Cardano Kids & Cardano Teens: Like It?

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(This thread was inspired by @tknowny’s great idea here; so if you like it, please consider giving him some love, too.)

Cardano Campus Outreach Program. We propose a “Cardano Campus Outreach Program,” which would be a perfect cultural fit for the Cardano ethos, which is already highly academic. I’m sure every school would love to have a representative from the Cardano Community give them a presentation about the blockchain in general and Cardano’s unique virtues in particular.

Cultural & Campus Exchange Programs Are Very Effective. In fact, this is what many large corporations do with their sponsored facilities at many schools; and the Chinese government does it with their “Confucius Institutes,” which have been tremendously successful in spreading goodwill and Chinese cultural values throughout school campuses around the world. (Mostly college, but some lower grades, too.)

Cardano Kids & Cardano Teens. The formal name of the program could be called something like, “Cardano Campus Outreach Program,” which could be comprised of sub-brands for “Cardano Kids” (for the grade schoolers) and “Cardano Teens” (for the teens). This could be funded with a modest budget (<$1MM) and still make a big impact because all the parents of the kids would learn about Cardano, too; and then they would share the message throughout their communities.

Cardano Is Already More Respected in Academia–So Work that Angle! I don’t think any other blockchain projects are doing this today. And even if they are, there’s no crypto team that is more academically oriented than our team, which means there’s no team that the school administrators of the world would respect more than our team. The kids would absolutely devour lectures about Cardano.

What Does the Community Think About This Idea?

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great idea.

I have tried to get my 2 teenagers interested but at this time they have no interest.
maybe a formal program could nudge them?

thanks for your steady stream of thoughts and ideas.

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@ADALove wow :slight_smile: Some terrific ideas here - thank you!

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Thank you, @TheViking. Many kids tune out their parents; so, that might be why . . . I mean, how could any kid possibly be bored with Dynamic Proof-of-Stake algorithms, Haskell exception management, stake delegation, and quantum-resistant signature schemes? But seriously. . . .

I think we can make Cardano fun and interesting for kids by simply looking at Cardano Land from their perspective; then crafting our language to stimulate their imaginations.

For example, the team could hire some dynamic, kid-friendly speakers and produce some simplified materials highlighting the following “super-cool features for our Cardano Kids!”

  • "Cardano can bring all the kids of the world together into a super-secret place in the cloud that we call a blockchain. The blockchain is where really fast computers compete for a big prize called an ADA. Do you know what an ADA is? It’s a precious treasure that you win when you play in Cardano Land. We named ADA after a famous girl who was the first computer programmer in human history. Do you know what computer programming is? Well, let me tell you! It’s like magic that can control almost anything in the world just by typing commands into your computer keyboard. You all can learn this magic too. Isn’t that great!!!" (This could be visually augmented with IOHK’s mesmerizing 3D Blockchain.)

  • "Cardano can help your parents create smart contracts that can automatically release your allowance after you’ve finished all your homework. Who in this class wants to get their allowance AUTOMATICALLY without having to beg your parents for it?"

In fact, every concept in Cardano Land could be adapted to grade school and teenage level vocabularies. There’s absolutely no reason why Cardano Land needs to be boring to kids. We just need to put ourselves in their minds and make it fun and interesting from their perspective!

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Thank you, Jon. :slight_smile: (And thank @tknowny for inspiring this idea!) There’s no question in my mind that we can’t make Cardano Land fun for kids. I hope the team seriously considers these ideas when they’re ready to focus more time and resources on PR/marketing.

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Don’t have the time to respond here yet but I think this is a fabulous idea . We have to think about a marketing strategy that will help young people understand the virtuousness of the new mode of economy. Kids, and millennials, want stuff. They need to be helped in knowing that their true hearts desire is to GAIN more than they thought possible , by giving… their credences and their views of what is a fair and just world that repays them for their efforts!

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Words cannot express my gratitude for your idea and wise strategy

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My work is in graphic design, I am a screen printer, and am constantly corresponding with my customers to send me quality artwork, logos, etc. via email, dropbox or whatever. It is really amazing how low skilled a lot of people are when it comes to computers and knowing their way around them. I love working with Millennials but have run into the same computer issues with some of them. I mean, they have grown up with computers, it just seems logical that they would have a solid working knowledge of them. But I have come to realize that, like most computer users, they too are simply app users. They open a computer and launch an app and can do amazing things with the apps. It makes sense to me now. Think of television. Most people don’t understand how a tv works or even care. They just turn it on and change the channels until they find something good to watch.

I think most people will ultimately interact with Cardano on the Dapp level. They will launch a popular dapp to record their baseball collection to the blockchain or whatever and never even know or care that they are using Cardano or how it works.

I have also spent some time thinking about ways to involves schools etc in crypto/blockchain and think it might be best to target the nerds, the ones that are interested in the way computers work, and/or start early. Teach kindergarteners and grade schoolers how to code. This gets them beyond playing with games on their tablets and hopefully for a few, fosters a lifetime of computer learning which will help produce a more skilled workforce for the blockchain industry. Maybe Cardano or Cardano Community can sponsor an education series in this regard. It could travel to schools or make curriculum for teaches.

At the high school or middle school level Cardano could sponsor computer clubs to help spread computer literacy and give kids a creative and educational outlet. We can sponsor hack spaces, etc. We could help computer science classes with the hardware and software to set up their own school cryptocurrency. I think this would be deeply educational. Imagine a school maintaining/mining their own coin and the student body trading them amongst themselves for hot lunches or items from the spirit shop etc…sidechained to Cardano.

If all of this could help disadvantaged youth, even better. I live in Appalachia in the USA. There are a lot of pockets of need here and young people without many options for a bright future. If we could inspire a few of those and spark an interest in computer science and give them the tools to learn it could literally change lives for the better.

Anyways, thanks for the conversation .

(edit) somewhat relevant link: Liberals spending $50M to teach K-12 students and their teachers coding

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@regsanman I love this idea! It’s the perfect app to engage the hearts and minds of children in schools around the world.

Absolutely agreed!

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I’m happy the idea makes sense to you. Making it an app, as you suggest, is probably a good idea. A few years ago I contacted some area schools’ computer departments to discuss ideas like these as part of an effort to start a bitcoin/crypto club. It all failed miserably. Did not hear back from any of them. That was 2015. These days, I imagine there is more awareness and understanding that blockchains are a real thing and our ideas may fall on more receptive ears. I am still interested in pursuing ideas like these locally and beyond. So I say let’s keep the ideas rolling.

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I like this idea.

I’ve been trying to teach my daughter about Blockchain. I eventually want her to explain Cardano in the next few months.

She’s 4 years old so I thought it would be a difficult concept to understand… but I think we may underestimate how flexible the minds of children are. They are not constrained by the systems we adults live in – and less rigidly understand new ideas.

Here’s her first video for those interested – apologies in advance for the loud intro.

The plan is to eventually get her to talk about Blockchain versus Cryptocurrency, then talk about Proof of Work versus Proof of Stake (in a simplistic manner). Then to move into explaining Cardano, and what its vision is.

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@CryptoGambler This is beyond adorable!

You’ve set the bar pretty high, but now we have a proof of concept: Even the youngest post-toddler kids can understand and appreciate Cardano Land as long as we give them the right tools and vocabulary to understand it from within their own frame of reference.

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“Frame of reference” is exactly the words I was looking for!

Yes, my hope is that I can teach her things that make crypto (and Cardano) special. Of course it won’t be at the technical level that many on this forum understand it, but at the level that she understands “it’s different” and “unique”.

Any constructive criticism and/or advice is welcome.

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Great idea! (hearts and minds hehe)

So how about someone start making a “Cardano Land” game!? :grinning:

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Thanks for the kudos and the topic creation @ADALove!

I haven’t posted before now because I wanted to let the ideas percolate a bit first. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

I’d like to see the community get behind an education initiative (Blockchain Education Initiative or BEI) moving forward. I believe we should develop plans for all levels and demographics.

Huge project, right?

Something this big will require a lot of time, resources and work. It will certainly be costly.
Who will do the work?
Who will they be accountable to?
How do we pay for it?

According to the “Monetary Policy” section of the Cardano documentation, 25,927,070,538 ADA have been distributed to the public, leaving 5,185,414,108 in the hands of the principals of the project (Emurgo, IOHK, and the CF) and 13,887,515,354 for minting. Altogether, 45 billion total ADA.

I’d like to suggest that Emurgo, IOHK, and the CF create a fund from their holdings equal to 2% of the total tokens possible – 900 million ADA. Dedicate this fund to staking ADA for the BEI.
My understanding is that minting will initially start out at 5%-10% of delegated stake per year, and reduce as time goes by. It’s also a good bet that the value of ADA will increase for many years. The minting production of this fund might look something like the table below.

Year Mint % Coins Minted USD Value
1 9% 81,000,000 $202,500,000
2 8% 72,000,000 $360,000,000
3 7% 63,000,000 $630,000,000
4 6% 54,000,000 $1,080,000,000
5 5% 45,000,000 $1,350,000,000
: : : :
: : : :
10 2% 18,000,000 $1,800,000,000

As we can see, the funds generated by the initial stake start out large and become enormous quickly, but let me ask: Is 2% of our time, effort, and resources too much to ask for the betterment of society through education?

How do we spend the money?

Create an oversight committee and task it with designing and managing education programs. Hire teams of educators and developers to develop and implement the projects. The oversight committee should be accountable to the greater Cardano community, and the project participants should be accountable to the oversight committee. Transparency at all levels must be provided.

What sorts of programs might we develop?

If we want to foster a fair and equitable society, we might start by encouraging learning, sharing and collaboration. Start with simple programs to teach kids the basics, but add in bonuses for group performance. Example: A child masters a subject and displays excellent understanding of it. That child gets an A grade. However, if the group to which that child belongs performs at a superior level, that child gets an A+. Thus, the children are given incentive to help and encourage all members of their groups.
As students progress, they might learn more advanced subjects such as coding, smart contract development, community governance, project management, and so forth related to blockchain.

A consideration for the initiative might be to create a “student record” system on a side chain dedicated to tracking all students’ academic performance. Code can be developed to create fair distribution of students in groups, so “all the smart kids” don’t end up in the same groups and unfairly skew outcomes. Access to student records might be provided to individuals and organizations only with the approval of the student or their guardian through a multi-sig system.

Systems of rewards for students, educators, and schools might be developed as well. I think we can assume that educators and school administrators will be much more enthusiastic about this idea if we provide incentives! :wink:

That’s all I’ve got at this moment. I’d really like to see the community flesh these ideas out, and I would really appreciate feedback from the principals (@jonmoss). Thanks for sticking with me through this long post! :smiley:

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@tknowny There are some really great ideas in this post. I think you are on the right track. One thing I wonder about is IOHK is already conduction Haskel classes in Barbados and possibly other countries. I remember Charles mentioning that these will be expanded in the future to teach how to code dapps. I wonder if this is something that can possibly be expanded to the ideas we are thinking about in this thread? Or would this initiative be completely unrelated to that effort?

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Thanks @regsanman! I think any education efforts can be included in this program.

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I want to add that I would get behind the funding model that you suggest. That seems like a much more stable long term solution than applying for funding periodically from the treasury.

In one of Charles 3.5 hour interviews I remember him stating that one area of development was slightly behind schedule because the responsible developer had been in Barbados teaching haskel. I suggest somebody contacting IOHK and find out who that is. Then maybe we could correspond with the dev and find out what exactly they are doing and if there is a way for us to expand the education effort to the younger kids in such a way that it compliments their program. I nominate you @tknowny or @ADALove to start the outreach if you think this is idea is worth pursuing.

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When I imagine myself organizing a computer club or hacker space, or some similar computer education center in my area I would have to hire coding instructors, etc to teach the technical areas because it is beyond my areas of expertise. What would help tremendously is if the educational material we are thinking about could be formatted as an online course so everyone would have access without the need for local instructors. Another approach would be to create video game type courses. When you complete a level, and achieve a certain grade, you advance to the next level/lesson. I have not done any research on what type of course study programs already exist. I’m sure that would be very helpful. I am mostly just thinking out loud and throwing out some ideas.

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@regsanman Thank you for the vote of confidence. :slight_smile: Unfortunately, I have so many things already going on in my life (including multiple Cardano-based projects) that I would not be able to effectively lead the education project for Cardano. But I like the ideas presented in this thread so far and I hope some others with the time/talent/passion can step up to help us get from the current ideation phase to the execution phase.

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