier change, or finaly 4. they will print a paper based IOU (in my experience on paper that is very susceptible to fading if you do not use it quickly enough)

Problem Summary:

Under the current system of addressing the small change problem it translates into the following hardships for people:

  1. Loss of time
  2. Extra expenses
  3. Hard to manage IOUs (unreliable and hard to keep track of)

For businesses:

  1. Loss of potential customers due to change
  2. Exposition to fraud (exploitation of IOU)

Our solution:

Small Change Wallet will be a mobile app built in 3 steps on the Cardano Blockchain:

  • Step 1: Create a native token, pegged to the local currency (XAF) which will serve as a means to collect small transferable change
  • Step 2: Build a partnership model with microfinance businesses in order to have in place an exchange mechanism that will allow the user to convert their collective small change back into the local currency system when needed.
  • Step 3: Design and implement a small change wallet that integrates a QR interface an leverages the Hydra vision of micro-payments to allow the users to collect their change into a digital coin that can easily be used to carry out future transactions.

Core Team & Roles:

Wada Cameroon Hub

  • 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)
  • 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)
  • Arcel: Senior Software developer in Closure 7 + years experience, Project manager, Multilingual (French, English)
  • Megan: Cameroon Team Co-Lead, Central Africa Coordination Lead, Wada core team member (Education and Event Lead), Math & Physics teacher, bilingual (French & English)

Wada Network

  • Wada Devs: this will be one of the projects which will be lead through the Cameroon Hub but will also leverage our network of Wada Devs that we will be training in Plutus and Haskell to support the development of our dApp. Also we will be creating a solution together with many inputs from the different Wada hubs making a pathway for this dApp to be implemented in other countries within our network as well.
  • Wada Marketing Team

Feasibility:

Reference (Past Successes):

Wada has already established active hubs in: Ivory Coast (French), Ghana (English), Nigeria (English), Cameroon (French & English) and Democratic Republic of Congo (French). Through our Cameroon hub we are launching a Haskell and Plutus training initiative that will be leading project based learning throughout our hubs. This project is an example of one of the projects we wish to work through as a learning journey for our aspiring devs.

See related proposal for Scale-UP Cardano Community Hubs: Spread Plutus through Africa <https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Spread-Plutus-through-Africa/381332-48088>

Budget:

  • Research and Development: $2000
  • Developer team motivation: $6000
  • Marketing & Advertisement: $1000

Auditability:

What success looks like:

  • Launch of MVP Dapp with 6 months post funding
  • Dapp fully designed, implemented and deployed within 9 months post funding
  • Hundreds of users signed up 3 months post launch

Key Metrics:

  • 3 months: 1 partnered micro finance institution, stable coin created
  • 6 months: MVP dApp small set of test users engaged
  • 12 months: dApp version 1 launched and in circulation
  • 500 accounts created within first 3 month after launch
  • 1000s (merchant-customer) transaction within 6 months

Risk Management:

The main risks we foresee are: The local context not accepting and therefore not adopting the digital stable coin model. We plan to mitigate this risk by running intensive marketing awareness and education campaigns that focus on showing the multidimensional benefits (from ownership to availability) of digital stable coins to the merchant. This is linked to our wider Wada initiatives to spread understanding and adoption of blockchain technology throughout Africa.

Community Reviews (1)

Comments

Monthly Reports

We have not yet officially launched this project, however we have defined our roadmap and plan to hire a few interns over the next month to officially launch the project.

Disbursed to Date
$4,500
Status
Launched
Completion Target
3/1/2023
Comments 0

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-Continued research on Stable coin model that will best fit local context -Started selection process for developer interns to work on the project

Disbursed to Date
$4,500
Status
Still in progress
Completion Target
1/4/2022
Comments 0

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  • Hired first 4 interns that will work on the project.
  • Orientation meetingfor interns tomorrow 5/24
  • First day of training June 1. Practice in Haskell will be geared towards this project and others being ran Cameroon Hub.
  • Stable coin research: settled on one potential model that we feel will fit local context (based on “monnai libre ocitanie” in France)
Disbursed to Date
$4,500
Status
Still in progress
Completion Target
4/1/2023
Comments 0

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-Intern training program launched june 1 -Practice in Haskell will be geared towards this project and others by the Cameroon Hub.

Disbursed to Date
$4,500
Status
Still in progress
Completion Target
1/4/2023
Attachment(s)
Comments 0

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no

Disbursed to Date
$4,500
Status
Still in progress
Completion Target
5. After 1 year
Attachment(s)
Comments 0

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Please accept this report for August.

Disbursed to Date
$4,500
Status
Still in progress
Completion Target
5. After 1 year
Comments 0

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Intern training is advancing as planned. Please see more detail in attached report.

Disbursed to Date
$4,500
Status
Still in progress
Completion Target
5. After 1 year
Comments 0

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Intern program continues to advance, our goal is to start architecture with our interns by the end of the year. More details in the attached report.

Disbursed to Date
$4,500
Status
Still in progress
Completion Target
5. After 1 year
Comments 0

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Interns are in the project phase of wrapping up the Haskell module. Next phase will be starting project development. More details in attached report.

Disbursed to Date
$4,500
Status
Still in progress
Completion Target
5. After 1 year
Comments 0

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