DAO College: Free college for everyone

Governance DAO Proposals
1

Project Name:
DAO College
www.daocollege.xyz

Proposal overview

Going to college in the USA can cost up to $200k. We want to solve that with DAO College and offer free college to everyone by building an on-chain college. We want to upskill and onboard one billion people on Web3 technologies in the next ten years. Our program will be a mixture of video content, intense in-person hackathons, buidl weeks, and apprenticeship with our partners.

Why do people go to college?

  1. Credentials/ degree
  2. The promise of a job
  3. Network
  4. Lifestyle and experience
  5. Prestige (Ivey league schools)
  6. The last one is interesting. Learning!
  7. Family pressure…?

How will we build the college experience on-chain?

Building credentials by launching/contributing on-chain. For example, selling NFT’s or committing code on blockchain projects, launching a dapp or game will have more credibility than a piece of paper (degree).

In-perosn blockchain weeks in international cities to build long-term friendships, networking, and serendipity.

Always prioritize learning by doing stuff and installing the spirit of entrepreneurship, empathy, and Web3 values.

Translate blockchain content/courses into regional languages to reach more people across the globe.

How does it work for students?

They will be learning cutting-edge technologies without any cost attached. We will make sure to keep the standards of admission reasonably high.

Students will sign an agreement to contribute 1% of their salary to the DAO college endowment fund (Tax deductible) in return for collectibles and receive compensation/payments in DAO college tokens.

Value prop for token holders?

Issue the limited supply of tokens. Companies will need our tokens to pay our graduates.

Educators/content creators:

The leading educators in Web3 will create the content, and we will have a revenue share model split to keep the courses updated and run cohorts.

Where we are right now?
Website of DAO college launched (see external links)
13 students are already on the waiting list.

Multi-sig
0xd17DB4b21CCb2E11CBB392a9Aa059E627781dCbe

Proposal ask

$50,000 to hire developers to start building the initial infrastructure of the platform.
Also, start reaching out to leading educators and web3 content creators.

Metrics for success

Waiting list of 10,000 students in first 90 days starting from January 2022.
Launch a course in the first 90 days starting from January 2022.
Deployment on harmony test-net.

External links

www.daocollege.xyz
https://twitter.com/dao_college

3 Likes
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we have very little educational content on web3 and especially harmony.One, this would be a great start to spread awareness

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Seems very sketchy to me, can’t find a solid idea behind it and the website looks ‘trollish’, especially in the FAQ part.

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he has a great idea , he needs to think it through though

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@PacScarlatti We are not asking anything from students. It’s completely free and you think that’s sketchy?

I am sorry that you found FAQ ‘trollish’. We were trying to be funny and gave straight answers.

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I would really like to invite the Harmony community to poke holes in our idea. Ask questions. We are willing to learn from the community and answer any questions.

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“They will be learning cutting-edge technologies without any cost attached.”
It’s a beautiful idea to want to give education to anyone who wants it at no cost. But I fear it would also be it’s achilles heel, there is no cost to the student. When there is no cost, or creditation for completing courses i believe the vast majority would end up dropping out. What are your thoughts about this?

“We will make sure to keep the standards of admission reasonably high.”
I do not understand this at all. How can standards of admission be resonably high if it is free and open to all?

“Students will sign an agreement to contribute 1% of their salary to the DAO college endowment fund (Tax deductible) in return for collectibles and receive compensation/payments in DAO college tokens.”
What salary is this refering to? How long would they have to pay it?

“Companies will need our tokens to pay our graduates.”
How will this work exactly? When and how long are they considered graduates?

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@ChKashifAli The only information part I found on your website was the FAQ part and it actually gave me nothing but a bad sight of it overall, but of course I might be wrong. However the idea is definitely good, but you need to work through it harder. Kvasir also raised some good points. Also where it stands ’ Is this College accredited?’ the answer on your website is a straight weirdly nope. Why wouldn’t you find a way around to make this a really suistanable project and get accredited somewhere? Why would a student join your college if he won’t get any ‘title’ from you? And yes, people are interested to get their knowledge but if there’s actually no final acknowledgement they will just find another project.

3 Likes
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No offense, but this sounds a lot of like “Student Coin” – dreamt up by a lot of ex-students in Poland. The whitepaper’s ideas are very close to yours. From what I can see, you are expecting the market to adopt your product rather than finding market fit with users.

Not only do you need to find the users, but you’ll also need to find the universities to work with you, and the companies who MUST pay in your tokens/or some kind of token to ensure your DAO is paid back.

There are so many problems with this idea though. First and foremost, is the idea that a person can be represented by a token – meaning that the person’s ability to achieve at an educational institution can be reflected by the value of being paid back by a token. The truth is, in the early part of a person’s career, a lot goes into their career that is beyond their actual salary. This could be health insurance, career mentorship from the company, and extra circular activities sponsored by the company. And yet, you’re getting 1% of their earnings until you’re paid back? That is seems like a very ARBITRARY number. What happens if they work at a NGO? 1% is small. If they work at Goldman Sachs, then the 1% is after-taxes? You expect Goldman Sachs to use your coin to pay you back for hiring someone?

I’m sorry, but with any deep analysis that goes onto the costs involved in making this adoption even remotely possible, the only answer is to firmly reject this grant proposal.

1 Like
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Interesting initiative and will allow so many young people to get high-quality knowledge in an international environment. Guys - you rock! :boom: :blue_heart:

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We can note that at all conferences all Teams are talking about a lack of specialists. This is their chance to contribute and for us all to work out a model when the student doesn’t pay for the studies, but he may be assuming an obligation to work later for appointed companies for a while at a special rate.
This type of initiative like this free college is a spark that can make a fire in the educational field, changing the current paradigm.
PS: @TokenJenny has the Study Halls coming out soon - this solution could be a great tool for the college

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If it’s not accredited then its not “free college” (and only free for the end user). What the point if it’s not accredited?

Not every problem is applicable for blockchain - not sure how a “on-chain” college is supposed to work.

If the problem is lack of content nobody is stopping you from developing content and giving it away for free.

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I appreciate all the questions, concerns, and suggestions. Let me answer the questions on a high level.

Sorry for the delayed response. I am in the process of selling my last company, and things are a bit intense. My last company was also an EdTech company, and I helped 50+ people change their careers into tech.

1. Why free college?

Because why not? Web3 and Harmony’s values are aligned with our values to provide skill-based education. Web3 is all about dreaming big. One of Harmony’s goals is to provide $75 per hour UBI. Stevens mentioned that in ONE event. Coming back to free college.

Is it a big goal?
Yes

Is it doable?
Yes but it will require alot of innovation, out of the box thinking and early belivers.

  1. There have been many concerns about the business model. Let me dump all of my thoughts here on business models for this college and let the community decide.

2.1. Bootcamp business model:

Bootcamps train people for a highly sort-out skill like a full-stack developer/ Blockchain developer. They sign an income share agreement (ISA) and student payback once they get a job.

For example, if the 12-week course costs $12,000 . Students pay $2000 in advance to have skin in the game and the rest $10,000 when they get the job. Lambda school and tons of other coding BootCamp worldwide are doing this. My last company did the same thing.

Pros:
Solid and proven business model.
Fairly scalable

Cons:
It is limited to the USA, Europe, and developed countries. We cannot offer ISA’s in India or Africa.
We will then be affordable but not Free.
Also, not everyone can pay a $2000 deposit in developing countries.

Solution: Create the income share agreement on-chain to offer it as ISA’s anywhere in the world. That creates another problem: enforcement of these legal agreements needs to be localized in every country.

2.2: Andela Model:

Andela trains high potential individuals for six months to two years in developing countries and markets them in developed countries. Students pay nothing.

Companies pay ~$20,000 to Andela per engineer once they hire their graduate.

Andela also manages remote teams with satellite offices with high-speed internet, power, and other necessities.

Pros:
Students don’t pay anything.
They get a high-paying job after 1 to 2 years.

Cons:
We might need to set up presence, offices, middle management to run this effectively.
It’s not decentralized.

2.3: DAO College business model

What we are proposing.
Student enrolls in high skills jobs like full-stack blockchain developer.

We admit only top-quality candidates with higher cognitive skills and aptitude for programming.

i. Students don’t pay anything but sign an agreement to pay us back 1% to 3% of their income, which will be tax-deductible. The amount will be capped.

ii. After finishing the course (aka graduation), students will work for DAO’s and Web3 companies and accept their salary in our token. The supply of tokens will be limited to deliver value to early believers/holders.

For example, @Antony_Kimani finished DAO college full-stack blockchain developer course. Now, he is working at Harmony DAO bridge. He will accept his compensation in our token. Now @Kvasir wants to hire @Antony_Kimani. He will need our token to pay Anthony.

Pros:
Low to no cost for students
Access to the global talent market.
Aligned with Web3 values

Cons:
Enforcement of these agreements still remains questionable.
Do we need another token?
The adaptability of our token with companies.
Probably need to register a non-profit to keep the contribution tax-deductible.

These are some high-level thoughts on business models. I have listed my own doubts in here. I will appreciate the constructive criticism and any tweak in any of these models to achieve our goal of free college.

Accreditation
I am not totally against it but it requires a lot of legal and paperwork. We don’t have time and resources at this time to pursue that.

Dropout:

People drop out from college, school, boot camps all the time due to personal and professional users. Most of them join back for the next badge, class, or cohort.

We gave free access to our boot camps in the developing world in the last company. None of them dropped out.

Note:
We are not against college, school, or university but the high cost of learning a skill.

I hope, this answers a lot of questions. Looking forward to more feedback.

@GeorgeofEmmaInterest we are not looking to work with universities but rather create our curriculum with help of industry experts. Also, our graduates will work for mostly Web3 companies. We are looking at post Web2 world.

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Request to harmony team. Can you please move this thread to the launches section?

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“We admit only top-quality candidates with higher cognitive skills and aptitude for programming.”

Guess it’s not “free college for everyone” after all.

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I think, what free means is pretty clear here.

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I believe his issue was with the “for everyone” part of the “Free College For Everyone” tagline on your landing page.

A few other comments on the landing page:

  1. I think it would be beneficial if you cleaned it up a bit (make sure capitalization and punctuation are consistent). Having more than one-word answers would be best, and shouldn’t take much additional effort.

  2. FYI there’s a misspelled word in the FAQ - “participate”.

  3. I think you should change the ordering of the content, and put the “Contribute” button/section further down so it’s not the first thing people see when they arrive. There should also be a bit more information about contributing, for those who may be interested.

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This thread has been closed per the request of the OP, who will resubmit the proposal at a later time.