ButterflyDAO - people-powered research platform

Name of DAO

[ButterflyDAO]

Proposal overview

Who We Are

ButterflyDAO is a science-centered DAO that enables the public to participate in scientific research so that they can play their role in solving our most pressing global and environmental challenges while spreading environmental awareness.

We are a group of scientists, ecologists, and nature lovers who aim to accelerate science literacy. We believe that science for all is the only way to catalyze scientific research and solve global challenges. We do this by lowering the barriers for citizens to participate in science, enjoy science and create a commonwealth while providing valid scientific data.

ButterflyDAO believes science has a personality that is diverse, artistic, and colorful. Through our curated ambassador programs, we feature and onboard scientists who are also writers, singers, painters, DJs, and skateboarders to showcase that science is universal and it’s fun to do it!

Problem To Be Solved

For Scientists

One major challenge of 21st-century research is managing the enormous amounts of information we can collect and aggregate about the world around us. While computers can help parse through this data, the human ability for pattern recognition — and our ability to give data a local and cultural meaning takes precedence and can help scientists unlock hidden insights to troves of data.

For Citizens

Scientific knowledge should be available for every person regardless of their income, social status, and geographical location. However, in the 21st-century, gender, and one’s socio-economic background remain huge barriers for the average citizen to access scientific knowledge. Many citizens feel left out because of the stigma that science is only for scientists.

Unsolved Global & Environmental Challenges

Unsolved global and environmental challenges are detrimental and jeopardize the long-term health and security of animals, plants, and humans. By 2050 it is estimated more than 1 million species will become extinct. Now more than ever, it is important that we accelerate public participation in scientific research, leading to faster progress, a better understanding of the world, and driving exciting results more quickly.

Mandates

ButterflyDAO solves these challenges by bringing together a vibrant community of scientists and citizens from all walks of life. Scientists can make a request for public data on our platform and
citizens can respond to this request by providing valid scientific data. As a reward citizens earn
a special NFT that unlocks airdrops and special perks like getting to meet the scientists of the
projects they support the most.

Our Mandates Include:

1. Education: We strive to accelerate science literacy for everyone through scientific knowledge
co-creation, program design, and resource sharing. For example, if a local community wants to save their local oyster population, we can provide them with the tools, resources, and knowledge to do so.

2. Sustainability: To keep our DAO sustainable, we aim to generate revenue by commercializing citizen co-created research publications, science NFT transaction commission fees, and in the long run, we aim to commercialize citizen co-created urban sensors to make sense of the environment we are living in and reward them with our own tokens.

3. Diversity & Inclusion: Ensuring that both citizens and scientists from a diversity of backgrounds are included in our ecosystem.

Implementation

1. Community Membership & Rewards - Community is at the heart of our mission. We get to know our members through a personalized onboarding process, provide weekly updates to our community and hold monthly webinars to keep our community updated. We will also produce a quarterly report that aggregates the research insights from our DAO. Active members, contributors, and advocates will be rewarded with token airdrops.

2. Events - Science, blockchain, and environmental-related hackathons, meetups, workshops, conferences that have a special focus on outdoor events. We believe the essence of being a citizen scientist is to be close to nature, take nature as a citizen’s science lab, hands dirty, and boots on the ground.

3. Science Fellow Program - We highlight scientists who share a commitment to our vision and values. Then we support them with the resources they need to succeed in their research.

4. Marketing & Influencer Program - Collaborate with influencers who are science and environmentally focused to highlight important research projects and causes.

How Can We Work with Harmony

● Build Roads into Diverse Communities: ButterflyDAO can introduce the Harmony organization and brand to a diversity of communities that include our scientists, citizens, civic and government organizations. Co-branding opportunities are also available like promoting Harmony’s initiatives through our social media channels and podcasts.

● Highlight Harmony’s Green Efforts: Through our social channels and media channels we will be able to highlight the environmental and sustainability efforts of members of the Harmony community and organization. For example, we can co-create a marketing campaign for World Environmental Day.

● Expand Harmony’s Ecosystem to a New Vertical: Paving the infrastructure of blockchain for science; we’ll bring the builders and creators together to unlock the limitless potential of blockchain for science, align everyone in our community as ButterflyDAO token ($BFT) holders, enabled by Harmony.

â—Ź Community Governance Opportunities: We are open to guidance and direction from members of the Harmony team. We believe in the spirit of collaboration with our partners. We call it the power of collective consciousness.

Team
TW: Founder, social entrepreneur with a finance background, 2 years as a Citizen Scientist.
AA: CTO, Blockchain Professor at Columbia, Blockchain PHD. 10 years blockchain experience.
AP: Program Director, years experience in launching Citizen Science Programs for NY State Parks
GJ: Marketing & Creative Director
WH: Founded one of the first major NFT projects in 2017; Advisor

Proposal ask

We are raising our initial round of funding for our DAO and would be thrilled to have Harmony be one of our anchor contributors. We believe our mission, vision, and values are in alignment and together we can unlock the endless possibilities of how the public can participate in scientific research and overcome some of the most difficult problems facing our world today, bringing both fun and excitement along the way.

We propose $150K funding over 9 months and a $50K initial funding to kick start the project and showcase results.

A full breakdown of our budget is available upon request.

Metrics for success

Our Roadmap

Q1

â—Ź Onboard 250-300 new members to our community

â—Ź 5 strategic partnerships: Monarch Watch, Billion Oyster Project, New York State Office of

Parks, Project Squirrel, Hudson River Foundation are top targets

â—Ź Co-create a sustainable revenue model with our community

â—Ź Propose tokenomics structure to the community

Q2

â—Ź Open up our ambassador program to 10+ science ambassadors

â—Ź Release initial concepts for ButterflyDAO open-source platform, where citizens would be

rewarded with NFT tokens for providing scientific data

â—Ź Token airdrop to first strategic partner

Q3

â—Ź Open up the beta of our ButterflyDAO open-source platform to the public

â—Ź Enable 20+ science organizations to launch data collection projects on ButterflyDAO

â—Ź Host ButterflyDAO first annual community gathering

Project Website

3 Likes

This is so inspiring!! :exploding_head: Would love to take part!!

WOW!
Solving real world problems and being able to be a contributor to the same. Count me in. :heart::fire:

Love the citizen science aspect! There need to be more ways of incentivizing the population to contribute to research outside of old “ivy tower” / academic models, particularly since we need to collect data globally on pressing challenges like global warming. Most of the planet isn’t college educated and is not going to contribute to research papers - but they can get on board with this.

Hello, @Tia!

Thank you so much for this incredibly eloquent DAO proposal. I can sense the passion for what you hope to achieve with the ButterflyDAO through the computer screen. :sparkles:

Really quickly, I would like to link you to the DAO funding guidelines that @Sam has published. You can view the full guidelines here. And I will break down what we call “The Mighty Six” below.

  1. Mandates: 3 mandates. Specific. Precise. Each mandate to have two sub-clauses to provide further clarification on these mandates. All three mandates and their sub-clauses should fit within a tweet.
  1. Deliverables: Looking forward for the next 3 months only, identify key deliverables directly tied to the mandates of your DAO that you will be focused on accomplishing. Be specific. Chart, in steps, how you will get from where you start to delivering your goal.
  1. Metrics: Quantifiable and verifiable. List the “stretch goal” metrics that you and your DAO will be using to measure your impact in furthering your mandate. Low bars of success indicate a certain level of disengagement, while high bars and stretch goals indicate confidence in yourself and your community to accomplish that about which you are passionate.
  1. Governors : List the 9 governors that will start your DAO. NOTE: As we have said in the DAO Funding Guidelines (Guidelines for Harmony Grants ) being a governor is not about having a part-time job. Think about your three mandates and try to find passionate individuals that have the skillset and expertise to help you accomplish those goals.
  1. Gnosis Safe Multisig Wallet : Establish a multisig wallet that requires 5 out of the 9 governors to approve the disbursement of funds.
  1. Schedule the Next Election : DAOs are not kingdoms. The initial governors do not rule by divine right, nor are they supposed to be “Governor-for-Life”. DAOism is about community. About passionate participation in projects. It is vital that we have a regular rotation of community members experiencing the responsibility of managing the DAOs treasury.

It should be noted, that meeting this particular criteria for a DAO bootstrap fund doesn’t necessarily mean it will be approved and funded.

I would also suggest linking social media channels (Twitter, LinkedIn, GitHub, etc.) to the bios of current governors that have been selected for the first term.

Again, thank you for this proposal. Looking forward to the updates! :blue_heart:

@sam @giv

Following back up on this, @Tia

Would love to hear about how your project is going and how the updates to the proposal are coming.

:blue_heart:

Due to the lack of activity on this thread I am going to decline this proposal without prejudice and close this thread.

Please feel free to repost at a later date.

Thank you.