I’d definitely be interested in getting involved. I’m no programmer or computer specialist, but in some way I think that might actually be an advantage. I do have ample experience (10+ years) in conducting capacity building activities and developing training materials (scenario-based, interactive approaches) in multi-cultural settings. I assume that setting up this initiative will not start from here, but will start from Cardano team though…
4 Likes
That is my hope as well. I would be happy to be the point person, so to speak, for the community on this, but I’m neither qualified nor capable of managing an effort on this scale. It might be more effective to engage the principals (@jonmoss) in planning and coordinating this initiative, with members of this community providing vision, support, and assistance where feasible. (Thanks for the vote of confidence @regsanman!)
I’d also like to encourage everyone to take a look at existing free online learning initiatives. We might want to take a page from Charles’ book and leverage the best parts from existing platforms. Here are a few that I like:
Carnegie Mellon University’s Open Learning Initiative: https://oli.cmu.edu/
edX: https://www.edx.org/
Coursera: https://www.coursera.org/
Microsoft Virtual Academy: https://mva.microsoft.com/
w3schools: https://www.w3schools.com/
2 Likes
@Afridev thanks for your interest. It sounds like your skillset will prove invaluable to the project. I have been enjoying your thoughtful contributions to this forum and am sure your experiences will contribute a lot to helping the ideas here grow.
1 Like
Excellent, thanks for stepping forward. I will consider you the community ambassador for the education initiative.
I agree that we should use as much open source material as possible. I will try and gather some additional resources as well.
1 Like
@regsanman, thank you for your kind words, appreciated 
.
On approach, what I’ve seen is that one-off trainings are not optimal. The best results seem to come from taking a ‘trajectory approach’, where multiple contact moments are intersected with periods where participants apply, under guidance (peers?), what was covered, and interact with each other around joint interests and personal/ group goals. Have never worked with capacity building of children, but this approach should work well with children too. Depending on what we’d want to achieve, target groups, levels, and what would be covered some options may be: games, exchanges, joint interactive activities, short modules (facilitated by peers?), parts of the forum attributed to specific age groups for interactions and collaboration, working with ADA, gradually building the skills needed to set up smart contracts, challenges with prizes. The options are many and should be fun (yet challenging enough) and practical/ applicable to keep interest. A trajectory approach with constant support availability (by advanced peers?) would mean that participants could gradually improve their awareness, understanding and skills throughout their schooling period.
Online training could be an option too to give children the option to explore thing further on their own, but would probably be more adequate after awareness has been raised through other means.
Would sound like a great initiative to be involved in .
Yes I think the approach you outline might be best and is pretty much consistent with my thinking. Perhaps a pilot program somewhere could be an intermediate goal. I have no experience with teaching but have several friends who are teachers and involved or been involved in alternative methods. I just shot a letter off to one in the hopes that I can pick his brain a bit and start discovering the state of computer education in the area as well as get some guidance on proven methods. Hopefully it won’t cost me any more than a few beers. I will keep you updated.
1 Like
We would love to help with this if possible. We are looking at learning resources at the moment:
- what has been successful previously
- what have other organisations done in the sector
- the platforms to look at
- how we provide material for different people (for example, children developers, newbies, experienced people)
If you could drop me a PM, perhaps we could organise a Skype call in the next week or so?
Thanks again for the amazing ideas and vision!
Best wishes,
Jon
2 Likes
It depends very much on the parameters: what do we want to achieve (simplifying here - e.g. generating general interest for the blockchain approach itself, understanding the potential role of the blockchain in society, skills with regard to setting up smart contracts, probably a combination of different elements), who we want to reach (e.g. specific age-groups, specific profiles), what level of proficiency we would like to achieve for the different subjects/ profiles (awareness, knowledge, understanding, application), at what geographic level the initiative would operate (initially local, provincial, possibly national?) and where this would be developed (good to choose a location that already has an enabling environment to start with and learn). These elements will obviously need to align with the vision of the Cardano movement.
Once the general lines are clear, and the commitment/ scale/ resourcing/ location defined, it is possible to develop a strategy and approaches. If you are serious about this, then it’s better not to directly jump into ‘what’s out there’ in training materials, this is important after the parameters of the initiative are clear, existing materials may, or may not be useful, depending on what we want to achieve.
Yes, agreed, this would seem to be the way forward. Set up a limited initiative, learn your lessons, improve, consolidate and scale up. Approaches for learning should be fun, practical/ hands-on, interactive, visual, presenting challenges that ‘participants’ want to dig into. Everybody learns in a different way, and the approaches used needs to reflect this. I’d suggest using a trajectory approach that has several contact points, and trying to get a movement going of participants, ideally providing (distance) support through (short online) videos/ resources that give background and maybe even some technical support (this could possibly be from peers). The implementation approach should be agile and flexible (to be able to quickly seize opportunities and correct/ mitigate problems - innovation cannot be planned for, it is the result of the way an organisation is set up and its values), involvement of peers as trainers/ supporters/ motivators. A lot is possible, but it depends on the commitment that could be made. I realise that I’m directly thinking quite ‘big’ here, but I think we need to be realistic as to what is needed to achieve a meaningful impact.
A caveat with regard to my implication is that while I have coordinated capacity building projects and been part of the coordination of international capacity building programmes, developed interactive training materials and done a lot of capacity building, these initiatives didn’t work with children, and focused on elements like water supply, sanitation and hygiene, logistics systems and resilience, nothing even remotely close to the blockchain though 
…
1 Like
@tknowny Just wanted to make sure you have seen the last couple of posts.
I think a skype call with cf_jonmass is a very good idea. From his post it seems like they may be exploring a similar idea and we should join forces at this early stage to coordinate efforts. I am in the US, EST and am fairly flexible as far as scheduling a call.
I suggest tknowy contacting cf_jonmass and working out a good group call time. I am looking forward it.
@Afridev The approach you outline seems like the best approach to me. It is also consistent with the Cardano approach. Define bedrock and figure out the simplest, most efficient way to get to the desired goal.
1 Like
I agree, @regsanman. I live in the Pacific time zone of the US (UTC-8:00) . Your profile shows you in the Eastern time zone of the US (UTC-5:00) , and @Afridev’s profile shows Sweden (UTC+1:00). I don’t see an area of residence on @jonmoss’s profile, but the CF is listed in Switzerland (UTC+1:00). I suggest we get together on Skype on a weekday in the 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM UTC timeframe. Let’s plan initially to take about thirty minutes to an hour to introduce ourselves and briefly present high level overviews of our visions of a blockchain education initiative and what we want to accomplish. Just a discussion to get to know each other a little and see if we think we might like to move forward with this.
My first suggestion for the initial meeting is Monday, 12 February at 17:00 UTC.
Is this acceptable to everyone?
I want to express my appreciation for all of you for your time and effort. Thank you so much!
1 Like
Hello @regsanman @Afridev @tknowny I’m in the UK but cannot do next week due to travel and other commitments.
Monday 19th should be fine though 
2 Likes
The 19th will work for me as well.
1 Like
@jonmoss, @regsanman, @Afridev.
Looks like Monday, 19 February it is!
Will 17:00 UTC work for everyone?
2 Likes
Yes, 17h00 UTC - 18h00 CET works for me, I assume the connection is through Skype and that Jon will initiate the connection.
Looking forward to speaking to all of you then .
2 Likes
Yes, 17 UTC is fine. Looking forward to it.
1 Like
Now that we’re talking ‘projects’
I’d love to see a type of ‘working group’ that would exchange/ brainstorm around potential real-life applications of Cardano/ ADA in specific sectors. I have several ideas of potential applications in the development/ emergency response sector, but I think that working with someone who really knows and understands the Blockchain and its opportunities/ limitations would open up a lot of additional options, including potentially generating new insights for Cardano. The forum seems an excellent place to identify persons who represent specific sectors. Though possibly this discussion should not be entirely open as this information will be very useful for other Blockchain platforms too, and they could easily take the results and run with it…
Getting the strategy right early is important and early positioning and getting sectors to accept Cardano as ‘The standard’ for ‘how things are done’ will probably be important to make Cardano the go-to platform of the future. With concrete use-cases (i.e. real solutions to existing issues), practitioner can make cases for adoption in their respective sectors and advocate/ raise awareness for these. Getting adoption takes time, so I think this should start early, and we don’t need to have a fully-functional product yet (but having some functionality would help tremendously). The idea is to raise awareness with practitioners, who when they encounter a problem will subconsciously think ‘Cardano’ (or ‘Blockchain xxx, yeah, but wasn’t Cardano actually better at this?’ )
What are your thoughts on this?
1 Like
@tknowny @Afridev @regsanman Skype it is… 17h00 UTC on the 19th. Please can you PM your Skype details and I’ll add you in and initiate the call on the 19th.
Thanks very much 
This is probably a discussion for another thread, but it seems what you are describing are think-tanking use cases which are really business opportunities. I think you would need to figure out what is the role/purpose of the community in coming up with business opportunities? Who is going to build them out? Who is going to profit? Is this really something the community should be doing? I don’t know? Emugo is set up for this purpose. Maybe approach them with use cases and see what they can do? I’d be curious to find out more about that. The other approach is start a company, make a proposal to the treasury and if funded, build it. Charles talks about a great use case, the tokenization of natural resources, in this video at the1:53.00 mark. It is something IOHK is planning to build. Perhaps what you are describing can take the shape of idea proposals for IOHK to engineer? I hope I haven’t missed your point too much.
3 Likes