(Closed) HACKAHOLIC | NEAR Protocol Hacker House in Chennai

Marketing DAO Marketing DAO
,
1

HACKER HOUSE (HACKAHOLIC)

DAO : Kalakendra DAO

Funding Scheme : Once

Region : INDIA

Project: NEAR Protocol Hacker house in Chennai

Council : @Monish016 @Yuvasri @kalakendradao @Immanuel-john

AstroDAO : kalakendradao.sputnik-dao.near

Proposer Name : Monish Muralidharan

Proposer Telegram: MonishMuralidharan

Proposer Email : Monish@kalakendradao.org

Community Socials : https://linktr.ee/kalakendradao

Near Social : @Monish016 - Near Social

@Immanuel-john - Near Social

@Yuvasri : Near Social

HACKAHOLIC - Hacker house in Chennai

The Kalakendra DAO plans to conduct a three-day offline hackathon event focused on onboarding, Educating & Social good focussed Dapps on NEAR and Aurora Blockchain.
KALAKENDRADAO Overview

It has been almost 1.5 Years since KalakendraDAO started with a Mission to educate and Onboard web2 artists into web3 space. We actively educated and onboarded various communities in India and spread web3 NEAR ecosystem-wide India.

But after attending various events like Namastey NFT - Bangalore & Web3Conf GOA and speaking with several blockchains, cryptocurrency enthusiasts, industry experts, and DAO leaders on NEAR and other chains, we had to change our DAO mission to become sustainable strategically.

As a result, we are no longer solely focused on onboarding artists and have begun to seek other WEB3 engineers, enthusiasts, and designers to join our community.

Subsequently, KalakendraDAO is a community Leveraging communities to help each other build sustainable and socially good web3 projects focusing more on onboarding and educating as core verticles.

KalakendraDAO has more than 10+ devs skilled in Rust, Solidity, Javascript, Substrate, Frontend, Backend, DevOps Etc. Also, we have 150+ Active Web3 Community groups on Whatsapp.

KKD Dev side of Progress.

  1. NEP 819 - In association with MarmaJ Foundation, KKD collaborated in writing the Implementation Part of NEP 819 Burn NFTs standard.
  2. EasyDeploy - AWS Edition - KKD after participating in stakewars 3 and bagging some allocation ( Not much). We decided to create a few click node deployment Automations on AWS., an OS code in our KKD Repo. Further updates to GCP and physical machines with Stats & monitoring are a work in Progress by our DevOps.
  3. Aurora Tip Bot - A Community Engaging onboarding Telegram tib bot for Native Aurora Blockchains
  4. Art horizon - A curated NFT service Project from IncubadoraDAO. KKD Devs are working to pull this off.
  5. AlliesMarketplace - We are Building an Adult-Based NFT Marketplace in the Near protocol that facilitates the sale and gives access to adult-themed virtual assets, such as digital art, videos, and photos through NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens).
  6. MarmaJ X PD : KKD Devs community is collaborating on PixelDapps Project, transitioning from Assembly Script to Javascript and Rust to comply with NEP Standards and making it Opensource KKD Devs are taking backend hosting of the project.
  7. Leapers Utopia is a top-down shooter game in Pixel that will soon be part of the PixelDapps Ecosystem. KKD - Gamifi will be used for Developing Gaming Projects on NEAR and Aurora [ Project on Hold]

All these products are community-led and community-owned open-source projects.

KKD DAO side of Progress.

  1. As mentioned, KKD is Also Part of the MarmaJ Foundation, supporting MarmaJ to leverage Social Good Projects.
  2. KKD Gamefi is also part of MarmaJ Gamefi DAO and Will be Supporting MJF X PD Through out DAO.

GOALS:

As we continue to grow linearly in web3 space in NEAR, therefore we wanted to undertake this Hacker House to support our long-term mission. Since we also have a clear objective and direction, we intend to build a more decentralized web3 devs community in India through KalakendraDAO.

Proposal

KalakendraDAO plans to hold this HACKAHOLIC event in Chennai in June 2023. This event’s primary goals are to grow the KalakendraDAO DEV community and promote NEAR Protocol and Aurora in Indian Community. We already have a Hack towards the theme of Education, Onboarding, and Social Good, and we incubate the most significant projects through the Kalakendra community in the NEAR and Aurora ecosystem.

This unique event will provide

  • Attendees with informative, educational programming about NEAR and Aurora, ample time to work on projects, and guidance from co-programmers.

  • Furthermore, there will be numerous benefits to meeting new people, finding project team members, or joining an existing team. The event will conclude with a demo day, during which attendees will have the opportunity to present their projects.

  • The Hacker House will provide a safe and supportive environment for new developers to learn and grow.

  • WEB2 developers get to know about WEB3 space and collaborate with WEB3 experts.

METRICS:

By conducting a Hacker House, we aim to achieve the following objectives:

  • Onboard more than 30+ new developers to the KalakendraDAO community, NEARProtocol and Aurora Community.

  • Generate at least ten social media posts tagging KalakendraDAO and NEAR. This will create more awareness about our DAO and help us gain traction.

  • Provide Open-Source Code Resources for those building on NEAR and Aurora.

  • Invite and collaborate with students from different universities.

We believe this will be a great way to get more people involved in our project and work towards our shared goal of building a better future for everyone.

Venue:

The location will be decided soon.

AGENDA for the upcoming event is as follows:

Day 1

  • Introduction: Talk about WEB3, NEAR Protocol, and Aurora by Experts and influencers.
  • Creation of NEAR Wallets.
  • Hackathon Kick Start.

Day 2

  • Ideal fillers - Workshop, Panels + Speakers promoting NEAR protocol and Aurora in WEB3 space.
  • Hacking towards our mission.

Day 3

  • DEMO DAY!
  • Awards and Closing Ceremony.

Expected participants:

IRL: Minimum 50 - Maximum 100

First Place will Receive 1500$

Second Prize 1000$

Third Prize 500$

NEAR & Aurora tokens will be awarded as prizes.

Approximate Budget required for a 3-day hacker house
Content + Workshops 1K Will include curated + original content
Venue 4K Payment of use of the place, Rental of furniture, Rental of projection equipment, Security personnel, COVID precautions.
Speaker + Panel 2K Judging projects, Talks on NEAR and Aurora.
Operations 1.5K Planning, Mobilizing things, Execution. 500$ x 3 people.
Food and Travel 4K Food and Refreshment drinks for all participants and organizers, Travel allowance for members.
Prize 3K Prizes for Hackathon winners
MISC 1K Indian Tax, Merch, Cushion funding.
Total 16.5K Final cost required for the event.

Similar Funding Request more than 10K Cap

The best Project will be incubated through KalakendraDAO for the benefit of Near Protocol.

Thanking You in Advance.

Cc. @marketingdao-council

7 Likes
2

Happy to support! Thank you and your team for great job and well-standing commitment to our Ecosystem.

2 Likes
3

Great plan and work uour team has been doing.

A few questions/suggestions based on the processes and target of the Regional Cmmunity Working Group,
Will you onboard to IamHuman and Near.social too?

Will the Hackerhouse focus on BOS?

If, these are key to your plan, i will be happy to support your proposal.

Thanks, thanks

2 Likes
4

Thank you @IgbozeIsrael

That was a wonderful catch. We will onboard users to Near. Social and get verified through I-am-human set to basic criteria to participate in the hackathon

yes it certainly does.

i will edit the proposal in order to fit the suggested items

Thank you fo the support

1 Like
5

Hi Monish.

Lovely proposal.

Can you go through this guidelines and use it for your proposal [Regional Communities Update] Procedures

2 Likes
6

Thank you @Ola sure i will the guidelines to alter the proposal

8

Good to know. Happy if you could share more details on this event so that I may be aware of this event that I missed.

Yes, Indeed, it would be good to collaborate with them, But we, as KalakendraDAO Operating since November 2021 as a DAO or Guild under NEAR, and we have contributed in various ways to supporting Near Ecosystem. Please Go through the proposal all over again to understand more about us.

we have a complete breakdown mentioned in the proposal. Do you mind telling us where do think we need to elloborate so that we can work on that?

Thank you for being so interested in joining us. Please DM or introduce yourself to the community. And we shall get started.

Don’t Forget the I-am-human.app to verify yourself. Join the movement

10

For your Kind information, we have not promoted Shardeum through our Twitter. It was the art that we retweeted, from our fellow KKD Artist. **Please talk about the facts, don’t just pass misinformation here. Make a Constructive Feedback. Dont criticize the efforts **

Yes, certainly we have poor socials, which doesn’t mean we aren’t doing or contributing to the ecosystem. We are developing products for the community. for the last couple of months, we have been working on AlliesMarketplace and Aurora Tipbot also we pulled a couple of other projects which didn’t go well due to unforeseen conditions on resources. we are working to fix our core developer strength through this hackathon, to support more community-based projects upcoming to our NEAR Ecosystem.

may I know what is not fair here?

I am happy to connect with you one on one for further discussion regarding our Hackathon.

Please book a meeting here.

Thank you

2 Likes
11

Please include the near.social link of your community and its core members. Also the AstroDAO accound ID to receive funds.

1 Like
12

Hey @IgbozeIsrael near social for kalakendradao is facing issues. Need more guides on the widget what James explained.

I will attach the near social of core team for now. And DAO address

Thanks

2 Likes
14

Thanks for your proposal Monish,

Would you be able to give me an update of what happened to The Auction and what your involvement with it was?

I would like to echo Igboze’s points around ensuring that the hackathon was a very well defined scope that focuses on NEAR key areas for growth now. I would suggest creating separate tracks: one for deploying decentralised front-ends using BOS, etc.

I’m booking a time using your Calendly.

One of the key things we are grappling with now is how to handle the varying costs of living across different regions. Some early thoughts;

  • Can the team provide receipts?
  • Are there ways to make this cheaper? Get a venue from university halls or co-working spaces? Get pizza and cans of coke? (no catering)
  • It is unusual for Speakers and Judges to be paid. I was one of the judges at the NEAR NYC hacker house last year.
  • Need more information on ‘Travel Allowance’
  • Need more information on ‘Misc’

Overall, I like the proposal but something about the price point doesn’t add up. We need to start thinking about how do we make these hacker houses at scale.

Hacker houses should not be a one time hit for organisers to earn equivalent of full time wages. Rather, Hacker Houses should be part of a larger series of events that nurture a local ecosystem: Meetups, participating in other people’s events, etc.

2 Likes
15

Thank you @satojandro

Regarding The Auction, The magic-powered Team had a great vision and roadmap for The Auction 2.0 with cool Tokenomics with ABC (Augmented Bonding Curve), Lazy minting, and ETH Network Support. But Due to High Burn Rates and Market Volatility, The Team has decided to hold off the project until the market becomes normal. While I took care of Community and Growth, We had a good growth in Engagement and Traction Which led to one of the Top 10 Tracking Projects on NEAR. But I was asked to Stop proceeding further as well. The Team is Looking to Revamp it soon.

Yes, We have considered it, it will be a one of the tracks on the Hackathon.

Thank you, Happy to Discuss Further.

I can definitely understand it can be very hard to understand the costs of different Regions, But we will assure you and the fellow Councils, That we aren’t gonna benefit any amount out of this hackathon personally. We see a good Spike in the number of projects showing interest in Indian Markets, Especially Polygon, Chainlink,Solana, Aptos, Sui,5ire & Shardeum.
We, as a KalakendraDAO Representing NEAR Protocol at Various Indian Events. we wanted to have a solid Establishment of NEAR and gain a good developer-centric community hereafter.

yes, we will be able to provide it.

yes, That is our Main priority, But we have mentioned Every cost as a worst-case scenario. We are happy to discuss and bring the numbers down.

Considering their time involved in this hackathon, we have added the cost, But if you could again contribute as a speaker or judge. we are happy to reduce the cost.

This Allowance is basically for Setting up things in the Hackathon (Travel Related Product Renting, Purchase Merch Printing and Sourcing, Food Sourcing, and Transport), Speaker & Judges Transport if needed.

Misc - We intent to pay the Prize of the Hackathons in $NEAR, considering Market Volatility, and Merch Costs.

Agreed. The Main Mission of this proposal is to onboard as much as developers into NEAR Ecosystem and Spread Awareness of NEAR & #BOS.

Again we aren’t looking personally to benefit from this hackathon. Also, If the Cost of the Hackathon is the only Concern, We are happy to scale down the proposal cost to get to benefited for the KKD and Ecosystem.

Thank you

1 Like
17

Hello again…

Like i mentioned earlier, i personally love your proposal and i am happy to support However, like @satojandro mentioned… Some of the cost and budget allocation is a bit dicy…

If cost can be brought down like getting speakers who dont mind speaking for free and getting a location that dont cost $4k etc.

That being said… Kindly look for ways to cut gour cost while still being an effective proposals…

We would wait on your call with @satojandro to get further clarity.

3 Likes
18

I’ll also wait to hear the outcome of the call with @satojandro and more input from the Regional DAO council, but in reviewing this, the proposal gives me concern because:

  • The price points seem high – if I were throwing an event, I’d try to get as much covered through sponsorships, partnerships and collaborations as possible. My bias is that events receiving funding should also be demonstrating a strong effort to cover costs through their own efforts vs. relying solely on the NEAR Community treasury to support them. There needs to be some hustle.
  • Many of the approved for over $10K proposals are from before the pause last year – we are in an entirely different funding and market situation now. In general, I don’t see proposals from months ago as a good indicator of what is fiscally reasonable right now.
  • June is quite a short timeline to go through the review process, receive payment and execute on an event of this scope
  • There is not enough clear detail here for the scope proposed. What experts, influencers, speakers, panel topics, awards for what, how will the demo day work, etc.
  • We would need to see support for the costs proposed in terms of estimates from the vendors especially for the venue.
  • The MISC category, I understand that unexpected costs do arise, but we can’t responsibly approve things like “merch” and “cushion funding.”
  • How will you market this, attract the right attendees, demonstrate that you are bringing new people to the ecosystem and demonstrate that this event advances the OKRs and KPIs outlined for us in the guidelines we have to meet from the NEAR Foundation?

Overall, I think for an event of this scope, you will need to work much more closely with the Regional DAO and Marketing DAO teams to shape something that fits into the requirements that we have in place for ensuring responsible use of community funding.

6 Likes
19

Update from my call with Monish

First I’d like to thank Monish for taking the time. Conversation was very lively and went on for almost one hour. Here are some of the suggestions and key takeaways.

Funding

  • The funding cap limit of $10k would still apply, and, as Lorraine has outlined above - we would still like to see some hustle: how to unlock maximum potential with minimal funding.
  • Monish commented that one of the reasons for the higher ask was due to the recent volatile in the price of NEAR. This was an off-hand comment but I would like to take the opportunity to remind all applicants that they have the choice of receiving approved funds in unlocked NEAR tokens or USDC. Everyone is advised to make their budgets as accurate and nimble as possible, then request funds in USDC as the simplest way to eliminate market fluctuation risks.
  • Team is able and willing to work within the proposed cap and open to continue collaborating to find best ways to add value to ecosystem

State of the Community

  • It also came during the conversation that the NEAR presence has been hurt in the region. A mix of very aggressive campaigns from other ecosystems and a lack of clarity and support from NEAR.
  • This was also an off-hand comment but to me the takeaway is clear: the role of the Marketing DAO and Regional DAO cannot be too simple Approve/Reject. Rather, we have to assume leadership and ownership to work with these communities to find a strategy and budget that is best suitable to them, enabling them to achieve their goals in alignment with NEAR Strategic Goals

Suggestions

I’ve encouraged the team to focus on several things:

  1. Focus on smaller, but recurring events. (Range can include: Casual meetups, Educational Workshops, Hackathons).
  2. Play to their strengths. (Interests and skillsets)
  3. Be creative and specific on how the local community can drive growth for broader ecosystem (awareness and onboarding for apps, etc.)

As we discussed the above, several ideas came through. In particular, I liked:

NFTs Like Never Seen Before #NFTwithoutLimits

Acknowledging;

  • the team’s extensive involvement with NFTS;
  • the rapidly maturing Core Tech Stack (Account Abstraction, Meta Transactions, BOS, Fast Auth, etc.) and the range of tools and services (Mintbase JS, Few & Few Quests, Keypom, etc)

Create a program with one simple aim:

To demonstrate what you can do with NFTs on NEAR. Inspire them to think what the type of unique custom experiences that are not possible elsewhere. Give them all the resources and support to succeed and be the envy of their peers doing basic NFTs elsewhere

To me, a proposal that very clearly outlines how we are:

  • Communicating clearly what is available in terms of tech stack;
  • Supports onboard technical and non-technical people to their respective pathways;
  • Generates networking and collaboration opportunities;
  • Generatos a ton of new builders and experimental users;
  • Attract the attention of people in other ecosystems and elevates NEAR position and brand

would be well worth it. As long as the cost structure is reasonable and within our funding limits, I do not have any issues with rewarding the right time that puts in the effort.

Note - the above is just one example in one vertical. We also discussed other potential themes for other months such as: Decentralisation Beyond Limits (BOS).

Next Steps

As we are going back to the drawing board to rethink a new proposal, I’ll be closing this one. Looking forward to collaborating wit the team - and with anyone else reading this and feeling inspired - to make these proposals a reality.

@Ola @IgbozeIsrael @Bakaka

3 Likes
20

@satojandro Good to see your very detailed feedback on your call with @Monish016, And @Monish016 we do appreciate your patience and the time you took to get on the call to shed more light…

Looking forward to the new proposal you would be submitting

Lastly… Kindly feel free to reachout if you need any help as we strive to grow the Near Ecosystem community

4 Likes