Introducing the Local Community Centers challenge—the Cardano Foundation’s first challenge in Project Catalyst
Project Catalyst is one of the largest experiments in truly decentralized governance to date
Going forward, the Cardano Foundation will be taking a more active role in Project Catalyst, alongside our ecosystem partners at IOHK. As a result, we are pleased to introduce the first Cardano Foundation Project Catalyst challenge, arriving during Fund4.
Part of the Cardano Foundation’s core mission is to foster the growth and adoption of Cardano and our community. So, what better way to do this hand-in-hand with our community through Project Catalyst—contributing to one of the largest experiments in decentralized governance to date!
Where other Catalyst challenges help to expedite the adoption of Cardano through a focus on development initiatives and goals, the Cardano Foundation’s challenge focuses on leveraging the power of our community.
Below, we will reveal more details of our first community challenge. But first, let’s discover why we are introducing a new challenge format with Catalyst Fund4, and what our goal is.
What is the impetus behind the Cardano Foundation’s new challenges?
The Cardano Foundation is part of the greater community, and we strive to grow and evolve Cardano. To do this, we must bring new participants, such as enterprises and institutions, into our ecosystem.
With our talented team across the globe, the Cardano Foundation is able to make a significant impact. However, with the power of our community, we can accelerate our efforts tenfold in a short amount of time. Now, through Catalyst, we have a new way to interact, enlist, and empower our community members and bring in new participants.
As part of the Cardano Foundation’s challenge, we will be looking to work closely with community members to co-create mission-driven components needed for the growth and adoption of Cardano.
Without the jargon, this means that Cardano Foundation will work directly with fund recipients. This includes making our know-how; as well as team members in the fields of business development, technology, legal etc.; available where needed to help make successful project proposals come to fruition.
If necessary—and depending on the scope and successful implementation of the challenge—the Cardano Foundation may assume temporary responsibility for new proposals until the project is further decentralized, reaching a stage where it can be managed by the community in an autonomous manner.
The introduction of Cardano Foundation challenges to Project Catalyst will assist us in achieving two key goals:
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The Cardano Foundation can directly assume its role as facilitator and mentor to Cardano, one of our key missions, whilst helping the community grow and thrive,
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The user experience of Catalyst can be tested from an organization’s perspective through the Cardano Foundation, gaining key insights and paving the way for enterprise use of the Project Catalyst platform.
As revealed by our Chief Growth Officer, Eva Oberholzer, in IOHK’s Project Catalyst Town Hall on the 17th of February, our first challenge to Catalyst participants will be for the creation of local community centers. So, let’s discover what this means, and what your community center proposal could look like.
Our first challenge—building local community centers for Cardano
Our challenge to the community through our first Project Catalyst challenge is this:
“How can we mobilize the community to solve local problems using Cardano, through a digital Local Community Center (LCC) model supported by the Cardano Foundation?”
Proposed community centers should seek to solve local or regional-level issues using blockchain. Alternatively, they could provide a clear idea of how Cardano could be used to build the necessary tools, components, and infrastructure required to assist local businesses, enterprises, or educational institutions.
For example, you may have an idea to create a consortium of Cardano smart-contract coders in Cape Town, a DeFi discovery center in Dubai, or a focus group on Cardano-based enterprise experts in Edinburgh—the choice is yours.
However, we do expect local community center proposals to be different in scope from our pre-existing meetup hubs or social events—of which we already have many diverse and valued hubs.
Instead, we are looking for community center projects that leverage local and regional Cardano interest groups to lead on either educational, development, or business growth use cases.
Therefore, those looking to put together a proposal for the Cardano Foundation’s first challenge should focus clearly on the tangible, real-world benefits that your local community center could deliver for Cardano.
The following related questions may prove useful when thinking about your proposal:
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How can you leverage Cardano’s large and engaged international community to promote and evolve the Cardano project and bring in developers, enterprises/NPOs, students etc.?
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What tools, resources, and processes will you need from the Cardano Foundation in order to build a Local Community Center?
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How will you use the Cardano community to solve local problems, while representing the Cardano blockchain in the best way possible?
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How would a blockchain infrastructure solution provide your regional focus group with the components they need?
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How will you inspire, guide, and enable your local Cardano Community to act as educators, brand ambassadors, and growth accelerators now and into the future?
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How will you safeguard Cardano’s brand image and ensure that it is used in favor of the project and its mission? We envisage this process being similar to the application for a TedX organizers licence.
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What will be the real-world outcomes of your local community center? How will they be measured?
The Cardano Foundation will support successful applicants with both our time and resources, including educational materials, toolkits, developer kits, and more. This will help to engage, educate and develop new participants in the Cardano ecosystem.
We welcome applications from all corners of the globe, all walks of life, and all backgrounds. Let’s see how far we can spread the word and missions of Cardano, together!
If you have more questions about the Cardano Foundation’s Project Catalyst challenge, please reach out to our project lead Eva Oberholzer, at @eva.oberholzer on Ideascale.
