Education Partner - ABlockofCrypto

Funding Proposals Grants
1

WEB3, BLOCKCHAIN, AND DIGITAL ASSET EXPERT TRACK

Proposal overview

The Problem’s

There is an awareness of blockchain, cryptocurrency, and web3 but people don’t know what to do with it and don’t know how to use it.

Many people that buy into cryptocurrency do not know too much about blockchain and web3 and then don’t know where to go to learn more.

Fuelled by open-source development allowing for deployment of products in a fraction of time, the rate of innovation in the web3 and blockchain space continues to accelerate.

Innovation has been so fast, yet quality training required to produce anything bar developers and cryptocurrency trader is not easily accessible and available. Education and training are key to adoption.

Those with the skills are being snapped up by Fintech, and others wanting to get in on the industry. This is leading to a shortage of skilled resources that should feed the adoption cycle as we move from Early adopters to Early Majority.

This skill shortage has left development teams with no business teams putting strain on the demand for partnerships and slowing down ecosystem growth.

The current user base and those with Web3 literate skills are spread too thin and need to grow rapidly to sustain the growth of development.

Adoption can’t come fast enough.

The Solution

Build a community of educated talented web3 professionals and advocates. Through education and network growth, we will accelerate the rate of adoption in line with the speed of innovation by equipping people with the skills needed to become the marketing innovators, entrepreneurs, and business innovators that will take Web3 to mass adoption.

Our Mission

It is our mission to accelerate the adoption of Web3, Blockchain, and Cryptocurrency Technology.

Our Aim

By providing quality education, we aim to create a Web3 literate community of innovators, entrepreneurs, professionals, and end-users ready to navigate, build on and champion the new economy and a decentralized future.

Our Feature Training Program - Expert Track in Web3, Blockchain, and Digital Assets.

We will provide World Class Training & a community for innovators, entrepreneurs, professionals, Cryptocurrency enthusiasts, and end-users.

Over 18 weeks Students will Learn about Web3, Blockchain, and Digital Assets and get ready to navigate, build on and champion the new economy and a decentralized future in an interactive way.
Students will become blockchain and cryptocurrency literate. They will learn from experts in a guided interactive way, and they will master the lingo and skills needed to succeed in the Blockchain and Cryptocurrency space.

Using a blended learning approach, this Web3, Blockchain, and Digital Asset Expert track will have weekly live classes, live coaching sessions, weekly self-study material, activities, and assignments.

Over 18 exciting weeks, students will learn about

• Blockchain Technology
• Ecosystems And Tokenomics
• Cryptocurrency and Value
• NFT’s and the Metaverse|
• Governance And DAO’S
• DeFi
• Web 3
• Network, Communications, and Infrastructure
• The Future of Blockchain and Cryptocurrency

This expert track is suitable for learners of all levels and is of particular interest to:

• Cryptocurrency Enthusiasts
• Financial and Legal Professionals
• Gamers
• Innovators and Entrepreneurs
• Creators and Artists
• Coders and Developers

How Harmony will benefit

The course has core content, delivered as prerecorded videos, articles, and curated content. This content is self-study and will remain rather consistent for each block of students. It is from the Live sessions that Harmony will benefit most from. In each section of the track, we hold two live classes and these will be case studies, demonstrations, and talks on the weekly topic, showcasing the Harmony Ecosystem. This way, not only will Harmony as a blockchain be showcased but also Dapps and other services built on top of Harmony.

Harmony will be listed as a partner on our website, and certificates of completion will be co-branded with the Harmony logo.

The live presentation/lecture classes will be recorded and made available for students in all subsequent blocks, the community, Youtube, and other media outlets. With a reach of 10,000 in year one alone.

ABlockofCrypto is more than just an Expert track, but also a community. Our ethos is not only about learning, but also networking and community. We believe community is key and we believe we can always learn from our peers. We will also share Harmony-related content, quizzes, and tasks within the community. Our community is open to more than just our students, which will help gain more exposure and hopefully accelerate the growth of the user based on Harmony.

During the term of the partnership, Harmony and the Harmony Ecosystem will also be featured in other educational events such as webinars focusing on introducing traditional businesses to web3 and other free outreach events we run.

Where we are now

In early December we sent out a notification to a small contacts list with a signup page for the first block of students to begin on Feb 22. Within 1 day 246 people had registered their interest. With current staffing levels, we can only accommodate a max of 200 Students per block.

In terms of course production, we are still working on the core material, with complete reviews to be complete by mid-Jan.

Our website is also almost ready, we are just waiting for our custom domain to be moved and some content to be added to our blog. We will then open our community and start revving up our efforts to excite students for the beginning of the first block.

We plan on educating 1000 students within the next 12 months directly in the track. In order to do this, we will have to hire further educators and facilitators so we can reach all time zones.

we plan on reaching 10,000 in total students via other media, short courses, webinars, and educational outreaches.

Our first block of students will have 200 learners with 4 Instructors/Facilitators. With the additional staff, we will increase the block size without impacting the quality or experience of learning with us. We hope to have multiple blocks running at a time.

What help do we need

It would be fantastic to get some Harmony experts and developers of Dapps and services to work with us on the weekly live classes. These need to be tailored in advance.

Proposal ask

$1,200,000 over 12 - 18 months ($1200 per student)

Metrics for success

50% per unique student on commencement of Expert track ($600 per student @ 200 students per block)
50% per student on completion of the track, therefore if a student does not complete the expert track, the second installment is not due.
A new track will commence every second month or based on demand/staffing levels.
The first track commencing on Feb 22.

External links

Website currently waiting on a domain redirect to just ablockofcrypto.com but for the moment access is via https://ablockofcrypto.newzenler.com/

A message from the founder

Hi, my name is Paula and I thought it only right to give you some personal background as a partnership is an investment and most often, investments are about the people behind them.

The greatest gift I was given by my parents was the gift of Education. Born and raised in Ireland, I was lucky enough to go to college and study Applied Science. To do this, my parents had to sacrifice a lot as they needed to pay not only my college fee but also my accommodation and living expenses away from home. It must have been an awful kick in the face for them at first when I could not get a job in my field of study.

But having the ability to learn, and the enjoyment of college made me like education, and I would now consider myself a lifelong learner.

After my initial bout of education, I did not let the job situation get me down. It was not long before I switched fields and by profession and I have been a CPA accountant for many years.

In 2007 on the birth of my first child, I gave up my well-paid desk job to create a suite of e-learning courses on CD-ROM and start a home-based business on web2. These courses were aimed at accountants and professionals wishing to upskill in Microsoft Excel and Spreadsheets. E-learning was not even a thing.

In 2010 Udemy launched, killing the CD ROM market for education, making it impossible to compete with content delivered online. As Udemy was growing so fast I jumped on board and happily earned income from my online courses. However, in 2016 Udemy changed its policy. Instructor revenues got slashed and as instructors, we had no option but to comply or leave and try and complete alone.

In search of a fairer way for content creators in 2016, I turned to blockchain and have been an advocate for Web3 and the creator economy ever since. In 2018, pioneering the way for content creators, I tokenized my website and blog, offering Learn and Earn Activities for students. In 2020 when the world went into lockdown, I gathered the world’s greatest Excel Instructors and award winners, and we released a course raising $15K for charity. In 2020 and 2021 I won the Microsoft MVP award for my continued community involvement.

Now I am giving up my Career in Excel as I have a new mission. You can check out my old business website here and my Udemy profile here and my Youtube channel here

Let’s Discuss

If anyone would like to hop onto a quick video call to find out more and talk with me directly, just let me know and we will hook up.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for change/improvement to this proposal, please do comment below or send me a DM. I am looking forward to engaging with you all.

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Thank you for submitting a proposal to Harmony’s $300M Ecosystem Fund

We plan to resume reviewing grant proposals after the holidays, the first week of January. In the meantime, we would love :blue_heart: to have the Harmony community participate to ask questions and provide feedback.

If you have more details to add, please do so by replying to this thread. Thank you again and we look forward to catching up after the holidays.

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Thank you so so much Paula for your efforts. Web3 is the future! And yes, for a relevant new ‘newbie’ like me, it is so difficult to come across consistent and reliable educational content. A quality, well rounded course would be truly amazing!

If I am so lucky to be included in the round one course, I certainly intend to educate my daughters on web3 etc. Almost become an advocate for the course and spread the word!

Happy new year to you and your team. Wishing you a prosperous and safe new year

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Education is the key to spur understanding and adoption. I am new to this space, only introduced to crypto in early 2021, I do not come from a computer or crypto background but daily I have sought to learn more. Web3 and cryptocurrency will better our world and I look forward to sharing the knowledge with my children, family and friends. I am so excited that Paula is offering this course, cannot wait! Thank you!

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Hay Matty. I hope you are enjoying the holiday period. Super excited to have this proposal reviewed and looking forward to answering any questions the community might have.

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Hi Ann, thank you so much for dropping by to view this proposal. I can promise this course is going to be more than just a course, but an interactive learning experience.

Keep an eye out for an email over the next few weeks, as we will be opening up full registration then. And if we can covert you to an advocate, that would be truly amazing

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Education is very much the key. The learning curve for those trying to find their way around is so step, many leave because they can’t figure it out and have no support. This expert track will not only give learners knowledge and understanding but it’s also rather practical and students will learn to do things hands-on.

Thank you for your support Jennifer

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Sounds great. I really enjoy PaulaG’s events. Friendly and suitable for both beginners and intermediate people.

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Paula, I have seen your lectures on youtube and Udemy and you are an amazing instructor. Thanks for putting up your proposal. Your course can help new comers learn about web3 in a very sophisticated and structured manner. I will support your initiative.

Since Harmony is an L2 chain. I wonder how can you incorporate Harmony ecosystem into your course structure? I have few suggestions:

  1. You can think about having a separate ethereum scaling topic as a part of your curriculum in which you explain L2 solutions using Harmony as an example?
  2. Explaining DeFi, web3 etc. using Harmony as an example?

This can help harmony community and ecosystem to attract more talented developers, builders and believers.

I look forward to know your thought process around this.

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10

Hi Shubham, Thank you very much for your kind words. And I totally love your suggestions.

The expert track has two elements, self-study, and live classes. There will be two live classes per week. Although we have ‘topics’ for this week, the live classes will very much focus on our partner product.

So for week 1, our topic is What is Blockchain, and we cover the different layer types and the scalability trilemma in the self-study material. But then in our live class, assuming we partner with Harmony, we will focus our case study on Harmony being a layer 2 and the problems it solves.

Other weeks will be the same, DeFi, web3 will all use the Partner as a case study.

So yes, the aim is to show off the entire ecosystem of our Partners.

Although your thinking is right up our alley on what we are going to do, you did just give me an idea. We do have a certificate of completion, Maybe it would be worth having a separate test/assignment that gives a second certificate for the same course, making one a specialist. So for example, Certified Harmony Specialist/Professional.

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Hi DecadeOfData. Thank you so much for your support. I hope you will be able to join us in this expert track when it goes live.

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There with bells on.

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Hey Paula hope you are well, I am involved in education myself and am interested in what you are proposing here but I have some questions.

  1. How do you plan on recruiting students ?

  2. Do you plan on educating about other chains
    or is it Harmony One chain exclusively ?

  3. Are the modules set content or will it be
    live/interactive material

    Many thanks in advance and we look forward
    to an in depth conversation via your meetups
    group meeting next week if OK

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Great proposal Paula! What you’re proposing to do is so needed in this space and, based on your extensive and impressive background, you are the perfect person to really do this right.

There are many people I would recommend your educational content to, as they are very curious but don’t know where to start—and it’s difficult for people to find quality educational content around these topics.

I love how diverse the educational content will be (in both topics and methodology). I especially appreciate that your content focuses on the practical side of things so people who complete the course come away with not only knowledge but also the tangible tools to get started on their own journey into blockchain safely.

Do you plan on making this available for businesses (e.g., employees, execs, etc.) as well?

Very excited about what you’re creating for the benefit of us all!

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Hey Paula, this looks really exciting and is definitely something needed for the education space!

I’ve got a few questions I hope you can help with:
My learning style is pretty practical so tend to pick things up by “doing”, how hands on will the learning be?
Also, there are learning platforms like Udemy out there at the moment, is there a reason you don’t you use that?

Thank you and looking forward to hearing more :blush:

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HI Paula,
Thank you for offering this class to those of us who like to learn more about the entire digital asset space.
I look forward to learning from you!
Ty

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Hi there, great proposal. I enjoyed reading through :slight_smile: I currently work within the finance sector and am practically a ‘dummy’ when it comes to crypto etc. So I have a few questions;

is the course suitable for absolute learners? If so, will the content also contain jargon busting?
how does the course intend to cater to those with different learning styles?
what then happens after the initial 9 weeks? Will there be opportunity to refresh learning? Will there be a certain level of check and test on knowledge to gain a qualification opinion completion of the course?

Thanks so much

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Hay and thank you for the questions.

We have dedicated student outreach to ensure we get ‘interested’ students. My experience has shown, many will sign up for a free course, but the completion rates will not be too high. So it is more important to get quality students than quantity. To do this, we will be working with colleges and university student groups and clubs, entrepreneur-focused enterprise boards, and professional bodies to recruit students. Along with the crypto and blockchain communities.

No, we will not only be educating about Harmony. We believe in a future where blockchains work together, interoperability will be a key driving force for some time and we want to produce well-rounded educated people. If we partner with Harmony, we will use Harmony and its ecosystem as a case study and examples, but you cant do a case study without a comparison. In terms of practical application, people need to be able to jump between apps and chains, so only covering Harmony would not give people the skills they need.

We do have ‘set content’ but it’s not fixed. this will be the self-study material. when I say it is not fixed, I mean it will be reviewed regularly and updated and improved as we grow… The self-study material has practical elements and activities,. Then we also have live classes each week where students will participate, and a live study session. We also then have the community for social engagement.

I hope that answers your questions, and I hope to see you at the next meetup

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Hi @quinnelise and thank you for your amazing feedback.

Yes, we do plan on working with businesses. However, we have a slightly different model for this. We will be running some live webinars, separate from the Expert track, focused on educating businesses on web3 and blockchain. We plan on having a service that will help businesses implement simple steps such as accepting crypto payments and working with wallets and then being able to put businesses in touch with solution providers for bespoke and custom solutions.

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Hello @TheCryptoRat

Hands-on experience is a must and this requires a practical element. The fact is, right now, most products are not really ready for mass adoption. There are too many steps, too many buttons to click, too much to understand. Over time this will improve, but to produce real experts in this field, we need them to be able to actually use the systems. So yes, this expert track will have a lot of hands-on practice.

As for Udemy, it is our intention to publish a ‘Free Course’ on their platform as a lead magnet. however Udemy does not allow for the community, live classes, and interaction we will have. It’s for static video courses really, but also perfect as a marketing tool for student outreach.

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