Tokenizing Innovation Education in Palestine - The CREATE Program

Governance DAO Proposals
1

##Name of Project/DAO/Company
The CREATE Program

##Application type
DAO

##Proposal overview
Proposal written by Dawoud Zahran, founder of MISSION, based in Palestine. More info here.

Imagine this with me - In an alternate universe, Palestine develops its own version of the personal computer at the exact same time as the United States. Steve & Steve create Apple Computers in California, but a similar seed is also planted in Palestine, where an alternate version of Microsoft is created. Fast-forward to 2021, where will our world be now?

Actually, let’s take it to another place, Afghanistan. Would the Taliban have emerged if the internet spread in Kabul at the same time it did in San Francisco?

No one knows. But here’s the main point, technology has the potential to change the arc of history. It tends to create more jobs than it destroys, allows for fresh growth and prosperity, and sets the stage for what is to come next. Without this infrastructure available, young people, in less developed countries, end-up losing a lot.

My name is Dawoud, I’m from Palestine, and we are working on tokenizing innovation education to make certain that the next generation of Palestinian innovators thrive like their Silicon Valley peers, but this time, on the blockchain.

If this works in Palestine, we will expand our work to other locations. The program we are launching is called the CREATE Program. The DAO structure was created recently through Aragon on the Harmony blockchain under ‘c.aragonid.eth’.

–

Okay, let’s get to the actual program.

It’s a tokenized, Discord-based, innovation-education program where participants (Dreamers) finish specific quests—such as watching a course, reading an article, referring a friend—in return for CREATE tokens. There will be 10 levels of achievement; each level with its set of quests, rewards, and community. And, at level 10, Dreamers get to pitch a startup idea in return for an investment, and join the Creators alumni community. This alumni community then helps govern the program.

We are aiming for 50,000 Dreamers (thus 50,000 wallets) within the next five years. Our goal is to reach around 5,000 startup pitches within the five-year period; that’s an average of 1,000 pitches per year. The societal/economic impact of this development is beyond any current local measurements, but what we know for sure is that this program can be a history-shifting breakthrough.

We already have a user-list of 1105 individuals (with their contact details) through a course we launched last year. This means we can beta-launch with participants that are deeply keen to join.

Keep in mind:

  1. We can scale the program very quickly in terms of quests and Dreamers given it’s purely online process. The quests will be very diversified, and aim to create innovators that have deep technical and the emotional intelligence.

  2. The tokenization component adds a natural incentive/reward structure to the educational process. Dreamers will be excited to start and finish their quests, unlike their school homework, university exams, etc.

  3. To start, Dreamers will be able to vote with their earned tokens on issues of importance to their level. This allows quests’ curators to edit, remove, and improve elements within the program in real-time and with democratically-driven input from the Dreamers.

  4. Once the community is on its feet, we will move forward with a complete DAO transformation where Dreamers at advanced/alumni levels become accountable for the program’s continuation and growth in return for CREATE tokens and other incentives.

An example of the program’s process. (Please, read this carefully, as it holds all the information you will need about how this will work).

  1. A 15-year-old girl (let’s call her Salma) is currently part of one of the most dysfunctional educational systems in the world.

  2. Salma, or her worried parents, hear about the CREATE Program, and how it provides an alternative to a better future for Palestinian youth.

  3. Salma applies to the program in less than a minute. She gets an acceptance and receives the link to her token wallet. The moment Salma activates her wallet, she becomes a Dreamer.

  4. Now that Salma’s wallet is active, the following happens:

  5. She is provided with her first 1000 ‘CREATE’ tokens. CREATE tokens are minted by the CREATE DAO, and have no direct value outside the program, but are very valuable within it.

  6. Salma will then join her peers at level 1 on the communication platform (Discord App).

  7. Salma will also receive access to the quests’ syllabus for her level. This lists all the quests she needs to implement to get CREATE tokens, and go from level 1 to level 2 and on. Level 2 requires 2000+ CREATE, level 3 requires 3000+ CREATE, and so on.

  8. There will be 10 levels in the program; each level will have its own quests, perks, and community. For example, at level 3 and above, you get to participate in fireside chats with top MENA/world entrepreneurs. At level 5, you get access to one-on-one mentorship sessions. At level 10, you get to pitch MISSION (the initiator of the CREATE Program) for an investment. The only way to get CREATE tokens is by finishing quests.

  9. The quests will have a dedicated ‘Quests Lead’. We are placing time and resources to make sure the quests at each level yield the results we need. For example, levels 1 to 3 will likely be dedicated to fostering fundamental emotional intelligence and analytical skills, along with achieving English language mastery for those who lack it.

  1. By the time Salma gets to Level 10 she will have received an innovation-oriented education that is unmatched anywhere, especially at her age.

  2. It doesn’t stop there; from the very beginning of this educational process, the goal is make sure the value turns practical, and for this—in addition to pitching for an investment at level 10—Salma joins the program’s alumni community, the CREATORS community. This insures she keeps going forward beyond the program, and will also allow her to take part in the program’s governance.

–

But, how does this program scale sustainably to thousands of Dreamers?

This is where it gets really interesting. We will start the program by manually checking who finished which quests and how many CREATE tokens they need to be rewarded. Then we will send the tokens from the token minter to the Dreamer’s token wallet manually.

But, within ~1 year, we want to automate this whole process. To summarize, when a Dreamer opens their computer to do their level’s quests, their progress will be tracked in real-time and their tokens will be awarded automatically to their wallet. They will also be able to see how many tokens they earned within a given period, and how they compare to others within their level. This will be done through a ‘browser tracker’ plugin that we will create.

The automation mechanism is meant to make the program smooth, secure and fair for thousands of new Dreamers. It also allows for much more scale and impact.

##Metrics for success
The Roadmap (assuming full funding is secured by Jan/2022)

Program 0.1 beta release > June 2022

  • This will include the initial quests’ syllabus from level 1 to level 5.
    • At this point, it should take an average of 6 months to go from 1 to 5.
  • Discord as the communications hub for all levels with a dedicated Community Lead.
  • CREATE tokens will be manually transferred in accordance with quests finished.
  • 500+ Dreamers enrolled before the next phase.

Program 1.0 release > December 2022

  • This will include the full quests’ syllabus from level 1 to level 10. At this point, the syllabus represent a coherent innovation-education system that increases in difficulty and depth the higher the level.
    • At this phase, we will aim for partnerships with entities such as MasterClass, Udemy, and Duolingo to enhance our quests.
    • It should take an average of 1 year to go from level 1 to 10.
  • CREATE tokens will be manually transferred in accordance with quests finished.
  • 2000+ Dreamers enrolled before the next phase.

Program 2.0 release > June 2023

  • This will include the full quests’ syllabus from level 1 to level 10 with updated content through feedback and independent audits.
    • With the additions/edits, it should now take around 2 years to go from level 1 to 10.
  • CREATE tokens will be autonomously transferred in accordance with quests finished. This is enabled by the browser tracker plugin.
  • An initial DAO transformation is introduced at this phase, providing the option for dreamers to vote with their tokens on issues of importance to their level.
  • 8000+ Dreamers enrolled by June 2024.
  • ~800 startup pitches by December 2025.

##Team

  • We are hiring specific talent for the program from within and outside Palestine. Currently, on the look for:

    • An educational-design expert to become our Quests Lead.
    • A technical team to build the browser tracker plugin.

  • We are finalizing on the selection of an Operations Lead and Community Lead based in Palestine.

  • I will also be focused full-time on the project. Over the past 8 years I worked across the for-profit, not-for-profit, and academic sectors. More about me here.

##Proposal ask
$794,872 over 2 years

##Justification
This is an infrastructural budget. It will build the base upon which we grow for years to come. It will be used for payroll, legal/accounting, quests curation costs, community building/recruitment costs, developing/updating the browser tracker plugin, and the initial alumni community budget.

Thanks for your time.

Dawoud

4 Likes
2

I love the idea so much :heart_eyes: I would love to see it in action :muscle:t2:

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3

Great initiative Dawoud. Looking forward to seeing where this one goes.

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4

Thanks, Nada - I appreciate the support!

5

Thanks, Ray - Hopefully we get this going before 2022!

6

This is a phenomenal venture Dawoud! Very few programmes out there are capable of reaching what it seems you’re proposing here: encouraging essential education in today world’s in an innovative way, building a competitive advantage for Palestinian youth, leveling the playing field to a big extent and creating opportunity for economic growth. Hoping this initiative gets the traction it deserves!

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To see it clear that you as an application must out reward potentials to participates who are not only showing progression but active in common

8

An ambitious idea, a well-crafted proposal and program

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9

congratulations for the initiative Dawoud! :clap:
I think this kind of educational journey is really interesting and has a lot of potential. I’m really looking forward to its development!

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10

Exactly, and primarily, it’s all about equality of opportunity. If Web2 innovation was missed by many developing countries, it doesn’t have to be the same for Web3. This is our chance to change that. Thanks, Karime.

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Thank you, Kristina - Please do message me here if you would like to get involved, and let me know what your field/expertise are.

12

Dear @dawoud, congratulations for what will surely be an incredible initiative. I encourage Harmony to expand in the educational domain, as this sector is fundamental to achieve social impact in the long-term. In the past, international organisations have, in an exagerated way, focused on developing basic skills sets (sowing for women, car mechanics for men
). This is not sufficient to make a change, and we must focus on higher levels of education. Tech trainings must be one of the priorities for all of us.

Regarding your proposal, I really think you are off to a good start, but do have a few questions:

Context
Are there similar initiatives going on currently anywhere in the world? What are the lessons learnt?

Original funding
Have you reached out to traditional development agencies such as USAID, UNICEF, Agence Française de Coopération ? If yes, what was their feedback? Have you considered asking for co-funding? Usually, when you bring a certain amount of funding from the private sector, they are more likely to support an unsolicited proposal. Harmony could propose co-funding and this increases your total funding.

Long term sustainability
How do you ensure the sustainability of the program? Grants from traditional users such as USAID, Bill Gates Foundation? Long term operational costs will be non-negligeable. Yes, I agree that Foundations are definitely a way to go (Mastercard, VISA, etc will love this) but are you thinking of other innovative ways from the crypto industry (staking, etc.). Talk to @edbong, he’s got some innovative ideas. This is something all DAOs are struggling with (us -the Africa DAO- included).

Program operationability
1.- Do all students have consistent access to a computer and internet? (please excuse my ignorance here)
2.- What measures can you implement to ensure a student really completes the training? 
 that a student does not open multiple accounts, does not have the work done for his friends? The issue of ghost workers/students is huge in the development sector.
3.- How did you determine your goals? What did you base them on?
4.- At the end, what are tokens really for? I really like the idea that tokens give votes, but is this enough to ensure the these play a motivational role in the long-term? Here, you could perhaps reach agreements so that these may be exchanged to something else (so many possibilities here, crypto currencies given by foundations, access to gaming tokens, etc).
5.- Who designs the programs? I could link you up with a few education experts here.
6.- In the end, what people need is a job. How can you link the program to job/VC pool?

These are just a few thoughts from the top of my head. I really like your idea, so it basically made me think a lot. From my experience, I am certain you’ll get your funding one way or another and I can’t wait to see how this developes. Perhaps a first milestone could be a detailed proposal/workplan, as I know how much time working on proposals takes


In any case, we definitely need many more initiatives like this. I hope that Harmony will be a part of it as it developes!! Good luck and please reach out if you need support in any way. :slight_smile:

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Thank you, @ep2338. I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts.

Your first paragraph is a summary of why we are doing this. We need fundamental change that equalizes opportunity. The least anyone deserves is the same opportunity to thrive.

I’ll answer your questions one-by-one below.

–

Are there similar initiatives going on currently anywhere in the world? What are the lessons learnt?

No, not as far as I know. This is unique because it’s basically a Discord-based educational hub where communities will join to help each other finish quests that are spread throughout the Internet (not just one website), and will get community tokens that allow them access to higher levels of reward and challenges. It’s then tied directly to a startup investment + an alumni community that helps govern the program.

Have you reached out to traditional development agencies such as USAID, UNICEF, Agence Française de Coopération ? If yes, what was their feedback? Have you considered asking for co-funding? Usually, when you bring a certain amount of funding from the private sector, they are more likely to support an unsolicited proposal. Harmony could propose co-funding and this increases your total funding.

We are seeking entities that will see this as an investment relationship, not as a donation relationship. I’ve been in this field for years, and have learned that donor-oriented relationships rarely have aligned incentives. That’s why we haven’t approached entities which wanted to “just give money out”, but we have approached entities that want a mutually beneficial relationship.

As soon as we understand more about Harmony’s interest in this, we can surely expand on options. For example, we can aim for a budget/goal of 5 years instead of 2 years.

How do you ensure the sustainability of the program? Grants from traditional users such as USAID, Bill Gates Foundation? Long term operational costs will be non-negligeable. Yes, I agree that Foundations are definitely a way to go (Mastercard, VISA, etc will love this) but are you thinking of other innovative ways from the crypto industry (staking, etc.). Talk to @edbong, he’s got some innovative ideas. This is something all DAOs are struggling with (us -the Africa DAO- included).

This is an essential point. I deeply believe this program could be one of the most impactful program’s launched by a MENA-based private sector entity. And what’s really exciting about this is that once we create the full process by which students are rewarded with tokens autonomously in return for their quests, the budget will drop significantly.

MISSION, the initiator of the CREATE Program, will continue, through community guidance, to maintain and improve the CREATE Program, including investments.

We also believe that the talent generated through the program will be significant. With this, any entity that wants access to it will have to contribute to the program’s maintenance and growth.

Do all students have consistent access to a computer and internet? (please excuse my ignorance here)

The absolute majority of young Palestinians have a smartphone. The absolute majority of Palestinian houses have a computer. But, of course, not everyone does. To be clear, we are not interested in having the privileged become more privileged through our program. We want individuals who don’t have an opportunity to thrive to have it and utilize it completely. For this, we will provide devices to those who most need them, and will be talking to Microsoft about this soon. It shouldn’t be an issue.

What measures can you implement to ensure a student really completes the training? 
 that a student does not open multiple accounts, does not have the work done for his friends? The issue of ghost workers/students is huge in the development sector.

At the end, what are tokens really for? I really like the idea that tokens give votes, but is this enough to ensure the these play a motivational role in the long-term? Here, you could perhaps reach agreements so that these may be exchanged to something else (so many possibilities here, crypto currencies given by foundations, access to gaming tokens, etc).

I’m answering two questions together here because they are deeply tied. Humans work with incentives, and these incentives don’t have to be monetary. They do need to be visible, permanent and shareable. The token isn’t only about voting, it’s the central element of our program, a badge of honor and achievement that any Dreamer can show and be proud of. Remember, the tokens give access to higher levels in the program, access to specific events/perks based on token amount, and are a powerful sign that you have worked very hard to get to where you are now. We will make sure to utilize the tokens in various other ways as the program progresses, but if the UX/UI is done right, then the tokens will be the motivational force that pushes the Dreamers forward, and much more.

On your point regarding manipulation of the system and ghost students. We have thought and are thinking about this. Here is where we are now, though: we will work to reduce the amount of manipulation overall, but the most important is to make sure that very few, if any, will get to level 10 without having done the work. Let me put it this way, it will be so hard to do that any rational individual will decide to just do the work instead or quit. Especially at higher levels, it will be very clear if we have people who aren’t meant to be at certain levels. This is enabled by the community component, which will emphasize constant communication amongst people at the same level. Our community moderators will have an eye on this as well. Most importantly, the CREATE tokens get you from one level to another, and the end-goal is a startup pitch which will be evaluated by experts. So, even if someone manages to manipulate the system, it will be very clear they did when we see their startup pitch.

How did you determine your goals? What did you base them on?

I’ve been involved in the local/MENA region entrepreneurial scene for years. We simply need many more Palestinians to create more innovative startups. This is the core goal of this program. Of course, you can’t just bring young people and tell them to create something out-of-nowhere. That’s why we have a sophisticated process in place to make sure they get to that level and beyond.

Who designs the programs? I could link you up with a few education experts here.

I’m talking today with Julie Dirksen, the author of “Design for How People Learn”, to see the potential for a partnership. And, yes, please do let me know who the education experts you know are. I appreciate that.

In the end, what people need is a job. How can you link the program to job/VC pool?

I think what people need is to ‘create’, whether it’s at a job or through their own venture. If you take a look at the example of the program’s flow above, you will notice that at level 10 Dreamers get to pitch a startup idea for an investment. We are aiming for 50,000 Dreamers to generate around 5,000 startup pitches within 5 years.

Thank you for your questions!

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@dawoud Great project with an honest approach towards less-developed countries. This is coming from someone in the Middle East where I’ve seen the worst and it’s people like you that make a difference.

I’ve been following the conversation you and @ep2338 had and it was a good back and forth Q/A. To add to that, I had a few questions myself:

As I have pursued a degree in Education for my bachelor, I’ve been following up a lot on Edtech and its innovations. There’s a lot of interesting projects with serious competition but open to innovation.

-You mentioned the browser tracking plugin extension for their learning but I wasn’t sure how that ties in to your program. Would the educational quests be self-hosted on your own server and designed by an educational expert or would you be using the existing course providers out there to reduce cost and save time? If so, how would you ensure that they are completing the courses and quests?

Are you exploring ways to create value for the CREATE token outside of the program? Through NFT drops, staking, or some DeFi 2.0 mechanisms

Overall, it’s an exciting initiative. Let us know how we could follow your journey :slight_smile:

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Great to hear from you, @pablo.

The browser tracker plugin is meant to enable the tracking of the progress of Dreamers as they finish quests on various websites such as watching a course, reading an article, etc. We won’t necessarily have our own educational content, but we will have an educational expert help us design the educational journey. Importantly, we are utilizing the community and community moderators to make sure that not only is knowledge transferred, but the skill as well. You can have a Dreamer read about making a startup pitch all she wants, but she won’t pick up the skill of pitching until she does it with the community and beyond. We have this as a core part of the process, and are brainstorming methodologies to assess skill transference in new and enjoyable ways.

We will never know for sure if a person opened a course, and then went to sleep or played games on their phone, but that’s where the community comes in. I explained this in the previous post: “On your point regarding manipulation of the system and ghost students. We have thought and are thinking about this. Here is where we are now, though: we will work to reduce the amount of manipulation overall, but the most important is to make sure that very few, if any, will get to level 10 without having done the work. Let me put it this way, it will be so hard to do that any rational individual will decide to just do the work instead or quit. Especially at higher levels, it will be very clear if we have people who aren’t meant to be at certain levels. This is enabled by the community component, which will emphasize constant communication amongst people at the same level. Our community moderators will have an eye on this as well. Most importantly, the CREATE tokens get you from one level to another, and the end-goal is a startup pitch which will be evaluated by experts. So, even if someone manages to manipulate the system, it will be very clear they did when we see their startup pitch”

I’ll add another important point here, the CREATE token is non-transferable between wallets, and won’t have money-value to reduce bad actors joining in for money, or to gain CREATE tokens, and then transfer them to others who didn’t do the work in return for money. We might experiment with NFTs and NTNFTs as we progress with the process. For now, the CREATE token will remain the central element of the program.

Thanks!

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Hi @lij - We hope you and the team had the chance to check the proposal, the replies, and the potential. We really think this project is going to be a home run, not only for Harmony, but for the Crypto community. Could you provide us with a timeline for your decision on this? We want to get to work as quickly as possible, with plenty of processes ready in the pipeline. Thanks to you and to the team!

18

Hi this is an interesting project. Do you have an MVP yet?

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Hi there. We launched an online course that currently has 1000+ students. This was our way of confirming local interest in online entrepreneurial education, with 15,000+ minutes watched. Individuals who took this course will be the first to be on-boarded to the CREATE Program. This is expected in June 2022 depending on funding.

20

Thanks. I’ll take a look at it. I think it’s best if you do some podcast/videocasts with Harmony-related YouTubers to kind of push your point forward.

21

Hello @dawoud –

This project looks very interesting. I would like to refer you to the DAO Funding Guidelines. Please review those and modify your grant request to fit into those guidelines.

In particular, for the DAO Bootstrap Grant please be sure to address the “Mighty Six”:

  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. EXAMPLES:

      Developer DAO:
      Support -       Resolve daily issues on forums & channels, drive weekly meeting agenda
      Bounties - Prioritize bugs & features with task management & contributor retention
      Advocacy - Hold workshops & events, content marketing with talks & blogs

      Basic DAO:
      Timesheets -       Help contributors track work hours & deliverables in public
      Payroll - Setup paid challenges, wallets, streaming payments & taxes
      Reviews - Follow up performance feedback for bonus or penalty, rage quits, or kicks.

  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. Gnosis Safe Multisig Wallet: Establish a multisig wallet that requires 5 out of the 9 governors to approve the disbursement of funds.
  6. Schedule the Next Election: DAOs are not kingdoms. The initial governors do not rule by divine right, nor are they supposed to be “Governors-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.

Please review ALL of the details regarding the DAO Funding Guidelines as I believe they will also be valuable for you and your project.

Thanks,
Sam

1 Like