Project Catalyst’s Fund 10 Challenge Setting
Discover the nine Fund 10 challenges selected and the rationale for the choices
The voting for Fund 9 of Project Catalyst—Cardano’s hub for community innovation—is open and will continue until 19 September, 2022. During this time, the community will also have the opportunity to vote for the Fund 10 Challenges, which will set the scene for the very last Catalyst Fund of 2022. This is the right moment to both participate and encourage others to do the same.
Blockchain will only reach true utility and significant governance through the committed and widespread engagement with multiple groups, many of which may have differing values and goals. Indeed, the Cardano Foundation knows a diversity of voices and experiences is fundamental for the vitality of the blockchain space. For this reason, and since Fund 7, we have become an active participant in Project Catalyst. As always, we vote to inspire and to increase community participation, so that we may all, together, create a thriving future for blockchain technology.
Selecting the challenges
Ahead of the voting process for a new Catalyst Fund, the Cardano Foundation consistently gathers information and pays close attention to the community’s opinions and debates. In deciding on which challenges to vote for in Fund 10, we considered the community feedback about Catalyst Fund 9 collected by the Ambassadors Guild and similarly engaged in multiple conversations with various community members during Consensus 2022 and other blockchain-related events and community platforms.
Two frequent remarks amidst the community pertain to funding categorization and to repetition. An occasional propensity for different challenges to set identical objectives has been noticed. At the same time, a significant part of the community has identified the current categories for aggregating challenges as somewhat inefficient. Recurring comments indicate a desire to see the categories optimized so they may become more all encompassing. Others point to the necessity of better showcasing challenges that might lack popularity but prove nonetheless vital for the development of the Cardano blockchain. These discussions and revaluations provide exemplary instances of community governance at work and the Cardano Foundation has therefore elected not to interfere or vote in favor of any particular stance. We were, however, deeply pleased to realize the community has already acted to address some of these issues.
As the Cardano Foundation champions minimal viable centralization, we understand how fundamental it is to uphold a lively and thriving community that fully engages with projects, making itself heard while also proceeding with both enthusiasm and caution. We also know this can only be accomplished by including a wide diversity of thought. In addition, we maintain an unwavering commitment to blockchain utility. For this reason, we continue to promote the future and evolution of blockchain technology itself, having consequently taken steps to foster the open source maturity of the Cardano blockchain. Such an approach directly aligns with our work to advance the positive adoption of the Cardano blockchain and expand its uses within the systems of the world. Entwining all these aspects, the Cardano Foundation selected nine Fund 10 challenges to vote for.
The Cardano Foundation’s Fund 10 Challenge Setting
Here are the nine challenges and an overview of the Foundation’s rationale for choosing them: These challenges can also be viewed on the Cardano AIM voting tool and the Lido Nation Bookmarks tool.
1000 Universities Global Outreach
Scaling university-based contributions to the Cardano ecosystem
Universities could contribute to the sustainability of the Cardano blockchain by supporting education, research, and innovation; which ultimately may increase meaningful participation and development on Cardano. This challenge can empower the community to develop Cardano-based knowledge, skills, and tools through bespoke programs.
Accelerate Women on Cardano ECO
Nurturing gender diversity and inclusion in Cardano's community
Women are underrepresented in STEM and blockchain is no exception. The Cardano Foundation is committed to having a positive impact and support of this challenge is in line with this component of our overarching strategy.
Catalyst Contributors
Recognizing and fostering community contributions to Cardano's Voltaire experiments
In order for Catalyst to grow, its operations need to simultaneously scale. However, those contributing are currently not receiving financial rewards for their invaluable contributions. This challenge is essential to uphold the operational scalability and functional decentralization of Cardano's treasury governance. An overview of proposed roles can be found here.
Development & Infrastructure
Connecting the offline world to Cardano with a robust core technology stack
Research, tools, and software support high quality participation in the ecosystem and augment existing capabilities. Additionally, a diverse developer ecosystem and technical infrastructure increases the pace of adoption, as well as the number of third parties willing to join the ecosystem.
This broad category could include other challenges that have been proposed such as NFT Community & Ecosystem, Developer Ecosystem - The Evolution, CARDANO JS SDK: A Builder’s Journey, CARDANO FOR SCALA SUPERSTARS.
Governance & Identity
Using Cardano's trust layer to strengthen its sustainability
Digital identity and governance are potential key strengths of blockchain technology. Multiple ecosystem players would benefit from improvements in integrating governance and / or identity solutions through improved tooling, processes, and research as part of the Voltaire era and applications built on Cardano.
OSDE: Open Source Dev Ecosystem
Strengthening Cardano's decentralization through open source technology
A key driver for inclusive and organic growth is a vibrant open source community. A strong and healthy developer ecosystem with a common platform for tools, practices, standards, and resources, is vital for the growth of the ecosystem and the entry of a variety of third parties (including enterprises) to enter the ecosystem and flourish.
This broad category encompasses other proposed challenges: Developer Ecosystem - The Evolution, Regeneration: Opportunity 4 Cardano.
PLUTUS 100x GAINS FOR TIME-TO-dAPP
Scaling the adoption of Cardano smart contracts
Cardano's smart contract capabilities will receive significant improvements with the Vasil hardfork. It is timely to support initiatives to improve the smart contract developer experience through documentation and tooling which empowers Cardano developers and attracts developers from other ecosystems.
Products & Integrations
Upgrading the systems of the world through innovative Cardano solutions
Supports high quality participation in the ecosystem and augments existing capabilities through the development of products and integrations necessary for global adoption.
This broad category encompasses other proposed challenges, namely SPO Tools & Community Projects, Social and Business Development, NPOs/NGOs Integration & Solution, Cardano and Agriculture, The Newbie Challenge Setting, African Digital Banks Network, Building on NMKR, and Entrepreneurship Challenge.
Miscellaneous Challenge
Encouraging new ideas for the direction of Cardano adoption and development
Supports diversity of thought and problem sensing for emerging future categories. Ensures flexibility of funding proposals beyond broad thematic categories.
This broad category encompasses other proposed challenges: Supporting Local Communities, Startups & Onboarding for Students, Cardano Contributors, Nurturing Ideas & Teams, Cardano Global Marketing Campaign, Film & Media, Climate Change: THE Challenge.
The Cardano Foundation encourages everyone to get informed about the different Project Catalyst proposals and urges all those registered to vote on their own choice of projects.
For more information, please visit:
Project Catalyst
Project Catalyst FAQ by IOHQ
Project Catalyst Voting Guide
Lido Nation
Project Catalyst voter tool