Please describe your proposed solution.
How you perceive the problem you are solving
The problem is that many students and Queen's University would benefit from being able to collaborate on Cardano Projects, but there is no current team to collaborate under leaving them without peers to collaborate with and without resources to gain more experience. Additionally, not having a Blockchain Team, in general, is a large gap in the education of many engineering students.
Creating this Cardano Design Team brings interested engineering students together to collaborate on Ecosystem projects. Additionally, this allows for Cardano to be introduced to first year engineering students who have not heard of or are unfamiliar with Cardano and Blockchain Technology, enabling them to grow in the team for the entirety of their undergrad into a fully-fledged Plutus/Cardano/Blockchain expert through the help of upper-year students.
Your reasons for approaching it in the way that you have
We are approaching it this way as there is precedent within the Queen's Engineering Community to support and engage with Design Teams. This gives us confident in the solution as it has worked many times before for other teams. Additionally, providing learning material to first-year students is a good approach as it allows them to onboard very rapidly and can be reused to assist future years of first-year students assisting in the longevity of the Team. Naturally, the learning material will be made publicly available to anyone who wishes to use it, whether that be students of other universities around the globe, or anyone at all.
Who your project will engage, or who its stakeholders are
The project stakeholders are Queen's University Engineering Students, The Queen's Engineering Society, the Catalyst Community, the Cardano Developer Community, and Cardano Community as a whole. The students as it is being built by them for them. The EngSoc as they oversee Design Teams and Clubs within the Engineering Faculty. The Catalyst Community as their continual support and assistance is crucial to the success of the project. The Developer Community as resources created will assist them in their everyday development and with onboarding new developers. The entire community as the projects created will add value to Cardano Ecosystem.
How your project will be implemented
Project will be implemented for the September, 2022 school year. Design Team / Club will be created through the Engineering Society. Onboarding. Workshops, and Tutorial Videos will be created and made publicly available throughout the year. Created by fourth and third year engineering students.
What you will produce
Outputs of the project are a Cardano Design Team / Club where students can collaborate on Ecosystem Projects, a series of YouTube videos assisting students learning and getting started with Cardano, and a Dapp. Project aims to produce continual improvements to the ecosystem through applications, developer tools, and applications.
What will happen as a result of your work
Result is that many students will be introduced to the Cardano Ecosystem and have assistance in learning and developing within it. Student's will create projects under the Design Team. The Team will live on into the future for many years to come bringing in many students over the years. Continual production of Haskell Developers.
Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.
This solution directly addresses the Challenge as it is specifically designed to encourage and assist students enter and collaborate in the Cardano Ecosystem. The solution brings new students into the Cardano Ecosystem while continually providing support for them to learn and create projects. Additionally, it creates videos and documentation that allows the development of much needed Plutus, Haskell, and Cardano Developers in general.
What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?
One risk is that students do not join the Design Team. It is unlikely that they are uninterested in Blockchain Technology given the degree they have chosen. It is more likely that they are unfamiliar with Cardano or are uncomfortable making the first step to join the team. A mitigation strategy is to have an outreach events at the design team fair at the beginning of the year and message students through the engineering email newsletter that is emailed to all students every month.
Another risk is that the Design Team dies after this year when the founding members, students in their final year, leave university. It is crucial to elect a younger student to lead the team into the future after we are gone. Thus, it is imperative to find this individual and leave funding for the future of their team. We will proactively onboard and assist younger students to expedite their learning for the longevity of the Design Team. Additionally, may be valuable to onboard a professor in the field as they will be at Queen's for the years to come and they will be able to provide oversight as well to the students if needed.