[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Our proposed solution addresses a persistent issue in the remote work landscape: disputes arising from direct work contracts between organizations and remote developers. Problems often surface as delayed payments or incomplete deliverables. This issue has significant implications, as a survey by the Independent Economy Council shows that 74% of respondents experienced delayed payments, and 59% are owed $50,000 or more for completed work.

Currently, escrow services offer a buffer to these issues, securing payment and protecting both remote developers and hiring organizations. However, these centralized services, such as Fiverr, tend to be expensive, with commission fees reaching up to 25%, and maintain total control over the dispute resolution process. Our unique approach challenges this status quo by decentralizing escrow services, thereby reducing costs and ensuring a fair dispute settlement process.

Socious will significantly impact two primary stakeholders: remote developers and hiring organizations.

The platform's design encompasses three core benefits:

1 Decentralized decision-making: Socious champions community-wide decision-making, utilizing on-chain governance processes and its unique "Socious Experts Certificates". These credentials, issued only to individuals with an impact score above 700, are non-transferable, ensuring that governance power is widespread and held by informed decision-makers. The Socious Experts become the decision-makers in dispute resolution, motivated to make impartial and fair decisions due to their active involvement in the Socious platform. For more information about Impact Score, please visit <https://socious.notion.site/Socious-Whitepaper-58fbe2c106f547898df42e409a00c73e?pvs=4>.

Every "Socious Expert Certificate" serves as a dynamic record of a user's passions and proficiency in distinct social and environmental issues, tailored by their actions within the Socious app. The certificate's influence, in terms of voting power, is calibrated according to the user's interests and proficiency relevant to the matter at hand. To illustrate, if a vote is required to allocate escrow funds for an open-source project aimed at combatting climate change, the ballots of Socious Experts who have invested their resources - time, expertise, and finances - into environmental projects and enlisted developers for similar initiatives would be given proportional weightage. Unlike centralized platforms, where decision-making rests with the platform owners, potentially raising concerns of censorship and bias, Socious ensures democratic decision-making facilitated by a selected panel of three Socious Experts.

The role of Socious Experts extends to mediating dispute resolutions between organizations and their contracted remote developers. In a scenario where a developer has completed their assignment and provided the code, but the hiring organization disputes the completion and withholds the escrow funds, the developer has the opportunity to submit a dispute. An agreement by both parties to disclose specific information to a panel of three Socious Experts helps facilitate the process. To initiate a dispute, each party stakes a designated quantity of tokens as dispute settlement fees. The party whose claim is upheld will receive their staked tokens along with the refund/payment, whereas the unsuccessful party forfeits their staked tokens, which will be awarded to the adjudicating experts.

The Socious Expert status is exclusively available to individuals demonstrating active use and contributions to the Socious platform, inherently instilling a commitment to fair and unbiased decisions. This prerequisite ensures a network of trusted experts working towards the collective good of the platform and its users.

2 Automated payment: Socious' decentralized escrow mechanism includes an automated payment system implemented via smart contracts. The agreed-upon amount is transferred to an escrow wallet once the project status turns to “hired”. The organization can't move the asset, and upon project completion, the funds automatically transfer to the freelancer. If a project is canceled, the funds are automatically returned to the organization.

3 Cheaper Fees: The use of blockchain technology for payments eliminates third-party fees often seen on centralized platforms. Also, community members handle dispute resolution, significantly reducing the operational cost associated with it.

This solution is uniquely relevant to Cardano, as it leverages the power of blockchain to build a community-oriented platform. It aligns with Cardano's commitment to developing decentralized solutions and fostering innovation in the industry.

As the escrow mechanism project has already been successfully funded and completed in the Catalyst Fund 9 Developer Ecosystem Challenge, our focus now lies in decentralizing the dispute resolution process, thereby allowing community members to make decisions rather than the central Socious team. The aim is to create an ecosystem that genuinely values and implements community decision-making. Our solution's impact will be demonstrable by the increased resolution of disputes and the cost-effective, streamlined experience for both hiring organizations and remote developers.

[IMPACT] How does your proposed solution address the challenge and what benefits will this bring to the Cardano ecosystem?

Our proposed solution directly responds to the challenge by tackling its central questions, thereby enriching the Cardano ecosystem:

Firstly, the challenge asks, "What tools do we need to prioritize first?" We firmly believe that fostering an optimal developer experience is paramount. To this end, we've focused on secure and timely payments, ensuring developers receive their rightful earnings. By providing a more cost-effective escrow service coupled with an unbiased dispute resolution mechanism, developers can concentrate their energies on creating successful applications rather than worrying about financial uncertainties.

Secondly, the challenge seeks to answer, "How do we attract developers from outside of our current community to participate in Catalyst?" The solution lies in our innovative “incentivization structures”. We propose to draw developers to the Cardano ecosystem by offering tangible incentives such as our impact score and THANK tokens. These rewards not only attract but also inspire developers to create on the Cardano platform.

The challenge also calls for "Support structures" and "Collaborative structures". Our decentralized escrow system extends this support, fostering a nurturing environment for both freelance remote developers and hiring organizations. This system relies on a democratic decision-making process, mediated by community-based impact experts. Furthermore, by offering automated payments and reduced fees for both freelance developers and hiring organizations, we enable a conducive collaborative atmosphere.

In line with the strategic objective of “increasing the number of open source projects on Cardano,” our project exemplifies this ethos as Socious has been an open-source initiative since its inception. We encourage developers on our platform to similarly champion open-source projects within the Cardano realm.

Our project aligns seamlessly with the challenge's key metrics:

1. Number of developers actively building on top of Cardano: By safeguarding developers' work through our escrow system, we pave the way to attract a greater influx of developers to the Cardano ecosystem.
2. A strong community of developers and proposers thriving on active collaboration: Socious, being a social networking app, lays the foundation for developers to connect with their peers, foster community spirit, and engage in meaningful dialogues.

To date, we boast over 3,700 registered users, a significant portion of whom are developers who had not been presented with opportunities to work with Cardano prior to joining Socious. Through our project, we foresee not only an increased adoption of the Cardano platform but also a vibrant, synergistic community fostering open-source innovation.

[IMPACT] How do you intend to measure the success of your project?

Our project proposes significant benefits to the Cardano ecosystem:

1. Drawing external developers into the Cardano fold via well-designed incentive structures such as impact scores and THANK tokens.
2. Cultivating an enhanced developer experience through protective measures like secure payments, reduced escrow protection fees, and a balanced dispute resolution system.
3. Propelling the count of open-source projects on Cardano, with a specific focus on inciting developers to champion these initiatives.

We will evaluate our project's success through quantifiable and qualitative metrics:

Quantitative Metrics: One key metric is the count of registered users on our platform. At present, Socious enjoys a thriving community of over 3,700 registered users, a substantial portion of which are developers newly introduced to the Cardano ecosystem. By the culmination of the project, we aspire to boost this figure to 6,000. Given Socious's current growth trajectory and the invaluable proposition our project offers to the platform and the Cardano ecosystem, we believe this target to be pragmatic and achievable.

Qualitative Metrics: We will also gauge success through user testimonials and feedback, understanding their experience with our platform, the effectiveness of our dispute resolution system, and their perceived value of our incentive structures.

Our innovation stands to bolster Cardano's productivity and growth, both immediately and in the long haul:

Short-Term Impact: Cardano developers can leverage our platform to circumvent wage disputes and economize on escrow protection, enabling them to concentrate on crafting successful Dapps on Cardano.

Long-Term Impact: Our unique mechanisms of Impact Score and THANK tokens promise to lure more developers to embark on open-source projects within the Cardano ecosystem, thereby expanding its range and reach over time.

[IMPACT] Please describe your plans to share the outputs and results of your project?

We plan to spread the project's outputs during and after its completion. While building, we provide monthly and milestone reports, and present in two Town Hall meetings every two weeks: the Eastern Town Hall and the Pacific Town Hall. We regularly attend these town hall meetings to provide project updates and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. Because we are based in Japan, these two town halls are the only ones we can attend on a regular basis. Occasionally, such as upon completion of the project, we attend other town halls to give presentations, although they occur at 2-3AM for us.

We will share the projects’s outputs, impact and opportunities with the community members. The links to our close-out report and video will be publicly available on Youtube. We will also share information on our website and social media. Because we are a gig marketplace, gig opportunities for Cardano developers will be listed on our Socious platform.

Since Socious is an open source project, our code base is public on our GitHub page and Cardano developers are encouraged to fork and use it for other projects.

We will be using the escrow protection and the dispute settlement features to hire more developers and further our development activities.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability?

Our team is aptly suited and equipped to successfully deliver this project. We possess the requisite capabilities that uniquely position us to execute this project to high standards of trust and accountability.

As outlined in the section "Who is in the project team and what are their roles?", our team is composed of seven full-time members, each bringing considerable experience in developing Dapps. To supplement our core team, we maintain a reserve of skilled freelancers, ready to contribute at short notice. Our talent marketplace, Socious, is a hub for over 3,700 individuals, many of whom could potentially assist in this project, if required.

Our ability to deliver is not just theoretical but backed by an impressive track record. We have successfully completed five distinct Catalyst projects funded in Fund 9, all within the projected timelines and budget. These accomplishments bear testament to our capabilities and our commitment to deliver projects as proposed.

The Fund 9 projects we’ve completed are as follows:

1. Recognize Impact through DIDs <https://projectcatalyst.io/funds/9/f9-dapps-products-and-integrations/recognize-impact-through-dids>
2. Atala Integration with Milkomeda <https://projectcatalyst.io/funds/9/f9-dapps-products-and-integrations/atala-integration-with-milkomeda>
3. Decentralized Escrow for Remote Job <https://projectcatalyst.io/funds/9/f9-developer-ecosystem/decentralized-escrow-for-remote-job>
4. Impact lending for the unbanked <https://projectcatalyst.io/funds/9/f9-dapps-products-and-integrations/impact-lending-for-the-unbanked>
5. Scoring Social/Environmental Impact <https://projectcatalyst.io/funds/9/f9-catalyst-natives-x-cardashift-demonstrating-and-monetizing-impact/scoring-socialenvironmental-impact>

The trustworthiness in our fund management processes is grounded in our serious adherence to legal and financial compliance. Each transaction conducted is meticulously documented with tangible evidence and audited internally for accuracy. To bolster our commitment to financial transparency, we have established collaborations with external accounting firms that assure compliance. Our Japanese entity works with Tatsumi Accounting Firm (https://kessan-online.jp/company**), while our Singaporean entity partners with BBCIncorp (https://bbcincorp.com/offshore/accounting-and-auditing**).

Additionally, we liaise with an external law firm, Enlighten Law Group (**https://www.enlightenlaw.com/**), to ensure full legal compliance. This meticulous, multilayered approach to fund management reflects our dedication to maintaining high levels of trust and accountability.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What are the main goals for the project and how will you validate if your approach is feasible?

The goals of the project is develop the “decentralized dispute settlement” feature on the Socious app (https://socious.io/app) so that the users can perform the following functions on the app.

• As a user (both hiring organization and freelancer), I can initiate a dispute settlement mechanism by staking assets
• The Socious app randomly selects three Socious Experts to serve as judges on the case
• The chosen judges can make decisions on how to allocate the escrow funds (either to freelancer or hiring organization).
• Based on the judges’ decision, the smart contract executes and releases the escrow funds to the winner.
• The three judges receive the loser’s staked assets as dispute settlement fees.

Our Technical Approach:

We use several technologies to develop the functions mentioned above. We use Atala PRISM DID to receive non-transferrable verifiable credentials (i.e., impact points) to determine who will be eligible to serve as judges on the panel. Our partner ProofSpace helps us integrate Atala PRISM DID to Socious. For identity verification and KYC-AML, we use Veriff which is fully integrated with ProofSpace; our users can use passports and other IDs to verify their identity. For the escrow mechanism, we use Milkomeda, Cardano’s side chain, and Solidity/EVM for smart contracts. We use React for the frontend technology and Capacitor to deploy the app to App Store and Playstore. Our backend technology is Javascript, and we use a MySQL database on AWS. For Agile tools, we use GitHub and Notion. For design tools, we use Figma and Miro.

We believe that our approach is feasible as we have used these technologies and tools in the past, delivering successful projects including the five Catalyst projects in Fund 9.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed breakdown of your project’s milestones and each of the main tasks or activities to reach the milestone plus the expected timeline for the delivery.

We have six milestones, including the final milestone, and we plan to complete the entire project within 12 months from the start.

Milestone 1

Title: Market and Technical Research

Outputs

Milestone 1 includes the following key activities:

• Conduct a literature review of the issue.
• Perform a market analysis.
• Conduct a competitor analysis.
• Conduct interviews with stakeholders and analyze them (recording dates and timestamps).
• Conduct research on technical aspects of the project.
• Develop a detailed plan of action for the project.
• Draft a technical and market research paper summarizing the findings above.

Acceptance criteria

The market and technical research paper is finalized and published on Notion. It is accessible for community review.

Evidence of Milestone completion

Community members can access the market and technical research paper to find the following content:

• Literature review
• Market analysis
• Competitor analysis
• Interviews with stakeholders and their analysis (including dates and timestamps)
• Technical aspects of the project
• Detailed action plans for the project

Expected timeline for the delivery

Month 2

Cost

77,538 ADA ($10,080)

% Completion

14%

Milestone 2

Title: UI/UX Research

Outputs

Milestone 2 includes the following key activities:

1. Based on the market and research paper, brainstorm and Ideate
2. Create prototypes for user research
3. Conduct user research using the prototypes
4. Compile and analyse the findings
5. Iterate design and repeat Step 3 and 4.
6. Finalize the UI/UX design
7. Consult with the developers to decide on the technical architecture based on the design
8. Draft a UI/UX Research Paper

These steps will results in a finalized UI/UX Research Paper.

Acceptance criteria

The UI/UX Research Paper is finalized and published on Notion. It is accessible for community review.

Evidence of Milestone completion

Community members can access the UI/UX research paper.

Expected timeline for the delivery

Month 4

Cost

99,077 ADA ($12,880)

% Completion

32%

Milestone 3

Title: UI/UX Design

Outputs

Milestone 3 includes the following key activities:

1. Complete the production-ready design in Figma.
2. Film a video walk-through of the design.

These steps will result in a finalized, production-ready UI/UX design in Figma, along with a video walk-through.

The Figma file will be published and made available for community review. Similarly, the video walk-through will be published on YouTube and made available to the community.

Acceptance criteria

The production-ready UI/UX design is finalized, published and is accessible to the community for review.

The finalized production-ready design will be handed over to the engineering team. “Production-ready” means that it doesn’t need more work from designers and is ready for the engineering team to turn the design into code.

The video walk-through will be published on YouTube and made available to the community.

Evidence of Milestone completion

The Figma files and the video walk-through are publicly available and community members are able to review them.

Expected timeline for the delivery

Month 6

Cost

47,385 ADA ($6,160)

% Completion

40%

Milestone 4

Title: Backend and Blockchain Development

Outputs

Milestone 4 involves the following key activities:

• Sprint planning, which includes meetings with the Product Manager, designers, and developers. This includes writing tickets with specifications, assigning story points, and more.
• Backend development
• Blockchain development
• Unit testing
• Manual testing
• Bug fixes
• Deployment
• Documentation

These steps will allow us to develop the feature and make the GitHub repository (public) available to the community member.

Acceptance criteria

The community members can review the source code which will be available on GitHub (open source)

Evidence of Milestone completion

Community members can view the source code of the features on GitHub (open source)

Expected timeline for the delivery

Month 8

Cost

90,462 ADA ($11,760)

% Completion

56%

Milestone 5

Title: Frontend Development

Outputs

Milestone 5 involves the following key activities:

• Sprint planning, which includes meetings with the Product Manager, designers, and developers. This includes writing tickets with specifications, assigning story points, and more.
• Frontend development
• Unit testing
• Integration testing
• Manual testing
• End-to-end testing
• Bug fixes
• Deployment
• Documentation
• Film a product demo video

These steps will allow us to deploy the "decentralized dispute settlement" feature and produce a product demo video.

Acceptance criteria

Users can go through the “decentralized dispute settlement” feature on the Socious app. They include the following functions:

• As a user (both hiring organization and freelancer), I can initiate a dispute settlement mechanism by staking assets
• The Socious app randomly selects three Socious Experts to serve as judges on the case
• The chosen judges can make decisions on how to allocate the escrow funds (either to freelancer or hiring organization).
• Based on the judges’ decision, the smart contract executes and releases the escrow funds to the winner.
• The three judges receive the loser’s staked assets as dispute settlement fees.

1. The source code will be available on GitHub (open source)
2. These features will be published and available for the community members to go through the flow on the Socious app.
3. We will film a walk-through of these functions and publish the video on Youtube so that community members can access it.

NB: The aforementioned functions are subject to change, depending on the result of research in this project.

Evidence of Milestone completion

1. Community members can view the source code of the features on GitHub (open source)
2. Community members can view the video walk-through of these functions on Youtube.

Expected timeline for the delivery

Month 10

Cost

163,692 ADA ($21,280)

% Completion

85%

Final Milestone

Title: Marketing, user testing, data analysis and final report

Outputs

Final Milestone involves the following key activities:

• Marketing to a specific target audience
• Onboard users as beta testers
• Conduct user acceptance testing
• Analyze users’ feedback
• Bug fixes if necessary
• Draft a project close-out report
• Record a close-out video

These steps will produce two deliverables: a close-out report and a close-out video

Acceptance criteria

The following items are publicly available for the community to review.

• Project close-out report
• Project close-out video

Evidence of Milestone completion

Community members can access and review the project close-out report. The project close-out video is published on Youtube for the community to review.

Expected timeline for the delivery

Month 12

Cost

81,846 ADA ($10,640)

% Completion

100%

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please describe the deliverables, outputs and intended outcomes of each milestone.

Milestone 1

Title: Market and Technical Research

Outputs and Deliverables

Milestone 1 includes the following outputs:

• Conduct a literature review of the issue.
• Perform a market analysis.
• Conduct a competitor analysis.
• Conduct interviews with stakeholders and analyze them (recording dates and timestamps).
• Conduct research on technical aspects of the project.
• Develop a detailed plan of action for the project.
• Draft a technical and market research paper summarizing the findings above.

At the end of these outputs, we deliver a technical and market research paper summarizing the findings above

Intended outcomes

The market and technical research paper is finalized and published on Notion. It is accessible for community review.

How we measure the project’s progress

We use Notion's project management function to track the progress of our projects. We organize our work into different projects, tasks, and sprints, and this tool allows us to measure our progress. An example is attached below.

Community members can access the market and technical research paper to find the following content:

• Literature review
• Market analysis
• Competitor analysis
• Interviews with stakeholders and their analysis (including dates and timestamps)
• Technical aspects of the project
• Detailed action plans for the project

Milestone 2

Title: UI/UX Research

Outputs and deliverables

Milestone 2 includes the following key activities:

1. Based on the market and research paper, brainstorm and Ideate
2. Create prototypes for user research
3. Conduct user research using the prototypes
4. Compile and analyse the findings
5. Iterate design and repeat Step 3 and 4.
6. Finalize the UI/UX design
7. Consult with the developers to decide on the technical architecture based on the design
8. Draft a UI/UX Research Paper

These steps will results in a finalized UI/UX Research Paper.

Intended outcomes

The UI/UX Research Paper is finalized and published on Notion. It is accessible for community review.

How we measure the project’s progress

We use Notion's project management function to track the progress of our projects. We organize our work into different projects, tasks, and sprints, and this tool allows us to measure our progress. An example is attached above.

Community members can access the UI/UX research paper.

Milestone 3

Title: UI/UX Design

Outputs and deliverables

Milestone 3 includes the following key activities:

1. Complete the production-ready design in Figma.
2. Film a video walk-through of the design.

These steps will result in a finalized, production-ready UI/UX design in Figma, along with a video walk-through.

The Figma file will be published and made available for community review. Similarly, the video walk-through will be published on YouTube and made available to the community.

Intended outcomes

• The production-ready UI/UX design is finalized, published and is accessible to the community for review.
• The finalized production-ready design will be handed over to the engineering team. “Production-ready” means that it doesn’t need more work from designers and is ready for the engineering team to turn the design into code.
• The video walk-through will be published on YouTube and made available to the community.

How we measure the project’s progress

We use Notion's project management function to track the progress of our projects. We organize our work into different projects, tasks, and sprints, and this tool allows us to measure our progress. An example is attached above.

The Figma files and the video walk-through are publicly available and community members are able to review them.

Milestone 4

Title: Backend and Blockchain Development

Outputs and deliverables

Milestone 4 involves the following key activities:

• Sprint planning, which includes meetings with the Product Manager, designers, and developers. This includes writing tickets with specifications, assigning story points, and more.
• Backend development
• Blockchain development
• Unit testing
• Manual testing
• Bug fixes
• Deployment
• Documentation

These steps will allow us to develop the feature and make the GitHub repository (public) available to the community member.

Intended outcomes

The community members can review the source code which will be available on GitHub (open source)

How we measure the project’s progress

We use Notion's project management function to track the progress of our projects. We organize our work into different projects, tasks, and sprints, and this tool allows us to measure our progress. An example is attached above.

Community members can view the source code of the features on GitHub (open source)

Milestone 5

Title: Frontend Development

Outputs and deliverables

Milestone 5 involves the following key activities:

• Sprint planning, which includes meetings with the Product Manager, designers, and developers. This includes writing tickets with specifications, assigning story points, and more.
• Frontend development
• Unit testing
• Integration testing
• Manual testing
• End-to-end testing
• Bug fixes
• Deployment
• Documentation
• Film a product demo video

These steps will allow us to deploy the "decentralized dispute settlement" feature and produce a product demo video.

Intended outcomes

Users can go through the “decentralized dispute settlement” feature on the Socious app. They include the following functions:

• As a user (both hiring organization and freelancer), I can initiate a dispute settlement mechanism by staking assets
• The Socious app randomly selects three Socious Experts to serve as judges on the case
• The chosen judges can make decisions on how to allocate the escrow funds (either to freelancer or hiring organization).
• Based on the judges’ decision, the smart contract executes and releases the escrow funds to the winner.
• The three judges receive the loser’s staked assets as dispute settlement fees.

1. The source code will be available on GitHub (open source)
2. These features will be published and available for the community members to go through the flow on the Socious app.
3. We will film a walk-through of these functions and publish the video on Youtube so that community members can access it.

NB: The aforementioned functions are subject to change, depending on the result of research in this project.

How we measure the project’s progress

We use Notion's project management function to track the progress of our projects. We organize our work into different projects, tasks, and sprints, and this tool allows us to measure our progress. An example is attached above.

1. Community members can view the source code of the features on GitHub (open source)
2. Community members can view the video walk-through of these functions on Youtube.

Final Milestone

Title: Marketing, user testing, data analysis and final report

Outputs and deliverables

Final Milestone involves the following key activities:

• Marketing to a specific target audience
• Onboard users as beta testers
• Conduct user acceptance testing
• Analyze of users’ feedback
• Bug fixes if necessary
• Draft a project close-out report
• Record a close-out video

These steps will produce two deliverables: a close-out report and a close-out video

Intended outcomes

The following items are publicly available for the community to review.

• Project close-out report
• Project close-out video

How we measure the project’s progress

We use Notion's project management function to track the progress of our projects. We organize our work into different projects, tasks, and sprints, and this tool allows us to measure our progress. An example is attached above.

Community members can access and review the project close-out report. The project close-out video is published on Youtube for the community to review.

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown of the proposed work and resources.

Please find below a detailed breakdown of our budget, including the number of people and hours allocated to each task. We have calculated the cost at $35 per person per hour. The base conversion rate for USD-ADA is 0.13.*

Executive summary:

Total Cost: 560,000 ADA ($72,800)

Milestone 1: 77,538 ADA ($10,080)

Milestone 2: 99,077 ADA ($12,880)

Milestone 3: 47,385 ADA ($6,160)

Milestone 4: 90,462 ADA ($11,760)

Milestone 5: 163,692 ADA ($21,280)

Final Milestone: 81,846 ADA ($10,640)

Please find the details of the breakdown here:

<https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1onGtjIyPnfeHK4hyGuXxMHi6-rvyONRMj5gsnCV4ESY/edit?usp=sharing>

*To mitigate the potential volatility risks associated with ADA, we've opted for a conservative USD-ADA conversion rate of $0.13. This effectively safeguards us against 50% fluctuations in ADA's market price, which currently stands at $0.26. This prudent approach is justified by ADA's historical performance, having experienced approximately an 80% depreciation in value over the last 15 months.

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

Socious is a fast-growing impact startup that provides a talent marketplace, making impact work accessible and transparent. We connect purpose-driven professionals with impact organizations through AI matching. We use blockchain to trace impact work and reward contributions.

Socious is supported by 500Global, Microsoft, and Milkomeda Foundation. Our platform lists over 70k jobs, 23k organizations, and has 3.7k registered talents. Our team consists of experts in impact measurement, finance, data science, and blockchain development.

Seira Yun

Title: Founder and CEO

Role: Product Ownership, Project Management, Research

Linkedin:

<https://www.linkedin.com/in/seirayun/>

Bio: Seira Yun is the Founder and CEO of Socious.io, a talent marketplace that makes impact work accessible and transparent. Socious connects purpose-driven professionals with impact organizations through AI matching, and uses blockchain to trace impact work and reward contributions.

Seira is a serial impact entrepreneur with years of experience in the sector. He has led teams within the ICRC, UNHCR, and social ventures. Drawing from personal experiences as a migrant, an autistic person, and a proud pansexual queer, Seira is driven to make the world a better place through social innovation. As a full-stack developer with a Master's in Social Innovation from the University of Cambridge, he enjoys blending technology with purpose. Seira is also an impact angel investor, a member of Hustle Fund's Angel Squad, and a mentor for 4WARD.VC's Climate Accelerator. When not working, he enjoys shooting hoops, running, reading, spending quality time with the kids, or embracing the adventure of getting lost during travels. He is also a long-term member of the Cardano community; he’s won and managed five Catalyst projects and has completed Atala PRISM Pioneer Program.

Minh Douangprachanh

Title: Lead Designer

Role: Design

LinkedIn:

<https://www.linkedin.com/in/michel-douang/>

Bio: With more than a decade of experience specializing in product design, Minh is a multidisciplinary artist who has always believed art has a language of its own. As a neurodiverse individual, Minh is passionate about helping people and creating sustainable and inclusive solutions.

Ehsan Mahmoudi

Title: Senior Backend Engineer

Role: Backend/Blockchain/AI Engineering

LinkedIn:

<https://linkedin.com/in/ehsan-mahmoudi-611123b8/>

Bio: More than 8 years of experience in Python and Machine Learning as well as extensive experience in blockchain development. Ehsan has worked for global startups including Rechat, AEC, and Navaak.

Sajad Abbasi

Title: Senior Frontend Developer

Role: Frontend Development

LinkedIn:

<https://www.linkedin.com/in/sajad-abbasi-39485696/>

Bio: An experienced frontend developer with 10+ years of experience.

Sanaz Mahmoudi

Title: Frontend Developer

Role: Frontend Development

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanaz-mahmoudi/

Bio: An experienced frontend developer with 4+ years of experience.

Azin Zare

Title: QA Engineer

Role: Quality Assurance

LinkedIn:

<https://www.linkedin.com/in/azin-zare-355a27179/>

Bio: An experienced QA engineer with 9+ years of experience.

Madi Lommen

Title: Partnerships Lead

Role: Project Management, Research

LinkedIn:

<https://www.linkedin.com/in/madi-lommen-394940b0/>

Bio: Madi has 10+ years experience in social entrepreneurship, impact investing, and partnership building. Madi is passionate about interdisciplinary learning / problem-solving that leverages entrepreneurship and multilingual teamwork for community development. In recent years, she founded Madibanani Co. to champion refugee youth, designed a data collection program on the Jordan-Syrian border, and coordinated military-like training for Emergency & Disaster volunteers of La Cruz Roja (Red Cross) in Ecuador. After completing a thesis on medieval Arabic poetry at Yale-NUS College in Singapore, she worked with a network of angel investors scaling women-led SMEs tackling poverty in Southeast Asia. She has experience working in four languages (English, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese) and has lived in Singapore, Jordan, Ecuador, the UK, South Africa, the USA, and Japan.

Raphael Hode

Title: Design Advisor

Role Design Direction

LinkedIn: <https://www.linkedin.com/in/raphaelhode/>

Bio: Raphael is a Strategic Designer with a passion for social innovation and sustainability. After a few years in advertising agencies in Paris, Raphael moved to Tokyo in 2015 and joined Designit, a global strategic design firm. At Designit Raphael worked on growing a team and helping some of Japan’s most ambitious companies make innovation happen, leading him to endorse a variety of roles across UX design, service design, business design, and strategy.

In parallel, he has been passionately engaging in activities related to sustainability and social innovation: giving talks and workshops, mentoring early-stage social founders, and eventually co-founding a social venture. Today, he spends most of his time working with incredible social entrepreneurs to help them define, design, and launch visionary products that contribute to creating a more sustainable society.

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

The proposed project holds immense potential to further the Cardano ecosystem, and while there are significant costs involved, they are justified in their allocation, and as such, represent excellent value for money.

To start, the impact of our Socious initiative is already apparent, with 3,700 individuals already introduced to the Cardano ecosystem. The current project not only aims to maintain this trend but to accelerate it further. This will help to expand the user base and, consequently, the value of the Cardano network, providing a high return on investment.

Addressing the labor costs, we have optimized our budget based on industry standards and geographical considerations. According to ZipRecruiter data, the average salaries for product designers, developers, and product managers are $72, $68, and $65 per hour, respectively. However, we have managed to budget the hourly salaries at a more cost-effective rate of $35, without compromising the quality of the work or expertise of the individuals involved.

This is made possible by leveraging our network of professionals who are both passionate about our mission and have agreed to work at rates that allow us to provide value to the Cardano ecosystem. As a result, our operational costs are significantly reduced while maintaining the necessary high standards of quality and professionalism.

Furthermore, the project budget was not created in isolation. It was meticulously crafted based on our extensive experience with similar projects in the past. This has given us a clear understanding of the human resources and hours necessary to successfully implement this project, resulting in a reliable, accurate budget.

For a comprehensive breakdown of the project costs, please refer to the following document: <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1onGtjIyPnfeHK4hyGuXxMHi6-rvyONRMj5gsnCV4ESY/edit?usp=sharing>

In conclusion, every dollar spent on this project is a targeted investment towards expanding the Cardano ecosystem, enhancing the utility of Cardano, and providing exceptional value for all stakeholders.