[IMPACT]
The Workers Protocol (WP)
The quantification of the workers' added value exists, restlessly collected through the data of their continuous efforts. Unfortunately, it is systematically interpreted as a group metric, feeding collective statistics where individuality becomes invisible.
Beyond resulting in unfair work environments, the issue of industrial KPIs reducing individuals to group statistics deprives workers of their sovereignty over the ownership of their own data.
For instance, when KPIs are based on the group (production line output), one underperforming worker impacts the KPIs of all workers in that line.
If the data of one underperforming worker is collected independently from its co-line workers, one is able to isolate the issue and remove the worker from that workstation to train them or re-assign them to an easier workstation.
The immediate results would be a fair working environment and increased efficiency.
Ultimately, group-based KPIs and statistics also generate a lack of visibility to the end consumer.
The Workers Protocol is a digital solution aiming to amplify a simple truth that our experience managing African factories has taught us over the years: workers need a purpose as much as they need a job.
The Workers Protocol (WP) will consist of three components:
1) An on-chain worker’s profile used as the identifier:
The worker’s profile's main role consists in collecting and displaying the professional achievements of workers on a user-friendly interface.
It also acts as a KPIs tracker and enables a bonus system based on performance that abolishes underperformance punishments and uses smart-contract automatic rewards instead.
Incentives could be free transportation, training, free housing, salary bonuses etc… directly linked to the progression registered on the worker’s profile and triggered automatically.
The WP eventually gives birth to a virtuous circle of motivation and incentives.
2) An on-chain product profile used as an end-user interface that connects consumers and workers in a P-to-P fashion:
As a consumer buying a t-shirt, for example, product statistics and data are available to me. I know how many t-shirts like mine were produced, how fast, where they were shipped, what countries buy them most etc… and most importantly what workers participated in manufacturing my product.
I would then have access to the information of the workers’ profiles (whatever the workers chose to share publicly)
This system results in the highest degree possible of product traceability and transparency.
It also participates in customer awareness-raising; statistics of workers' produced goods can be quite impressive and unexpected to the consumer who will see the value of a garment in terms of hard work and beyond the price.
Finally, the WP extends the possibilities for innovation as a new digital solution. A peer-to-peer tipping system is our 1st effective innovation made possible by the Workers Protocole.
As a consumer buying a t-shirt again and with access to such detailed information about the supply chain, I can choose to tip workers that have been working on my t-shirt. I can directly tip a worker from my consumers' wallet to the workers’ account resulting in potential income growth for factory workers.
3) A Gamified system for the workers, capitalising on the ROX of the video-game Industry:
Video games have an extra fun factor and a degree of involvement that have elevated the industry above all others in the past decade. Battle-tested and proven mechanisms have become industry standards that have inspired the design of the WP.
The WP uses playful and addictive experience points and progression systems and level-ups to build a real sense of career-building. Objective oriented stimulations as such generate engagement and retention as opposed to the turn-over that is frequently plaguing the manufacturing industry.
Goals to achieve are clear and immutable to workers, rewarded when accomplished and saved for posterity. Workers are now in possession of a database of their contributions to the collective and to the industry that allows the quantification of their added value, giving them their market worth and tools to better leverage their experiences.
This proposal is part of Waya Collective in the sense of being a building block of it and therefore developed within the Waya framework. However, it is an independent solution that will be made available to the ecosystem and benefit everyone.
Waya Collective
Waya Collective is a DAO built on Cardano with the aim to leapfrog industrialization by building a new economy. Starting in Africa, Waya builds new industries from the ground up and utilises Cardano to scale across the world.
OWNERSHIP:
The WP puts the philosophy around products into a new perspective: A customer-centric product development is as important as a worker-centric product production.
Its purpose is to promote empowerment and protect the worker against the possibility of modern slavery through increased visibility
SOCIAL EQUITY:
The WP tends toward a more inclusive world and a meritocratic environment through individual rewards replacing opaque group rewards (and too often punishments)
Beyond workers’ empowerment, it also spearheads women empowerment (traditionally not vocal in Africa) by quantifying their value through the exact same metrics as men workers.
Finally, the peer-to-peer tipping service from end-user to worker contributes to bridging the purchase-power gap between social classes.
SCALABLE:
The WP is open-source and complements existing ERPs (Enterprise Resource Planning systems) for easy adoption by factories and playful for easy adoption by workers. The core mechanisms are adaptable in any industry beyond Waya Collective and beyond textile.
WIN-WIN-WIN:
While workers benefit from increased protection and empowerment, collectives benefit from more accurate data and increased reactivity and end-users benefit from more transparency.
ADOPTION:
A new tool also implies additional and specific training of workers and management for its adoption which we at Waya are designing and will provide as part of the Knowledge Sharing Protocol (KSP, see Waya’s White Paper).
In addition, piercing through the dusty armour of the industry status-quo to empower the workers requires pulling back some sleeves. We will use Waya’s 1st owned factory to battle-test and validate the WP as a reliable and effective tool.
OPERATIONAL:
For the WP to be effective it needs consistency. Creating and implementing standards and routines in the workflow of a factory is one of the challenges that need to be addressed. These standards and routines will be shared within the Waya network the same way worker training will be implemented, using the KSP.
Also, unexpected and unidentified bottlenecks will appear due to the novelty of the WP. They will be tackled with immediate damage control solutions first, before being examined for a root cause and countered with a long term action plan.
PROTECTION of Workers:
To be realistic and sincere in our belief that the WP is a digital solution plainly benefiting the workers, we have the responsibility to be careful in giving workers online and on-chain exposure.
Even if the WP is conceived with privacy risks being a priority concern from the get-go, workers' training will have to account for the importance of SSI as well as privacy risks awareness.
[FEASIBILITY]
The worker protocol is an open-source digital solution that can be implemented in any industrial context. However, it is being developed as part of the much bigger vision of the Waya Collective to build a brand new economy together (you will find links to the associated proposals in the dedicated section below).
The following timeline deals with the pilot project of the Workers protocol which will take place in Uganda. From MVP development to end-users testing the solution with a garment manufactured for Waya Collective, along with its tokenized version.
April 2022:
- MVP development and technical concept starts
- Fabric samples and fabric supplier selected
- Techpack developed for finished goods of the pilot project (Sweatpants/sweatshirts according to market study)
- Garment production factory in Uganda (supplier) selected for the pilot project
May 2022:
- MVP functionalities testing and adjustments
- Fabric and accessories reception for the pilot project
- Production line layouts and floor plan set up
- Marketing Strategy defined
June 2022:
- MVP completed
- Production workers training: use the MVP
- Production workers training: Importance of SSI and how to leverage data self-ownership
- Production workers training: Privacy risks awareness
- Pilot project production launched
- MVP data collected on production environment
- Workers' profiles are live
- Marketing kickoff
July 2022:
- Physical goods in store
- Workers protocol MVP is accessible to end-consumers.
- First peer-to-peer transactions as the tipping system is live
- Pilot Project completed
August 2022:
- Conclusion, feedback and transition strategy setup to mass adoption
Q4 2022:
- The Workers Protocole digital solution implemented in Waya Collective’s 1st own factory and ready for mass production (separate project in Catalyst, see dedicated section below)
This proposal application for project Catalyst covers the first 80K of the budget to kickstart development.
The remaining 130K will be raised thanks to the ISPO.
The total budget necessary to cover the cost of development and implementation of the WP is 210K USD excluding the production of garments during the pilot project.
- Interface 80K
- Backend 120K
- Equipment 5K (50 phones =2.5K + onsite computer = 2.5K)
- Technical overhead 5K
Antonia Lorenz
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/antonia-lorenz/>
Antonia is an entrepreneur at heart and very passionate about all of her endeavours. She is on the ground in Uganda for us which over the past two years also became her second home. She is creative, tech-savvy and has a great business mind. Before Waya Collective, she started the Podcast Foundality Africa and worked at E&P focus Africa, a consulting firm focused on African markets. She studied industrial engineering and management at KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology). Currently, she is also the Africa coordinator for Sigma Squared Society, a global entrepreneurship community. At Waya Collective, she brings her determination, her talent for design and her experiences in Uganda. She is responsible for building our fashion production and brand.
Matthias Guilbert
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthias-guilbert/>
Matthias is the Africa lead and is responsible for operating the first factory. He was raised in Ethiopia and served in the French navy in a prestigious unit. He established the production side in Ethiopia for the textile giant Decathlon. In his role, Matthias managed and supported over 6,000 employees, including 7 personally recruited management staff. He also became the Head of Sustainable Development for Decathlon. Beyond Industrial production, Matthias has a heart for Art and also co-created a Hub for Africa Creativity and Culture in Addis Ababa.
Carolin Baltzer
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolin-baltzer/>
Carolin is our numbers expert. Passionate about logical connections, she studied Economical Mathematics at KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology). During her studies, she started to learn about entrepreneurship and started to work as a CFO at heliopas.ai, a startup committed to helping farmers with soil moisture analysis, and for Plug and Play, an early-stage investment company. At Waya Collective she brings her expertise to corporate finance. Carolin is responsible for the focus areas of finance, legal and operations.
Simon Peters
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/snj-peters/>
Simon is an all-in entrepreneur with a passion for challenging markets. He is a Co-Founder and DAO Architect at the Waya Collective. He served as the Managing Director of DECUS Network GmbH, a corporate venture building an institutional-grade crypto custody solution for EU banks. Previously Simon worked as Venture Pioneer at the impact-driven company builder Ampion Ventures working on supply chain solutions in Nigeria and co-founded the African Entrepreneurship Conference SensXAfrica in Zambia. His vision is to build flexible, incentive-based networks replacing old, rigid and inefficient systems.
Mehdi Nemati
has 10 years of experience in building SaaS products, including working at NASA as a software developer and was CTO at a digital asset startup for over a year. He is responsible for the technical implementation.
Strategic Contributors
Mutoba Ngoma
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/mutoba-ngoma-98b72a22/>
is a member of "Forbes 30 under 30". He has achieved this by setting up numerous factories in Africa. He will advise us on setting up our production and running the first autonomous Collective in Zambia.
Tom Pause
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-pause-b2749678/>
Several decades ago, Tom Pause established the consultancy "E&P Focus Africa Consulting GmbH", where he has been advising projects being set up in Africa ever since. As a result, he has built up not only some experience but also a large network. He presents both to us in his function as an advisor.
[AUDITABILITY]
KPIs
1) 1 full production line of workers on-chain and self-sovereign with MVP
2) 50% of workers' KPIs integrated in-app
3) 500 goods produced and workers' data collected
4) 250 customers have tested end-user interface and functionalities
5) 25 tips sent to workers by satisfied-customers
Success is defined by:
1) A fully functional MVP deployed
2) A pilot project successfully launched in a real garment production environment
3) Tipping service launched and tested by end-consumer
4) Sensibilization campaign concluded: both workers and consumers are aware and use the service
This proposal is a continuation of the successful fund 6 proposal “Elevating Manufacturing in Africa” (<https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/367408>)
With the support of project Catalyst, we were able to do more research and develop our model further which resulted in the model described in the attached White Paper. We were also able to understand Ugandan fashion consumers very well and are in the process of building the first fashion brand, which the first factory will supply.
This proposal is also connected to two other proposals in the current fund 8. Together, the three proposals build the foundation for a new economy, built on Cardano. All proposals bring value to the ecosystem independent of each other, yet they also work together. However, each proposal is also interlinked to form the base of the Waya Economy.
A wallet for enterprises enabling businesses to access Defi, efficient bookkeeping and most of all, transparent on-chain governance. It helps business owners create robust systems to grow more successful companies and make better decisions consistently, even when leadership changes.
Leapfrogging Industrialization (<https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/400195>)
Building the first on-chain factory to set a new standard for a highly efficient, sustainable, and decentralised production in Africa. The factory will implement and test the wallet and identifier in order to help build robust and proven tools.
SDG Rating
Goal 8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.
Goal 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.
Goal 12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.
