Engaging Early Adopters: Incentivizing PRISM-based Educational Credentials for IT Professionals in Recruitment and Establishing a Governance Framework

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Despite the vast and growing numbers of talented software developers in Ethiopia and the wider sub-saharan Africa, the potential of this region often goes unnoticed by recruiters when it comes to filling their talent needs. From the outside, for example from the EU, the market may seem foreign and unfamiliar, leading to a lack of understanding and trust in the capabilities of software developers from this region.. Among the reasons for this is lack of exposure and awareness of the software development industry in this area, the potential language and cultural barriers, and the lack of trust in the skills and educational quality.

However, there has been a rampant growth in producing internationally competent software developer talent in Ethiopia. The country has witnessed the establishment of international training programs and the presence of locally licensed firms offering education that meets global standards. Although many strides have been taken to develop quality talent, The lack of verified data about the candidate’s past education, certifications and experience does not make the remote recruitment experience any easier. Our proposed solution is to develop a framework and tools for education/training institutes to issue verified educational credentials to their graduates, providing a multitude of benefits both for the stakeholders in the IT industry in Ethiopia, the adoption of PRISM and the Cardano community.

Fairway is established in Ethiopia and has introduced Employment credentials to the Ethiopian Market for the first time. In Ethiopia, our fully functional recruitment platform Fairway.work supports verifying of Education Credentials and issuing and verifying of Employment Credentials. (You can find more about our previous project on our website: Projects and Catalyst resources:<https://www.lidonation.com/en/proposals/employment-credentials-on-prism-f8> & Employment Credentials on PRISM). As a natural progression of our previous projects, we have identified a conjoined group of job seekers, educational institutions and businesses in the IT sector that together would benefit the most from the use of educational and employment credentials. Ethiopian IT developers are a tech-savvy and capable group that are well-suited to be early adopters of blockchain-based identity and wallets for building reputable CVs and finding remote and global work opportunities. Many of these developers are graduates of specialized coding schools that prioritize talent development and job opportunities. These schools, being more advanced and less bureaucratic than traditional universities, are ideal for embracing student and graduate data as VCs. Focusing on this group as the initial first adopters/users of the technology, we are building for ourselves the best chances to solve the complete problem described.

We propose to conduct a project that aims to establish an incentive model for credential issuing for education credentials, pilot or test the incentive model, establish a governance framework, including setting up a trust registry for credible schools to become recognized issuers of valuable credentials, and finally bring real developers and coding schools to adopt the technology. At the end we aim to achieve 500 onboarded developers with educational VCs or MoUs that indicate 1000+ students being onboarded within the next 6 months after the project. With this project, we aim to foster a community of coding schools/educational institutions and talent that use our framework for issuing verifiable credentials that enhance the credibility, transparency, and trustworthiness of IT developers in Ethiopia making them more approachable in the global market. Furthermore, our project offers these coding schools one year license to ProofSpace platform for issuing credentials as an institution and provide training to utilize ProofSpace credential issuing platform for project scope, and also for other activities outside of this project.

Our goal is to secure the betterment of students’ career prospects through the adoption of DID and VC technology. We will do this by combining structured ecosystem design, resulting in an ecosystem governance framework, with proven technology to create a community of trusted educational and training institutions and talent.

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

This project focuses on increasing the number of actual DIDs created and VCs issued as well as studying and piloting concrete incentive model and governance.

The project will:

Convene stakeholders from the entire ecosystem value chain: administering authority (Fairway), schools (issuers), students (holders), employers (verifiers) and technology vendors (ProofSpace and Fairway);
Incentivise their participation in a ToIP working group focused on delivering a publicly available ecosystem governance framework (EGF) to provide “rules of engagement” for the ecosystem, including the following key components:
Governing Documents
Trust Assurance and Certification
Credential Types and DID methods
Credential Schemas
Trust Registries
Assurance Levels
Risk Assessments
Governance Requirements
Interoperability Requirements
Business Requirements
Information Trust Requirements
Inclusion and Accessibility Requirements
Develop a clear case for the alignment of incentives in the ecosystem, which is a prerequisite for ecosystem sustainability.
Enable the implementation of the EGF through Fairway, ProofSpace and PRISM technology.

The proposal builds on top of existing technology and project delivered through the Catalyst. The results are real and tangible and align very closely with IOG’s work in Ethiopia. The process of launching a blockchain based system for education VCs with the Ministry of Education has been long and massive for IOG. This project aims to build directly in their footsteps to leverage the existing groundwork and progress and accelerate the goals of the initiative for blockchain based education and employment data in Ethiopia. This accelerates Ethiopia’s role as one of the first adopters and examples of this technology.

Additionally this project can be used as a case study for DID solutions and serve as an example use cases to help businesses and companies to understand the benefits and utility of this technology

This proposal builds on existing product and initiative funded by The Project Catalyst, aligns directly with this challenge and is achievable given the existing commitments of participating stakeholders.

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

The project has a list of tangible and measurable outputs:

A proposed incentive model
A pilot or testing of the incentive model
Analysis of the pilot and suggestion for next steps
Establishing a governance framework, which will contain approximately the following sections:
Primary Document
Introduction
Terminology and Notation
Localization
Governing Authority
Administering Authority
Purpose
Objectives
Scope
Key Roles
Key Processes
Out of Scope
Principles
Governing Documents
Trust Assurance and Certification
Credential Types and DID methods
Credential Schemas
Trust Registries
Assurance Levels
Risk Assessments
Governance Requirements
Interoperability Requirements
Business Requirements
Information Trust Requirements
Inclusion and Accessibility Requirements
Legal Agreements
Setting up a trust registry
Updating of the Fairway CV generator
Providing partner institutions and students education about the use of DIDs and VCs
Measurements upon the project completion:
#of developers that are expected to be onboarded based on Signed MoU(s) with Educational institutions
#of developers with Verified Education onboarded
# of schools in the trust registry
Measurements 6 months after the project completion:
#of developers with Verified Education Credentials onboarded
#of VCs issued as part of the initiative
# of Developers with Verified Education Credentials who got work
# of schools in the trust registry
Measurements 12 months after the project completion:
#of developers with Verified Education Credentials onboarded
#of VCs issued as part of the initiative
# of Developers with Verified Education Credentials who got work
# of schools in the trust registry
A metric that is hard to measure is that we believe the ecosystem governance framework we use can be adopted as a template for other education ecosystems elsewhere.

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Fairway intends to publicly share documentation about the proposed incentive model, the governance framework, and of the trust registry. Additionally the project has a list of measurable outputs regarding partnerships. Those will be published in the reporting.

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

The capacity to deliver is high. The project team consists of two reputable companies Fairway and ProofSpace who have both successfully delivered previous projects in The Project Catalyst.

Fairway is already established in the target market and has been working with similar initiatives for two years.

ProofSpace is a technology provider who solely focuses on delivering this type of technology and has, crucially, held commercial accountability for implementing the rules of ecosystem governance frameworks in its technology. This experience with Atala PRISM and Student Reader, whose EGFs are the source of the EGF content summaries above (see “Governance Documents” on this page), provides unique value to the project. Additionally, both of the companies have websites and other resources to show proof of their other work and team.

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

The primary goal of this project is to enable betterment of student careers through the adoption of VCs and PRISM, while generating concrete benefits for job seekers across Africa through a practical and impactful real-world application.

The sub-goals of the project are:

Identify several potential coding schools and provide them with comprehensive education and information about the technology, with the ultimate goal of successfully onboarding them into the program
Study incentive models, pilot or test an incentive mode with a coding school(s) and publish results for the community
Develop a Governance Framework
Implement a Trust Registry
Sign MoUs with coding schools to facilitate their onboarding process into the program
Onboard the first 500 graduates and >5 coding schools to PRISM
Initiate the issuing of education certificates and degrees as credentials
Formulate a comprehensive strategy for achieving widespread global adoption, emphasizing the importance of scalability beyond Ethiopia. The aim is to ensure that this technology reaches a global audience and is not confined to a single geographic location.

Feasibility:

The biggest challenge to feasibility is not technology or methodology (which Fairway and ProofSpace are confident in), it is the level of stakeholder engagement. We believe this challenge is robustly addressed in the formulation of our proposal.

The project participants include:

Fairway: strong track record and proven tech
ProofSpace: strong track record and proven tech
Schools: respected institutions with accredited courses and entrepreneurial leaders
Employers: motivated to find qualified talent to fill their open roles at a lower cost than alternative talent search methods
Students: motivated individuals who are paying schools for betterment of their careers

One of the objectives of the project is to ensure incentives between these stakeholders are well-aligned. The stakeholders’ participation in these workshops will be remunerated.

The combination of strongly motivated participants, all of whom have a credible track record, and a robust underlying motivation for engagement suggests that stakeholder participation will be strong.

In terms of the project feasibility overall, this project focuses on a strategy to increase adoption among Ethiopian IT developers, who have graduated from specialized coding schools and are primarily seeking remote work and global job opportunities. This strategy focuses on a specific niche within the industry and relies on the willingness of this tech-savvy and capable group to participate in the initiative.

The feasibility of this project is closely tied to the chosen niche, as they possess a higher level of technological proficiency and are educated in institutions that are less bureaucratic, enabling them to better understand and embrace modern, globally-oriented tech solutions.

The successful adoption of technology relies on early adopters, making it crucial to study and pilot the technology with potential first adopters. While there is a possibility that the selected group may not be the ideal early adopters for this technology, Fairway will strategize the deployment of the technology in another country instead, ensuring that progress is not impeded.

Regardless of the outcome, this project will provide valuable insights on selecting early adopters and implementing incentives and governance. Therefore it will serve as a key step forward for the community.

[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.

MILESTONE 1: Market research and building partnerships

Duration: 2 months, months 1-2

Milestone conducts market research and executes a sales funnel to build the required list of partner institutions

Main tasks and activities:

Conducting comprehensive market research to identify specialized coding schools and institutions.
We already have identified 3
Analyzing the challenges and surveying the coding schools and their graduate’s challenges in the job market. Creating engagement with the identified institutions, establishing contacts, and gathering and surveying relevant information.

MILESTONE 2: Governance and Technical Updates

Duration: 1 month, month 3

Milestone works to publish a governance framework and updates existing Fairway tech to complete the project.

Main tasks and activities:

Establish or join a Governance Framework working group at Trust over IP with Fairway & ProofSpace.
Organize a series of governance workshops with partners, including pilot school(s), gather advice, and set up a Governance framework and parameters, including governance prerequisites. Validate the governance framework by conducting reviews,obtaining feedback and demonstrating that the technical attributes (e.g. credential schemas) can be delivered.
Study incentive models and evaluate their effectiveness within the coding education domain.
Update the existing Fairway CV generator and processing, and Fairway-ProofSpace integration, to better facilitate and provide flexible utility for different developer and IT educations and certifications.

MILESTONE 3: Onboarding of schools and Establishing the Trust Registry

Duration: 2 months, months 4-5

This Milestone focuses to onboard developers to the platform and assisting developer schools and graduates in the issuing and receiving of the student credentials. Establishing of the trust registry.

Main tasks and activities:

Marketing campaign to onboard developers to the platform.
Assisting coding schools in issuing credentials.
Assisting developers in setting up Atala PRISM or ProofSpace identity wallets.
Establishing a process and help desk for smooth onboarding and continuation of the process.
Establishing a trust registry

MILESTONE 4: A Pilot Project and MoUs

Duration: 2 months, months 6-7

This Milestone aims to understand incentives and pilot or study them in action.

The creation and Signing of Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with the coding schools.

Main tasks and activities:

Pilot or equal study conducted with an incentive model with one or more coding schools.
Publish the results of the pilot or equal study on the incentive model.
Suggest a plan to move forward based on the findings.
Create an MoU document to onboard specialized coding schools.
Initiate the signing of MoUs with the selected coding schools.

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

MILESTONE 1

Deliverables and Outputs:

A list of potential partners (1-2 partners) for the pilot project.
A list of potential partners (5-10 partners) for the complete initiative.
Reporting how many institutions were reached and analyzed

Outcomes:

Improved understanding of the coding education landscape and the needs of coding schools, students, and employers.
Establishment of initial partnerships for the pilot project, paving the way for future collaborations in the complete initiative.

MILESTONE 2

Deliverables & Outputs:

A published Governance Framework tailored for coding schools.
Updated Fairway CV generator to better facilitate different developer and IT educations and certifications. Report on technical changes made to the Fairway CV generator and Fairway-ProofSpace integration.

Outcomes:

Improved governance structure addressing unique challenges in credential issuance and verification within the coding education industry.
Enhanced utility and flexibility of the Fairway CV generator for various developer and IT certifications.

MILESTONE 3

Deliverables & Outputs:

A Trust registry with onboarded coding schools integrated into the governance framework
Established help desk and support system
The onboarding of the coding schools has started with the aim of 500+ developers onboarded to Fairway during the complete project. These developers have already used the technology to request credentials from their coding schools (Alternatively in the end of the project, there are MoUs that indicate a 1000+ developers participating in the near future)
Reporting the number of developers onboarded and the number of credentials created

Outcomes:

Transparent and reliable information about coding schools, course offerings, available through the trust registry
Verified accuracy and integrity of information in the trust registry
Verification processes validating the trustworthiness and effectiveness of the trust registry
Increased number of developers onboarded to Fairway and utilizing the technology to request credentials from their coding schools
Reporting of the number of tech schools and developers onboarded and the number of credentials created

MILESTONE 4

Deliverables & Outputs:

A written document sharing the proposed incentive model for the coding education community.
Publication of the results from the pilot or study on the incentive model.
A plan for further steps based on the findings. reported.
Reporting the number of signed MoUs
Reporting of the number of developers onboarded and the number of credentials created

Outcomes:

Increased understanding of the effectiveness of different incentive models in coding education.
Insights on the viability of the tested incentive model through the pilot or study.
Awareness and knowledge dissemination within the coding education community through publication.
Signed MoUs with specialized coding schools, indicating successful onboarding.

Completion:

Fairway has managed to deliver the project deliverables:
Published Governance Framework
Published Trust Registry
Publicly shared written document proposing an incentive model and findings of piloting or testing it
Publicly shared numbers on onboarded developers and created DIDs
Publicly shared numbers on issued VCs
Goal of 500+ onboarded developers or minimum of 1000 upcoming developers based on MoUs

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

MILESTONE 1

Henrik: working 25% managing the project and meeting and negotiating with the universities 0,25 X 4000€ x 2 = 2000€
Gemechis: 2 months of work doing sales 3500 x 2 = 7000
Henok: Working one month 50% to establish marketing materials to reach coding schools 0,5 x 3000€ = 1500€
Cost of phone calls, transportation and practicalities for 2 months 1000€
TOTAL =11500€

MILESTONE 2

Henrik: Studying governance and developing Governance framework = 4000€
Gemechis: Studying and preparing governance for partners: 2 week = 0,5 x 3500€ = 1750€
Ermias: Project UX & frontend lead, full time 4500€
Abrham:, testing and frontend tasks 1 week: 0,25 X 3500€ = 875€
ProofSpace (hourly rate €135)
Supporting governance frameworks: 3 x 2hrs =€810
Running schema updates based on governance frameworks = 2 x 2hrs = €540
Updating Fairway-ProofSpace workflows = 1 x 4hrs = €540
ProofSpace Sub-Total: €1,890
TOTAL = 11125 + 1890

MILESTONE 3

Henrik: full time coordinating the project, setting up trust registry and aiding negotiations and onboarding, and documenting: 2 x 4000€ = 8000€
Kidus: setting up trust registry and tech integrations 2 weeks = 0,5 X 4500€ = 2250€
Gemechis: full time work with negotiations, meeting partners, and educating about the technology: 2 x 3500€ = 7000€
Abrham: full time work for establishing the help desk and assisting the onboarded students: 2 x 3500€ = 7000€
Henok: 50% time working on onboarding marketing materials and marketing efforts to ensure the project continuation: 2 x 3000€ x 0,5 = 3000€
ProofSpace
Support formation of trust registry: 1 x 6hrs = €810
Onboarding 2 schools (workflow design, interaction set-up, training and support): 8hrs per school = €2,160
ProofSpace one year licenses for 6 Universities: €1470 per license (Build subscription) = €8820€
ProofSpace Sub-Total: €11,790
TOTAL = 27250€ + 11,790€

MILESTONE 4

Henrik: part time (50%) on the MoUs, planning the incentive model and documenting = 0,5 x 4000€ x 2 = 4000€
Gemechis: full time work with negotiating with Partners about MoUs and piloting/studying the incentives 3500€ x 2 = 7000€
Henok: working 1 week per month to assist the team on the ground: 0,25 x 3000€ x 2 = 1500€
Pilot incentives (will be used for sales and marketing if not used in the pilot): 1000€
TOTAL = 13500€

TOTAL all € = 63375€ + 13,680€ = 77055€

TOTAL all ADA = <u>290000 ADA</u>

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

Project lead: Henrik Metsämäki - Co-Founder & CEO at Fairway. Henrik has successfully led multiple similar projects funded by the Finnish government and The Project Catalyst. He has participated in Cardano Community 2+ years and regularly met with IOG experts such as Mandeep Birdi, Tony Rose and John O’Connor about these business initiatives to make sure to understand the developments in the space. Henrik has planned this project and identified strategies and methods for its execution. He will also be in charge of the reporting.

Partnership & Network Manager: Gemechis Marema - CCO at Fairway. Gemechis’s role is to build connections with the specialized coding schools, local businesses, investors and partners. He will be in charge of the surveying and studying of the local partners and establishing the pilot project parameters as well as initiating the MoUs together with Henrik.

Technical lead at Fairway: Kidus Wendimagegn Mammo - CTO at Fairway. Kidus was the technical lead of the previous catalyst project helping the team to deliver needed changes for the project. Kidus will be in charge of the tech changes and make sure that the tech stays compatible as well as giving technical help for the partners on the ground.

UX changes for the technical CV implementation upon this project: Ermias Bunaro - Head of UX at Fairway. Ermias will help with the UX related changes that are required to transform the existing Fairway CV’s to have better and more flexible utility for different developer and IT educations and certifications.

Marketing, partnership help and developer education: Henok Alemayehu - Marketing Manager at Fairway. Henok will help Gemechis in reaching the coding schools and surveying them as well as arranging the incentivized pilot. After signing of the MoUs Henok will set up and update educational and marketing materials for the developer onboarding.

Developer onboarding and helpdesk: Abrham Bunaro - Full Stack Developer at Fairway. Once the developer onboarding starts Abrham will be assisting the developers credential process. Being a graduate from one of these coding schools Abrham will be troubleshooting issues and coordinating challenges and solutions for the team.

More about Fairway.

ProofSpace is a multi-network identity platform, wrapped with no-code tools for building and scaling decentralized ID workflows and ecosystems. Our goal is to eliminate the barriers to adopting Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) and proliferate the range and volume of use cases on production. Our vision is to power global digital inclusion and cross-chain commerce with interoperable verifiable credentials, and in so doing expand use of blockchain as a medium of trust. We are live with Hyperledger Indy, on testnet with Atala PRISM and reviewing SSI protocols on Polkadot, Ethereum and Solana.

ProofSpace Team working on this project:

Viktor Radchenko - CTO and mobile dev for ProofSpace. 20-year R&D track record. Skilled in project and product management, solution architecture, science consulting, blockchain, mobile, web, game, and embedded development. 6 publications in peer-reviewed journals.
Nick Mason - CEO for ProofSpace. Experienced social entrepreneur and venture analyst with a proven track record of social venture funding and of starting and growing ventures in Europe and Africa. Background as Consultant venture analyst at Toniic, Head of Portfolio and Operations at BeyondMe, UK Director for Sierra Leone based education charity and Trustee for Street Child. Co-Founded ProofSpace (formerly ZAKA in 2019).

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

This project scope is similar to the initiative that IOG has had working with Atala PRISM and its implementation with the ministry of education in Ethiopia. Its goal is the real world adoption of DIDs and to increase the economic and social agency of the target group by simultaneously fostering decentralization as opposed to centralized systems.

The project aims to deliver to a focus group that would actually benefit from decentralized and verified data in the job market. There are a number of impactful positive effects upon project succeeding, such as:

Increased number of VC issuers: Ethiopian coding schools getting familiar with DIDs, VCs and offered tools and education to use them within and outside of the project scope
Increased number of DIDs created and VCs issued: The group of early adopters helping to bring this technology to the wider audience of recruiters and workforce
Increased number of future adopters: Foreign and Ethiopian based businesses getting familiar with VCs and their benefits through recruitment and Increased adoption of the technology by similar educational and certifying institutions upon seeing the progress
A real world experience for the whole community about incentive models and governance in a real world application
The social and economic agency that the Ethiopian developers gain from being able to truly own their CV data
The societal impact from increased work opportunities globally
Reusable ecosystem governance insights and assets

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