I have moral and safety concerns regarding your project and especially the Cardano blockchain. In your risk assessment report, you did not acknowledge the risks of proof of stake blockchain and NFTs.
I like the progress update and github page where you list your goals and if you reached them.
In your funding proposal F6, you stated this timeline: “Phase 3: August 2022 - October 2022 (12 months)
Completion of both the donor side dApp and recipient mechanism for receiving funds.
First pilot testing in high schools and universities in Ethiopia. 30 students registered on the platform.
Finalized research proposal submitted for large grant application to properly fund the project.
Initiate meetings with larger organisations such as the World Bank, UNHCR or the Red Cross who might be interested in the technology for related uses.”
Thanks for the many good comments:) As you know, there are so many things going on with a charity startup and difficult trade-offs to make. One of them being proper tracking against our roadmap and communicating what we’re doing (as opposed to focusing on doing), especially at an early stage like this.
The playlist order is now corrected!
(keeping in mind my caveat) I’ve had a look at some of the drive links and updated. We’ll use PDF + Notion upload from now on so that we don’t rely on individual team members (who likely ran out of drive space for his own documents but I’ll have to ask Moses about it).
When it comes to risks of proof of stake and NFTs, I’d rather mention those in a more general risk assessment report (which has had low priority status). I’ll look into adding that for the Q2 2023 OKRs!
The most recent proposal is the one for F8. Let me be very candid on this one though. Projecting 12+ months forward without virtually any experience on the ground in Ethiopia nor with dapp development was more like an exercise in wishful thinking than a proper and well-informed roadmap. The F8 one was more realistic. I’ll be making a page where you can track progress against the Roadmap. Right now we have a Progress page with OKRs but the link to the roadmap isn’t very well made. https://directed.notion.site/Progress-Updates-81f92ecebefb4f289e80e1703ff73d2a
Just to give you my background on this. I met with the Project manager for the Ethiopia deal when I was in Addis two months ago. However, I lack the full technical background to explain all the details of DID/SSI/Atala Prism but I understand it on a high level, and more than the vast majority (if not all) of tech journalists who cover Cardano.
The Cigi-article is unfortunately written by someone who has actually no clue about what Self-Sovereign Identifiers (SSI) are and what the Ethiopia project really is about. Just to bring up the most egregious confusion that the authors illustrates: they mistakenly believe that SSI is a blockchain identity technology (and that the credentials platform IOHK has been contracted to build is going to have personal data on-chain). It is not. It is not a blockchain identity system (unlike so-called Soul-bound tokens). It is decentralised public key infrastructure. Blockchain only as a tiny part of it. For those interested in learning more about self-sovereign identifiers (AKA Decentralised Identifiers). Here is the official W3C standards recommendation for those who want to learn what it is, approved in July 2022 https://www.w3.org/2022/07/pressrelease-did-rec.html.en
The QZ article on similarly showing very superficial understanding of the technology. The statement “The project will build digital identity solutions on the Cardano blockchain. ” is not factually correct. I am happy to elaborate.
NB, Atala PRISM is not a completed product. It is in development and is not even yet registered as an official DID.
“Let’s hope (?) this does not fail too badly.” I hope you don’t mind me being honest but I think this comment was a bit unnecessary.
We are doing the piloting of our bootcamps and the end-to-end on-chain scholarship granting in the next month and during Q1-Q2 this year!
Hi Simon,
your playlist starts with video no. 3, 2, 1 and ends with 4. Is this the intended order?
The following documents are missing on your Google Drive:
Verification of educational institutions Kenya:
https://directed.notion.site/Verification-of-educational-institutions-Kenya-d6f819c3d56e4656a5089404c1e95aea
Risk Assessment Report—Kenya
https://directed.notion.site/Risk-Assessment-Report-Kenya-aae33491da424b14a45e295b3b91df09
I have moral and safety concerns regarding your project and especially the Cardano blockchain. In your risk assessment report, you did not acknowledge the risks of proof of stake blockchain and NFTs.
I like the progress update and github page where you list your goals and if you reached them.
In your funding proposal F6, you stated this timeline:
“Phase 3: August 2022 - October 2022 (12 months)
Completion of both the donor side dApp and recipient mechanism for receiving funds.
First pilot testing in high schools and universities in Ethiopia. 30 students registered on the platform.
Finalized research proposal submitted for large grant application to properly fund the project.
Initiate meetings with larger organisations such as the World Bank, UNHCR or the Red Cross who might be interested in the technology for related uses.”
https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/369558
Do you have a page where you have the track record based on the timelines you stated?
For someone reading the forum, here two articles on Cardano in the African educational system.
Why a Little-Known Blockchain-Based Identity Project in Ethiopia Should Concern Us All
https://www.cigionline.org/articles/why-a-little-known-blockchain-based-identity-project-in-ethiopia-should-concern-us-all/
Ethiopia’s blockchain deal is a watershed moment
https://qz.com/africa/2011167/forget-bitcoin-why-ethiopias-blockchain-deal-is-pivotal
Let’s hope (?) this does not fail too badly.
Hey Felix!
Thanks for the many good comments:) As you know, there are so many things going on with a charity startup and difficult trade-offs to make. One of them being proper tracking against our roadmap and communicating what we’re doing (as opposed to focusing on doing), especially at an early stage like this.
The playlist order is now corrected!
(keeping in mind my caveat) I’ve had a look at some of the drive links and updated. We’ll use PDF + Notion upload from now on so that we don’t rely on individual team members (who likely ran out of drive space for his own documents but I’ll have to ask Moses about it).
When it comes to risks of proof of stake and NFTs, I’d rather mention those in a more general risk assessment report (which has had low priority status). I’ll look into adding that for the Q2 2023 OKRs!
The most recent proposal is the one for F8. Let me be very candid on this one though. Projecting 12+ months forward without virtually any experience on the ground in Ethiopia nor with dapp development was more like an exercise in wishful thinking than a proper and well-informed roadmap. The F8 one was more realistic. I’ll be making a page where you can track progress against the Roadmap. Right now we have a Progress page with OKRs but the link to the roadmap isn’t very well made. https://directed.notion.site/Progress-Updates-81f92ecebefb4f289e80e1703ff73d2a
Just to give you my background on this. I met with the Project manager for the Ethiopia deal when I was in Addis two months ago. However, I lack the full technical background to explain all the details of DID/SSI/Atala Prism but I understand it on a high level, and more than the vast majority (if not all) of tech journalists who cover Cardano.
The Cigi-article is unfortunately written by someone who has actually no clue about what Self-Sovereign Identifiers (SSI) are and what the Ethiopia project really is about. Just to bring up the most egregious confusion that the authors illustrates: they mistakenly believe that SSI is a blockchain identity technology (and that the credentials platform IOHK has been contracted to build is going to have personal data on-chain). It is not. It is not a blockchain identity system (unlike so-called Soul-bound tokens). It is decentralised public key infrastructure. Blockchain only as a tiny part of it. For those interested in learning more about self-sovereign identifiers (AKA Decentralised Identifiers). Here is the official W3C standards recommendation for those who want to learn what it is, approved in July 2022 https://www.w3.org/2022/07/pressrelease-did-rec.html.en
The QZ article on similarly showing very superficial understanding of the technology. The statement “The project will build digital identity solutions on the Cardano blockchain. ” is not factually correct. I am happy to elaborate.
NB, Atala PRISM is not a completed product. It is in development and is not even yet registered as an official DID.
“Let’s hope (?) this does not fail too badly.” I hope you don’t mind me being honest but I think this comment was a bit unnecessary.
We are doing the piloting of our bootcamps and the end-to-end on-chain scholarship granting in the next month and during Q1-Q2 this year!
Please do sign up to our monthly newsletter to get quick updates on that https://directed.notion.site/Newsletter-signup-34e6bced04534d3981ece8312caea717