Catalyst School Fund 10 Operations

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

The Catalyst School: what is it all about?

The Catalyst School is a place created to enhance the impact of Catalyst as a whole by improving the contribution of all its different players and roles. We onboard new members and help improving their skills along the way, in any way they decide to engage with Catalyst: as a Proposer, a Proposal Assessor, a Veteran Proposal Assessor or without any specific role within the process. In order for Catalyst to flourish and reach its full potential, all these roles need to give their best contribution within the process.

We understand that different people prefer different learning methods. Therefore, the School aims to help the community through:

Live sessions and workshops.
1-to-1 and group support in many different languages.
Interactive website.
Other workshops related to Catalyst.

Today, the main topics covered by the Catalyst School today are:

Introduction to Catalyst
Proposing in Catalyst
How to be a Proposal Assessor
How to be a Veteran Proposal Assessor

What is the School already doing?

The Catalyst School is already helping the community since the beginning of Fund 6. We are doing that so we can receive feedback from the community and improve our teaching methods and content so we reach the highest Return on Intention we can.

You can check our last announcement during a Catalyst Town Hall here:

<https://www.youtube.com/embed/rNZJvzjgduM?start=3623>We have already run several sessions about the main topics described above, and onboarded more than 1000 new Catalyst members. Some of these sessions were recorded and are now available in our YouTube channel.

In Funds 7, 8 and 9, we have provided Insight Sharing Workshops ( https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/384064 ) to increase the discussion during Catalyst's Insight Sharing Phase. The videos can be checked in our YouTube Channel. For example, this one related to the Cross-Chain Collaboration challenge:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/7coZsTa1apc?start=&t=9sWe have also already ran workshops during the Catalyst Eastern Town Hall, the WADA Conference 2021, Cardano 4 Climate and other events.

Why do we need the Catalyst School?

Catalyst is not a traditional funding platform, it has its own protocol and method of functioning. Therefore, anyone who wants to join this experiment needs to learn about it first.

Until today, learning about Catalyst, how it works, its requirements and the criteria to succeed according to one's role is still not so easy because the relevant information and resources are not easily digestible and findable, in one hub known to newcomers and veterans alike.

There is also no platform to bring together those who are in the process of learning about Catalyst, be them newcomers or veterans, so they can exchange knowledge and help each other.

Our Partnerships

As the saying goes, if you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far go together! With that in mind, Catalyst School will collaborate with other educational stakeholders in the Catalyst ecosystem, building bridges to maximize synergistic optimum impact.

The Catalyst School already has many partnerships, such as:

Gimbalabs ( https://gimbalabs.com/ )
WADA ( https://wadalliance.org/ )
Eastern Town Hall ( https://discord.gg/4xnCdV6Qrn )
Tutorial for Community Advisors ( http://app.ideascale.com/t/UM5UZBiSh )
Sustainable ADA ( https://www.sustainableada.com/ )
BeanChain ( https://twitter.com/beanchain )
LATAM Cardano Community ( https://discord.gg/VzQCNmWzMr )

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

We see the Catalyst School as a service that helps to onboard new all community members, and among them, the developers of the tools that make blockchain more accessible to everyone.

We recognize, although, that the main focus of The Catalyst School is not on building a developer ecosystem only, but a inclusive and open ecosystem for everyone that wants to participate in Catalyst.

We also believe that this is a very important project for the community, as we onboard hundreds of new members every fund, and in the absence of Challenge where this proposal would perfectly fit, this was the closest one that we found.

Nevertheless, we believe we are directly contributing to the following Challenge KPIs:

Number of developers actively building on top of Cardano
A sense of community and conversations. Having people around to talk with.

[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 main risk of this proposal is something that we have faced already: outreach. During Fund 7 we had very low attendance, but we have increased our marketing and improved our outreach strategy since then to get a good number or participants in our workshops and support sessions.

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

The Plan: Roadmap and Milestones

This proposal aims to provide the School sessions, workshops, 1-to-1/group support to provide written materials and content in our website. When funded, we will provide all these services for Fund 10. We have changed our strategy for management and budget from Fund 9, and we are now adjusting and improving upon it.

School Sessions and workshops are going to be synchronized with each phase of Project Catalyst, so we increase the value delivered by them.

Based on our previous experience, we have decreased the number of workshops, since we realized it's better to have less workshops with higher attendance and quality instead of aiming for quantity.

Our goal is to provide 8 sessions in Fund 10, following the Project Catalyst schedule. Therefore, our roadmap is:

- Week 1 - Insight Sharing Phase:

1 x Introduction to Catalyst (After Town Hall and Swarm Session)

- Week 2 - Proposal Submission Phase:

1 x Introduction to Catalyst (After Town Hall and Swarm Session)
2 x Proposing in Catalyst (After Town Hall and Swarm Session)

- Week 3 - Proposal Refinement Phase:

No workshops, only 1-to-1 support sessions.

- Week 4 - Proposal Finalize Phase:

2 x How to be a Proposal Assessor (After Town Hall and Swarm Session)

- Week 5 - Proposal Assessment Phase:

1 x How to be a Veteran Proposal Assessor (After Town Hall and Swarm Session)

- Week 6 - Assessments Review Phase:

1 x How to be a Veteran Proposal Assessor (After Town Hall and Swarm Session)

Besides that we aim at continue providing 1-to-1/group support sessions in Fund 10, with the overleft budget from our original 1-to-1 multilanguage proposal.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

*Considering a $50/hour cost:

Project Lead and Management

- Project oversight and define future directions (10h/fund)

- Manage partnerships (10h/fund)

- Represent the project externally (e.g. TH and Community Initiatives) (10h/fund)

- Manage project's finance (4h/fund)

- Filling in some role if necessary (5h/fund)

- Check if project’s content is up-to-date (slides, one pagers, website) (8h/fund)

- Ensure proper execution of all other School roles (6h/fund)

Workload (by the fund in hours): 53h/fund

Budget: $2650/fund

Documentation & Auditability

- Keep track and report 1-to-1 support sessions (8h/fund)

- Submit Catalyst reports (progress) for School proposals (8h/fund)

Workload (by the fund in hours): 16h/fund

Budget: $800/fund

Core Content (per topic - 4 topics in total)

- Maintain workshop slides (5h/fund)

- Maintain one pagers (5h/fund)

- Host workshops/sessions (5h/fund)

- Maintain website content (10h/fund)

- Community/project knowledge acquisition and maintenance (5h/fund)

Workload (by the fund in hours): 30h/fund

Budget: $50/h = $1500/fund, for all topics: $6000/fund

Website

- Manage gitbook/website (20h/fund)

Workload (by the fund in hours): 20h/fund

Budget: $1000/fund

Marketing/Media

- Make weekly announcements on Twitter, Telegram and Discord (12h/fund)

- Manage project's visual identity across content and media platforms (4h/fund)

Workload (by the fund in hours): 16h/fund

Budget: $800/fund

Total: $11,250

In comparison to our previously funded proposal ( https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/405127 ), the budget is lower than before. The reasons for that are:

We improved our processes and realized that spliting some tasks between different roles was not being effective
We realized our estimation for some tasks was superestimated, and we decreased the their time requirement in the current proposal

Also based on the topics mentioned above, we were able to save approximately $2000 from the previous funded proposal, so we we asking for $9250 instead of $11250.

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

Cauê Chianca: Catalyst community member, manager of Latam Catalyst School.
Felix Weber: enthusiast & community networker, T&M's elected representative for the 1st Catalyst Circle, co-founder of Catalyst Swarm, co-initiator & coordinator of the Eastern Hemisphere Town Hall, initiator of the Catalyst Alliance.
Lucio Baglione: Web / mobile developer with 9+ years of experience. PA and vPA, co-creator of the Community Tools (Proposer/PA/vPA/Voter Tools).
Phil Khoo: Co-founder of AIM Community Tools, experience PA, vPA, proposer, proposal mentor, challenge team member amongst numerous other pursuits.
Simon Fleck: Catalyst Swarm core member, Cardano enthusiast since 2018, IT background.
Tevo Saks: I enjoy documenting systems and procedures that will achieve specific goals in an efficient way. Active participant in Catalyst since Fund 1, Catalyst Swarm core member, experienced Proposer and Veteran Community Advisor.
Victor Corcino: Veteran Proposal Assessor (vPA), Proposal Mentor, PAs' elected representative for the 1st Catalyst Circle, co-creator of the Community Tools (Proposer/PA/vPA/Voter Tools), Catalyst Swarm member, engineering/science/developer and 'hands-on' teaching background.

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

Possibly yes. We believe that this Catalyst School's service should be free for everyone who wants to engage with Catalyst, and because of this we believe it's fair for this initiative to be subsidized by the Catalyst treasury, if the community also approves it.

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

We will provide progress report to IOG in the bi-weekly coordinator meetings, and to the challenge team in the monthly meeting.

Besides that:

Workshops are always uploaded to our YouTube Channel
All our content will be available on our website
We will provide a list with contacts from all the community members who asked for 1-to-1 support session

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

Success for this project is delivering everything according to the schedule and being able to onboard a large number of new members into Catalyst.

We will measure success by tracking:

Number of workshops participants (maximum and average)
Number of 1-to-1 support sessions provided
Number of view on our YouTube videos
Number of accesses in our website
Number of sign-ups in our website

[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 continuation of the following funded proposal:

The Catalyst School Fund9 Operation: https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/405127

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

We are inderectly related to many of the SDGs, since we are support multiple projects that will handle many of them. But are especially aligned with SDG 4: 'Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all'.

bookmarked!