Sankore 2.0 October Guild Report

Sankore 2.0 October Guild Report

Month: October

Guild Name: Sankore 2.0

Our progress so far and insights we’ve gained.

The monthly report for October includes the following seven sections:

  1. October’s Highlights
  2. Dapp Use Case: Principal Payment
  3. Partnerships: Open Forest Protocol Partnership
  4. Blog Posts
  5. Social Media & Analytics
  6. Website analytics:
  7. Review of the October Roadmap from September’s Guild Report
  8. Next Month’s Roadmap.

1. October’s Highlights

  • Presented Sankore 2.0 at NEARCon Lisbon: doc
  • Presented Sankore 2.0 ’s initiative on #open-web-sandbox AMA: video
  • Showcased Sankore 2.0 at NEAR Guilds Demo Day: video
  • Set up our Youtube channel: link
  • Set up our Instagram channel: link
  • Finalised the Sankore Brandbook
  • Onboarded a social media manager through Sandbox
  • Kicked off our social media management collaboration with #flying-rhino-guild
  • Onboarded team to help build our new website through Sandbox
  • Partnered with @4NTS Youtube Show, the Rise and Grind to host Sub-show on Working in crypto.
  • Posted a blog interview with Kevin Imani, leader of Sankore: link
  • Created an outline for Sankore’s launch event in Nairobi (the event will take place in December): doc
  • Wrote an outline for a Decentralised Event Hosting and Ticket Distribution Network we want to build on Near
  • Collaborated with @damboy22 from the NPK Guild and NEAR Philippines (We’ve begun to learn from each other, share best practices, and identify other collaboration opportunities)

2. Dapp Use Case: Principal Payment

This project seeks to develop a secure, efficient, and reliable payments and contracting system for models and agents in an industry that largely offers short-term contracts and includes high fees. You can read more about the potential NEAR has in this industry in Principle Payment working Lite Paper here: doc

Conducted meetings with

3. Partnership: Open Forest Protocol (OFP)

  • Researched how OFP’s Nairobi Office will craft its story with local stakeholders. This was done with the project operation manager and social media manager and subsequently began to plan to visit the East African NGOs and forest managers we’re in touch with beginning January: doc
  • Asked five contacts to become validators.
  • Presented the plan for OFP to NEAR|Con Lisbon 2021
  • Made a verbal agreement with two companies to become validators. (Validators’ contracts will be sent to both of them by Rado)
  • Kevin and the project operation manager conducted a call with ReforestAction to introduce Project Operators’ opportunities in OFP
  • Current partner NGOs: 28: excel
  • Emailed 11 projects to onboard them as OFP founding members: excel

4. Blog Posts

5. Social Media Management and Analytics

  • Twitter: 283 followers (current)

  • Telegram chat: 56 members (+26%)
  • 116 more open views on our introduction post published on nearguild.com

6. Website analytics:

7. Review of the October Roadmap from September’s Guild Report

  • (DONE) Publish content on NFTs i.e. introducing the creator economy: link
  • (DONE) Discuss with mint base and DAO records to evaluate the possibility of introducing African artists and developers on the NEAR-based NFT platforms
  • Designing partnerships for NEAR’s first Africa-focused the NFT platforms for Afreative and a Ticket Distribution network with Mookh
  • (DONE) NEAR Conference (documenting the entire journey through our new YouTube Channel)
  • Although we didn’t have time to film, we’re publishing a recap post soon, targeted at our community in Africa
  • (DONE) Construct a partnership content roadmap with the Kenya Wallstreet Journal and BitcoinKe: preliminary doc → Materialised in the Kenyan crypto tour
  • (In progress) Collaborate with Afroeative and the Portable Health Record team to bring their projects to the NEAR Protocol
  • (In progress) Have two devs start the NEAR Certified Instructor training
  • (DONE) Start drafting the narrative (storyline) of Principal Payment.

8. Sankore 2.0’s key tasks for November

  • Create content strategy for Instagram & Youtube
  • Work on new website
  • Work on weekly content in collaboration with Flying Rhino
  • Create forms to funnel new leads during the Kenya Crypto Tour
  • For at least one (in-house) dev to complete the NEAR Certified Instructor training
  • Onboard two interns
  • Build a team to work on the Decentralised Event Hosting and Ticket Distribution Network
  • Finalise the litepaper for the Decentralised Event Hosting and Ticket Distribution Network
  • Explore funding opportunities for Decentralised Event Hosting and Ticket Distribution Network
  • Continue to foster cross-guild collaboration with Near Philippines and NPK Guild Nigeria.

Thanks,
Sankore TEAM

5 Likes

Good morning,

Presented Sankore 2.0 at NEARCon Lisbon: doc The link in not available

2.What king of work Flying Rhino Guild doing for your gulid and how much is it ? Why did you hire
another one guild if you’re “social media” guild too?

Thank You

Dear @Grace please pay your attention here.

Hey man! Sankore is not a social media guild, you can read more about them here.

I actually think it’s awesome seeing Guilds interoperate, that’s what they’re there for :muscle: To support one another and, ultimately, projects and initiatives built on and around NEAR.

Hi Dacha, Thank you for your comments. I’ve made the Slide Deck of my presentation at the NEARCon Lisbon available in PDF on the same link. Let me know if you find trouble accessing it, but I believe it should be fine.

2 Likes

Actually, they are promote Near protocol in Africa . Promotion, marketing- common things. But anyway, why they hired another one agency for social media activities if have marketing officer and content creator? I don’t think it’s a good idea spend extra Near money for middleman’s agencies. I disagree with that.

Dear @Mazi , how much your guild pays to them? May be someone gave you advice work with Flying Rhino?
Thank You

Ps: anyone can anonymously send me information about it in pm.

Dear all, I wanted to take this opportunity to clarify for the entire community how Sankore 2.0 has been operating in its partnership with other guilds, specifically regarding its marketing. Sankore 2.0 has only one objective: to onboard projects from the continent of Africa into the NEAR protocol. To achieve this, we’ve pursued various strategies to raise awareness of the NEAR ecosystem. Marketing is an integral part of our activities, and we’re continuously seeking ways to move more effectively. All of us in the Guild are also deeply and passionately committed to NEAR’s ecosystem values, including transparency. That commitment has been questioned by some comments, and we’re always happy for constructive feedback (we foster a growth mindset); and we commit to an open conversation when genuine issues are raised. We also commit to pursuing pragmatic solutions when and if shortcomings are observed. In this case, we believe that we have been transparent - but I would like to address specifically the points raised by @Dacha .

So, to clarify, the partnership Sankore 2.0 Guild has with The Flying Rhino Guild consists of two basic parts:

  1. Weekly posting schedules for Twitter and LinkedIn, which look like this
  2. Graphic design (e.g. promotional banners) for our posts, as you can find on our Twitter: example

Our CMO, Magnus Dikese, was hired partly because of his expertise in doing business in Kenya and his ability to effectively communicate to our audience, reflecting our vision within Sankore 2.0. As Magnus was still working full-time as a freelancer, we onboarded him for 570 USD/month for an average of 10 hours per week as an independent contractor.

Magnus manages Sankore 2.0’s marketing strategy. He provided Flying Rhino guidelines and incorporated the local vision and mission of Sankore 2.0. Flying Rhino Guild crafted our weekly posting schedule based on Magnus’ instructions and our weekly activities. Magnus, as CMO, would then post these banners and designs along with other photos, comments and replies that make up our normal social media presence in collaboration with OWS contributors.

‘Marketing’ is a broad term – certainly broad enough to encompass many specialist roles. We probably assumed our audience was familiar with the Flying Rhino Guild’s work and the expertise it lends to other guilds besides ours, but we regret the confusion caused in this thread. Flying Rhino has played an auxiliary role in our marketing mix alongside our part-time CMO and doing so has meant we achieve a bigger impact from a given funding level. (Someone great at social media and the local market won’t necessarily be as quick to make a graphic design as someone who specialised in it.) Moreover, since both the job and responsibilities of Magnus and Flying Rhino are different, there is no double pay - the two parties perform different Marketing-related jobs. I always receive a detailed monthly report from all of the people on the team to make sure of this. Our archive of monthly reports is available for the community to review, and you’ll notice separate lines and separate explanations for our CMO and for Flying Rhinos.

People following our regular posts will be aware that later this month, Magnus will move to a new contract, becoming the head of Sankore Solution, and he will progressively relinquish his marketing role. Flying Rhino with the help of OWS will share the CMO’s previous responsibilities between them because both do an incredible job in their existing areas already! If you’d like more details on the new arrangement, reach out to me personally.

Our Content Creator Arianna Marchetti was contracted for the same weekly hours and at the same rate as Magnus and has been writing blog articles and providing blog content plans related to NTFs for Sankore 2.0. Arianna’s work for us ended last month for her own personal reasons. For that reason, we’re looking for someone to continue her fantastic work for the ecosystem.

I hope this clarifies our staffing arrangements and I would encourage you to reach out to me personally if you have more questions, as there are always limitations on communicating via comment sections. I’m happy to answer any questions by either DM or email.

2 Likes

Ok, thank You very much for explanation.