Stacks residency grant application - BTC Excellence Center

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Type:       Direct Application

Email: bella@academicnftconference.com

Discord:    BellaIrons#3623

Twitter:    @Bella_Irons

Stacks Forum:   BellaIrons

CV: https://academicnftconference.com/conference-founder

GRANT GOAL:   Create the Stacks Residency Program standards, and the supportive infrastructures that will further STX adoption, innovation, development, and investment from external agents/agencies that help expand a User-Owned Internet.

Grant Audience:    Developers 

Specific Audience:   Stacks community and founders, STEM Deans, Division chairs, or Professors, DeSci community, non-STEM Institutions or divisions, and organizations, government, or non-profit industries

GRANT MISSION:       This Stacks Residency grant will establish a standardized program, and the planning, collaboration, or implementation of supporting infrastructures, to innovate beyond competition and ensure the success of a *user-based internet through cross-industry support, opportunity, investment, and development. 

This grant’s mission is to increase a broader adoption of Stacks, as well as have a meaningful impact on the Stacks community, which could include (but is not limited to)...

Broader Adoption: Bridging outside ecosystems like Institutes, government, investment, and nonprofit industries can have significant impact to STX adoption by utilizing current models and systems within these agencies as catalysts for collaboration. Implementing supportive soft soft systems such as marketing, PR, and communications can continually provide collaborative models with these agencies for substantial adoption internationally.  

Meaningful Impact: This grant could not only extend the Stacks ecosystem’s expertise to the government, investment, academic, and nonprofit industries, which expands reach by over *100m, but this grant could significantly impact Stacks *diversity, equity, and inclusivity (DE&I) through outside agency collaborations, and support initiatives as well as communications and engagement with the general public. 

Expanding a User-Owned Internet: A standardized Residency Program and the supporting infrastructure (such as an Excellence Center) will allow the Stacks ecosystem to have a place, and a dedicated position, where their expertise can be compiled, archived, standardized, and communicated for greater adoption within outside engagement - community captures more value when their willingness to participate increases (Case Study). Bridging greater adoption of a user-owned internet by integrating traditional soft system models in business, institution, government, or non-profit agencies, within the Stacks community and advancing diversity, and innovation through significant reach within collaborations, support, and investments.

A supportive infrastructure could include (but is not limited to) the following...

• Establishing an Excellence Center (EC) to coordinate the Stacks ecosystems through communicating expertise, best practices, careers, education, training, or outreach initiatives through traditional soft systems such as marketing, PR, communications, database and/or platform administration, awards, grants, research, or sponsorships.
• Establish Expansion hubs with academic, government, or nonprofit agencies that aid in developing Stacks projects through initiatives, collaborations, and sponsorships.
• Bring innovation to institutions like Aca-thons (academic hackathons), and non-STEM integrated curriculums, to develop and implement Stacks wishlists, or projects.
• Drive a greater diversity of adoption and development by engaging the public through targeted models of marketing, PR, communications, and events. 
• Glossary & Terminology - growing academic resources such as graduate projects translating the Blockchain Super Glossary that I'm a core contributor of as well as the other open-source documentation (DeSci wiki) that our conference continually sources.

Support Links:    The Stacks Launchpad and Community Governance contain the ideas and funding of previous research, projects, events, and education, along with the Discussions wishlists, which helped draft this grant application.

GRANT IMPACT:  The Stacks Residency can have a long-term impact on founders, and the community by implementing soft systems with cross-industry standardization in marketing, PR, research, academic, research, and community investment. Some of which could be…

• Establishment of the Stacks Residency Program - through standards, milestones, review processes, and calls for papers/proposals (CFPs) - that expands support through initiatives such as (but not limited to):
  • campus career projects through student initiatives with Stacks projects such as MiamiCoins (https://www.mdc.edu/bitcenter/bit-workshops/)
  • form collaborations with DE&I initiatives with student projects
  • establishing Stacks education(s) in state-based career centers or secondary college certificate programs with BIT (https://www.mdc.edu/bitcenter/bit-workshops/) 
  • new wallet connections with extracurricular gaming/investment initiatives
  • regular community exposure and engagement through PR, and events
  • expanding databases for community support, promotions and engagement

• Launch of an Excellence Center (CoE) to regularly-engage ecosystem expertise through (but not limited to):
  • publications, research, and proposal collaborations with non-STEM programs to grow overall campus adoption
  • pairing StackerDAO Labs as a student-led activity collaborator
  • welcoming BTC investors and social organizations through youth projects in collaboration with CityPacks, Foundation For New Education Initiatives and Miami-Dade County Public School - Division of Academics - STEAM
  • Residency Program research CFPs (call for papers/proposals) that will encourage continued publication and collaboration with institutions, government, and nonprofits
  • Implementation of Stacks-funded projects to build cohesion and engagement with all those in the ecosystem
  • Educational outreach with workshops, and initiatives for campus groups such as MIT's Bitcoin club (http://bitcoin.mit.edu/) and student initiatives like the Summer of Bitcoin (https://www.summerofbitcoin.org/)
  • create channels for regular BTC investment and funding through community programs, sponsorships, initiatives, and awards
  • community growth through alliances, and communication of Stacks expertise, resources, and news or events
  • Stacks community proposals implemented through EC infrastructures

• Innovating competitor outreach in areas such as (but not limited to):
  • non-STEM divisions with Aca-thons (academic hackathons)
  • non-STEM-driven collaborative projects that provide full campus opportunities within various fields
  • bridged web2 & web3 industry initiatives

Grant Risks:    There are known (and unknown) risks with the grant, which could include:

• Increased competition within institutions, or systems by established blockchains such as:
  • Algorand's Centres of Excellence programes
  • Cardano's work with the University of Zurich's Blockchain Center and the Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies (BDLT) Group

• The establishment of new pedagogical practices, procedures, outreach, and implementation could incur additional resources such as:
  • regular Stacks community reviews for standardization consensus
  • establishing/collecting multiple internal systems for a centralized space (Excellence Center) that a Residency’s rotating participants would engage with, such as databases, websites, procedures, communication, and outreach

• An unsecured Residency could prohibit the program's success by:
  • creating stagnant reception or decreased involvement
  • no traction without a standard operating process for business, investment, and academic institutions to get involved or collaborate
  • unclear communications throughout the ecosystem can cause undo chaos
  • Retention or application atrophy
  • inconsistent grant applications and applicants

Overcoming challenges: The Resident’s standards could be made responsible for regular engagement with the Stacks community to help…

• Establish a regular review scheduled with the Stacks community and teams to incorporate feedback on guideline/standardized development for community & cross-industry support
• Collaboration with the Academic Web3 community to build sustainable campus-wide & research (DeSci) networks for driving innovation to Stacks programs, or Clarity adoption
• Incorporate soft-systems design and management into Residency through supportive infrastructures to regularly integrate ongoing Stacks proposals and funded-projects

GRANT ROADMAP & DELIVERABLES

MILESTONE 1 (March 2023)

Tasks:

• Consolidation mapping of current infrastructures, databases, responsibilities
• Residency guidelines drafted for community and foundation review
• Create/integrate soft systems for marketing, PR, and communications

Deliverable:    Stacks Residency Program guidelines in review, soft systems plan drafted, additional options added by the community 

MILESTONE 2 (June 2023)

Tasks:

• Establish the identity of the Stacks Residency Program through PR, and outreach
• The Stacks Excellence Center review process started within the community
• Draft the soft-system tech plan to support an Excellence Center
• Develop the Stacks Wish List items & funded projects with collaborative agencies

Deliverable:    Stacks Residency Program guidelines established, an Excellence Center review process started with community, Excellence Center tech plan drafted, First Residency Milestone Report submitted to the community (along with new standards for reporting), additional options added by the community 

MILESTONE 3 (October 2023)

Tasks:

• Tech platforms being integrated/built for Excellence Center communications, campaigns, research, and community needs to outside agencies
• The 2023/2024 Excellence Center calendar is drafted and communications started for networking, speaking education, or collaborative opportunities
• PR & Marketing calendar established for Stacks ecosystem announcements (or alternative regular communications model)
• 2024 Stacks Resident Program Applications open 
• Draft 2023 State-of-Stacks Public Report for community review

Deliverable:  Stacks Excellence Center launched, 2024 Excellence Center Calendar and Resident Applications opened to the public, Second Residency Milestone Report submitted to the community, additional options added by the community 

MILESTONE 4 (December 2023)

Tasks:

• 2024 Resident Applications review/approval
• The 2024 Excellence Center Calendar and CFPs announced/opened
• EOY Resident Report to the community
• EOY State-of-Stacks Excellence Center Report publicly released

Deliverable:  2024 Excellence Center calendar & CFP’s open, 2024 Residency Program member(s) announced, 2023 EOY State-of-Stacks Excellence Center Report publicly released 

REFERENCES:

*Blockster: nearly half the world's population could be using Web3 by 2030 (https://blockster.com/how-far-along-are-we-with-web3-adoption/)

* US Consensus: The October 2020 Current Population Survey found 73.2 million total students enrolled in school (https://www.census.gov/topics/education/school-enrollment.html)

* Statista: In 2021, around 18.28 million people were working for state and local governments in the United States (https://www.statista.com/statistics/204535/number-of-governmental-employees-in-the-us/)

* Zippia: There are over 1.5 million nonprofit organizations in the United States and around 10 million nonprofits worldwide (https://www.zippia.com/advice/nonprofit-statistics/)

* Fast Company: Only a staggering 19% of people who own digital currency identify as women (https://www.fastcompany.com/90782728/web3-needs-women-to-survive-heres-how-to-make-it-happen)

* Tech Crunch: 16% of NFT artists are women, and they have only received 5% of the multibillion-dollar industry’s turnover (https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/18/unlocking-inclusion-for-women-of-color-in-web3/)



CASE STUDIES:
Zheng, Yujie & Boh, Wai. (2021). Value Drivers of Blockchain Technology: A Case Study of Blockchain-Enabled Online Community. Telematics and Informatics.