[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

<u>Our solution:</u>

Organize local workshops in which artists minting on Ethereum are presented with all the good reasons to mint their art on Cardano.

Artists that are minting on Ethereum will be invited to a venue. Here a video presentation will be shown that illustrates and explains the properties of the Cardano blockchain in general, and those regarding minting NFTs on Cardano in particular.

A comparison will be made between what the cost is to mint on Ethereum and on Cardano. Then a visualization of Cardano wallets. The artists that are enthusiastic will be helped there and then to create their first Cardano wallet. Lastly they will be invited to join our NFT platform, The Art Suite.

We will team up with existing art project workshops to be able to share infrastructure and local knowledge. One such possible partner is Controforma (controforma.camp)

It will take time to reach out to the many artists that are presently minting their art on Ethereum, so a long term vision is required.

The long term vision is to keep doing these workshops in as many countries as possible, once we have established the proof of concept and ‘how-to’ guide that can be used to help others in their local contexts.

Financing is needed to organize the Ethereum-Cardano workshops (in different countries) for a period of about one year. After that we should have standard educational material and refined procedures to bring costs down to a point that our NFT platform, The Art Suite, can take care of running expenses. At the same time, we will also be looking to develop partnerships and sponsorships in this period.

$3.5k was spent for the event that we hosted in Barcelona, out of pocket. In this proposal we are not talking about events but rather about workshops, where we can apply the lessons that were learned during our prototype event.

We estimate that with 2000$ USD we can finance a very well organized workshop in 4 different cities in Spain, over a period of 4 months, so the average cost of a workshop would be 500$.

The first such workshop will take place again at Hotel Ginebra, our venue, to keep costs to a minimum. We already have a strong presence and reputation in the Cardano ecosystem, as well as Barcelona. We are the first business in the world to accept ADA as payment, since 2017, and we wish to expand our positive impact and influence by helping to build bridges between other ecosystems and Cardano’s. We have been active on this front, and with the help of Catalyst funding, and community support, we can have even more of a positive impact locally and beyond.

<u>Environmental impact</u>

Ethereum as a blockchain is not environmentally friendly, quite the contrary: “The way Ethereum keeps your funds and assets secure is currently energy-intensive” and “So yes, there is a carbon footprint associated with creating blocks by mining – and this is a problem for chains like Bitcoin too”. - <https://ethereum.org/en/nft/#ethereum-and-nfts>

Cardano has been designed and optimized to be friendly to the environment and carbon neutral through collaborations with projects like Veritree <https://ito.veritree.com/>

This has been studied and further catalyzed by impact fellows and researchers from the Climate Neutral Cardano Group - <https://twitter.com/CardanoCnbg>

This distinction has been made during our first event and will be elaborated in future events and workshops.

<u>Why is it important?</u>

What we so far have noticed in the course of the prototype event was that nearly all artists that are selling their art on other blockchains and in this case on Ethereum, have absolutely NO IDEA about the technical properties and general advantages of Cardano. Although they all seem to be complaining about their experience on Ethereum based platforms such as OpenSea, nobody knows about Cardano. Artists are not necessarily technical people.

Cardano does not have enough outreach to automatically penetrate into the art world so we need to push for that to happen.

We have also learned that there is a conception in artist communities, especially among those that have not yet ventured out into creating NFTs that NFTs have a bad impact on the environment. In fact many artists do NOT WANT to create NFTs for that reason. When we explained that the Cardano blockchain consumes as much energy as a couple of households, they were relieved and positively inspired to learn how to create NFT collections on Cardano.

Energy Consumption per Transaction source: Blockchain Learning Center

Some statistics for context:

The NFT market on Ethereum is enormous and dwarfs Cardano by comparison. When you read “Ethereum NFTs” you should read “NFTs not yet on Cardano. Since the Cardano technology is vastly superior and easy to demonstrate, it is easy to see how the potential for bringing over artists (and consequently nft buyers) from Ethereum to Cardano is enormous.

From https://nftnow.com/culture/nfts-in-2021-by-the-numbers/ :

$14.6 billion – OpenSea’s total sales volume for 2021

OpenSea continued to break records month after month in 2021. With Dune Analytics reporting a total year-to-date sales volume upwards of $14.6 billion for the marketplace giant — in 2022 it’s likely we’ll see more of the same.

Note: OpenSea is to date the largest NFT platform that exists

<u>How big is the potential market?</u>

Still by far the biggest market of NFTs in the world is on Ethereum. Think OpenSea as shown above. There are many other marketplaces that are built on Ethereum all the more potential to transit artists to Cardano.

Think OpenPFP, X2Y2, LooksRare and GEM (<https://thevrsoldier.com/top-5-most-popular-nft-marketplaces-built-on-ethereum-may-2022/>) , all with very large trading volumes.

<u>What we have already accomplished and how much has been spent out of pocket for example prior to the proposal?</u>

We have come to identify the problem with the prototype event that we held at our Cardano Hotel Ginebra.This prototype event was self financed. We spent between 4000 and 5000 euros on catering, marketing, photographs, video crews, and the creation of educational material.

<u>Why is the problem solvable?</u>

The problem is solvable because it is just a matter of getting into the artist communities and doing the marketing from the inside out. We will for example not only invite individual artists, but also artist collectives, or their leaders. By doing a workshop with the right ten people, you indirectly reach hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands

<u>What would the world look like if our team solved it?</u>

Artists that are now struggling to sell their products on Ethereum based platforms will be able to enjoy the experience of using Cardano technology, which for one is much better for the environment.

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

<u>Why is it important?</u>

The NFT markets are possibly the maximum expression of activity on the Ethereum blockchain. To enter and transform that market to a more Cardano oriented NFT environment, will give a push to artists that mint on Ethereum as well as NFT lovers who purchase on Ethereum to migrate over to Cardano.

<u>What does success look like?</u>

With the workshop already hosted by Hotel Ginebra Barcelona, The Art Suite is well placed to continue onboarding and educating locals in Barcelona, and visitors from around the world about the benefits of migrating from Ethereum to Cardano.

This will particularly be facilitated by the tooling and platform being developed into a fully automated platform and supported by our affiliate proposal found at

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

The risk of not being able to deliver this successfully is very low.

We have gathered enough information and experience from our prototype workshop to understand that there is a great hunger and desire in the artist communities, to learn how to mint their NFTs in ways that are better than their current experience on Ethereum.

In fact, we were astounded and overwhelmed with the number of artists that expressed such interest at our prototype event.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

Phase 1 (1-4 weeks): Recruit a workshop coordinator. This person needs to also be skilled in graphic design and be an excellent communicator and will work with the team on the creation of standardized material to use in each workshop.

Phase 2 (5-6 weeks): Make a planning of where and when to keep the workshops. The workshops will most likely initially be kept in Europe. The choice of the cities will likely depend on what contacts we can use that we have gathered in particular during the first experimental art and NFT event held at Hotel Ginebra Barcelona.

Phase 3 Start up the workshops!!

The deliverables and KPIs will be:

Organise an ETH NFT -> Cardano Artist workshop in a different city in Europe, approximately once a month for a period of approximately one year.

Managing workload:

This Fund 9 will be the first time for our Hotel Ginebra and The Art Suite team to propose in Catalyst. We will have multiple proposals submitted this Fund, across categories. We are also receiving support from Sustainable ADA.

Our team are submitting five proposals this Fund 9, as part of a comprehensive approach of not only further developing the technical side of The Art Suite platform, but also to immediately start up our social impact projects which are designed to help further grow the platform by creating interaction with other blockchain ecosystems, partnerships, and employment with The Art Suite in Africa and Bangladesh.

It is therefor important to realise that our five proposals are stand-alone proposals in different categories.

The reason we feel we can submit these 5 proposals is that The Art Suite is fully operational (!) (*big automation update coming around July 15).

Each proposal is aimed at fortifying and scaling already existing separate initiatives and activities employed by the platform.

Here are links to the other 4 proposals.

<https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/417400>

Scaling ArtSuite NFT4Good Platform

<https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/417329>

The ArtSuite Multi-Chain NFT Events

<https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/417582>

HIre ArtSuite Coordinator in Africa

<https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/417628>

ArtSuite Cardano Course Bangladesh

As we have a globally decentralised, experienced, multiskilled and diverse team, working across timezones, and connected to various networks and communities, we can tap into our multiple connections and resources, to ensure we have a sustainable approach to managing our workload if we are to receive funding from Catalyst.

Here is a link explaining how Razali and Sustainable ADA, who are actively working on previously funded proposals and supporting this proposal, shall manage their workload:

<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SdUYlUODbPxgipIHgZ5uQDO3MoksnIqdONU1MGm5Uvw/edit?usp=sharing>

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

The budget breakdown for the ETH NFT Artist Workshops is the following: (open for optimisation)

One-time expense: the creation of educational material for workshops x 1 = 600 US$

Salary 1 part time Ethereum/Cardano Event coordinator: 700 US$ per month for 12 months = 8400 US$

Cost to organize a one day workshop: Approximately 500 US$

• Rent of a space
• Teacher
• Advertising
• Travel expenses
• Catering

Cost of 12 workshops in one year =6000 US$

Total cost = 15000 US$

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

<https://theartsuite.io/pages/team>

Alfred Moesker - Co-Founder & CEO

One of Cardano's renowned OGs is Alfred Moesker. In 2017 his Hotel Ginebra in Barcelona was the first business in the world to accept ADA as payment. www.hotelginebra.com.es

Stakepool operator of ‘HOTEL’, 25 years experience in the tourist business, managing and network skills. Since then he has contributed to the ecosystem with the Cardano Hotel Podcast and the Cardano Artist Corner, created the The Art Suite and recently partnered with Nazmul Biplop to set up charity food programme Thought For Food in Bangladesh. In September 2021 the "Cardano Hotel '' was sponsored by the Cardano Foundation and World Mobile as a venue for Goguen Summit.

https://twitter.com/bigezdaddy2017

https://twitter.com/thecardanohotel

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alfred-moesker-71159320/

Nazmul Islam Biplob - Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer

Graduated from Daffodil International University. Enthusiastic about history, finance, sociology & technology. Worked on various startup. In 2020 I met Alfred Moesker. I was introduced to Cardano and I was totally overwhelmed by the philosophy behind the project and the welcoming community. It was through collaborating and the meeting of minds with Alfred which led to the development of the Thought 4 Food Project in Bangladesh. The aim is to create a sustainable Thought 4 Food Project initially in Bangladesh and eventually globally.

https://twitter.com/DeveloperNaz

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mnazmulislambiplob/

Tom Wilkinson Co-Founder Innovation Director

Tom is in charge of minting technology and new technologies. Tom is a creative soul who in his ten-year career has worked tirelessly on a myriad of projects. These include designing, promoting and setting a variety of products. With a few years of experience under his belt Tom proceeded to set up several successful companies. Tom is originally a graphic designer but when he found his passion in blockchain technology, Tom was able to combine all the numerous skills he has gathered in different fields and apply them to the development of The Art Suite

https://twitter.com/timonies

Anthony Roberts- Communications Director

"You give a man a fish, he can eat for a day, you teach a man to fish and he can not only feed himself and his family, but he can now teach others to do the same!" I am passionate about being a vehicle to share knowledge, understanding, and engagement that can help to inspire, excite and educate others to live life on their own terms. The world needs more passion!! My vision is using blockchain technology to enable others (that may be mad talented, but not able to live off of their passion) to build, and monetise their passion by making it simple for them to leverage blockchain technology. I am excited to have joined the team at The Art Suite as we all share this vision, and have the passion, integrity and skills to manifest it!

https://twitter.com/gtcryptoant

https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-roberts-491037155

Natalie Attieh - Artist Coordinator

Hello, my name is Natalie Attieh. I was born in Jordan and moved to Canada at the age of 15. I am currently pursuing a degree in Leadership and Organizational Management with a minor in Psychology. During my spare time, I’m an artist dabbling with multiple mediums to express my passion about the art world. The NFT space is one I’m especially enthusiastic about, because of the endless opportunities it has unlocked for creatives and artists around the world. You can also find me on the agent page for both English language as well as Arabic speaking artists. At the same time I am also one of the presenters of the NFThubs Podcast on YouTube.

https://twitter.com/AttiehNatalie

https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalieattieh/

Razali Samsudin - Social and Environmental Impact Projects Director

14 years of experience as an interdisciplinary Educator from early years settings to postgraduate level, with a background in social sciences, humanities, and sustainability. Freelance Writer, Editor, Digital Economy, Blockchain, Sustainability and Impact Measurements Researcher (#Blockchain4Good, #Cardano4Good, #NFT4Good), Social Entrepreneur, Catalyst Proposal Mentor.

Wada UN SDG and Education Coordinator, Co-Founder of Sustainable ADA, Contributor at Cardano AIM, PositiveBlockchain, Cardano4Climate, Catalyst School and Adatruth.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/razali-samsudin

https://twitter.com/SustainableADA

https://twitter.com/Razlosophy

Elisa Farre - Artist Agent Coordinator

University degree in labor sciences and labor relations, with several master's degrees in business environment, with more than 15 years of experience. Blockchain enthusiast, she entered the Cardano and NFT world with Alfred Moesker. She is an art lover who has found a new way to enjoy this passion in the digital environment, accompanying artists on her digital adventure.

Contributions from stage 0 of the project with the CEO to detect needs to improve the portal, creation of documentation for operation (contracts with artists and agents, questionnaires to resolve doubts). External view of the portal, external point of view as artist/agent/visitor, provide improvements to the structure of the portal. Recruitment, including face-to-face, of artists from the non-digital world (painting, sculpture), answer questions from artists about the blockchain, NFT and Cardano. Wallet advice. Representation of artists physical work and agent in NFT.

https://twitter.com/elisafarre

**https://www.linkedin.com/in/elisafarre**/

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

If this proposal is funded, we aim to progressively work to a sustainable model so that our events are self - financed, as explained in the Feasibility Detailed Plan. Nonetheless, we cannot be 100% certain as to whether or not we will return to Catalyst in a later round as we seek to scale further afield globally in the long term.

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

Number of workshops

Number of attendees

Number of artists from Ethereum

Number of artists opening Cardano wallets

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

Our definition of success is when we are successfully hosting workshops, and seeing the joy and excitement come to life for artists, creatives, and locals in Barcelona as they come to our venue and learn about the advantages of using Cardano.

We see attendees leave with a new vision and sense of inspiration and empowerment that they have now got the tools and information they need to make life changing decisions that will have a positive impact in their lives and those around them, as part of a positive multiplier effect, doing what they love and loving what they do!

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

This proposal is a new one.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

SDG goals:

Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

Goal 11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

SDG subgoals:

4.7 By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development

11.4 Strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage

#proposertoolsdg