Hello hello everybody. Thanks for being here today. I'm Zandra
I'm the community lead for charm verse and I'll be your host for the next hour
If you're not familiar with charm verse
We are trusted by optimism Cartesi game 7 and mantle and it's a web 3 community
For members to build relationships work together and vote you can manage members coordinate tasks facilitate structured
Discussions and decisions and hold each other accountable. So if you're looking for a web 3 hub for your community
Please check out charm verse but not until after after this discussion today because I'm really excited to be introducing you to
Cartesi grants program and Helen who's here to tell us all about it. We might be joined by a couple other members
In a little bit, but Helen, how are you? Nice to be chatting with you?
Hello, how are you doing? I'm doing well. How are you?
I'm good. Thanks for having me. I feel like you and I've been talking a lot, you know aging and I'd say
Happy to finally be here with you to touch more about our grants program. Absolutely. I'm really excited to share it with people
Web 3 grants are such a great way for people to get their
Projects off the ground or to help sustain these projects without really needing to go the VC route
And we're seeing a lot of web 3 grants projects out there. So listeners. Thanks for joining
If you do have a question along the way, please raise your hand. We're happy to
Answer any questions you do have but thanks so much for joining us and I hope you learn along the way
Helen it's been a pleasure working with you over the last however long it's been to get this project up and running and launched on
Trumbers. We're so excited to have you using trumbers for the
Application process the evaluation process all of that. So let's dive into it
So Helen first, I'm always curious how people land in the crypto web 3 world
So, how did you end up in this world?
Yeah, that's a fun question
For me I got into crypto space through trading
Which I feel like a lot of people do where you get introduced into
Trading you buy Bitcoin or heat and then you realize that
There is this world that exists where there is internet money and then you get interested to learning more about internet money
So that was the case for me a friend of mine introduced me into crypto and then I got very curious
I wanted to learn more about you know
What is the period what is bitch going and what what is you know, all these cryptocurrencies and blockchain about?
Saturday coaching more about blockchain and then I came across a video of Vitalik
he was talking about funding the common and
Got me so interested. So at that time, I think it was around 2020 or 2021. I
There was a lot of stuff around people talking about those a speech of work
so I joined each claim and you know started listening in and
Learning more about what is public good. How do we fund, you know public goods and open source software and then
You know well in that rabbit hole. I
made this really good friend who
Gifted me an ENS name and told me hey, this is your web tree identity. You can use it for
Then, you know, I got into ENS now where I contributed for like a year
Building and also as a doubt contributor, you know
It's touching a lot about what is public goods for ENS and how do we fund public goods?
And yeah, that's how I got into that easy and you know, that's how that's why we are here now
You fell down that rabbit hole like so many of us do you dip a toe and then here you are
Helping to launch a grants program, which is incredible
So I see someone's requested to speak
I'm gonna get into it a little bit with Helen start talking about this grants program the mission behind Cartesi
And then we will take questions in a little bit, but I want to dive into it
before we start bringing people up, so
What is the mission behind curtizi grants?
Yeah, our mission is actually very simple number one. We want to support
developers and projects and talents that are launching
Noble applications on Cartesi and are contributing towards the growth of the ecosystem
We want to attract exceptional community members who can you know become long-term contributors in the ecosystem and who?
Align with our mission. So yeah, that's essentially our mission of the grants program
Is this your first round?
Cartesi grants program we started with a pilot program which is what led to with one of our program
So yeah, I would say this is with one
But we initially started with experimenting with how can we fund?
Project in the ecosystem how does that look like and our pilot program really shaped?
with one program that we currently have
So did a little experimentation, but this is kind of like your first official
Grants launch is that safe to say yeah, okay amazing. Yeah, and when did this launch happen?
How long has the current program been up and running?
Yeah, we launched. I think
Generally that yet, so I'd say we are pretty much two weeks in into their process
Amazing. How are you feeling about everything so far? I mean, are you breathing a little easier now?
I know it's so much to get these programs launched and to prepare and it could be super stressful
Connecting we are doing great because some parts is very helpful
In terms of receiving applications and helping with reviewing and yeah, we haven't really had any
Issues so far with the application process or grantees having any issues. So I'd say
Yeah, amazing. We love to hear that. We love to hear that but you know, like I said, I know, you know working with you
Behind the scenes on stuff how much work you and your team put into this
So I'm glad to hear you're happy with how it's all going so far. What is your role?
Yeah, my role is a grant steward
Doing all the fun stuff around, you know grants and funding projects and you know
Leading the grants program and you know streamlining the process
And so are you part of the grants council as well because I know you have a grants council that will be evaluating
So you're part of the council
Is that pretty much the sole purpose of the grants council?
Is it to mostly do the evaluations of the applications or do they have other purposes?
We also see it is a governance experiment
Continue decentralizing the program and getting community more involved. So
grants council is in charge of reviewing proposals and helping applicants shape their proposals, but
Essentially the goal for what gets funded is decided by their community through our community vote
Will ultimately decide who's getting the grants?
Yeah, and who how do you how do you become a grant council member?
Does the community vote people in will it change on the next wave? How does that work?
Yeah, so yeah since grants program started as a pilot and then you know launching with one at the moment the grants
technical reviewers who are from the core team
But our plan is to get the grants program to scale and get to a point where we can have
community members applying to join in as reviewers and you know
Being part of the grants program and getting get it get getting voted in by the community as well to become you know
Technical reviewers or in charge of running the program essentially that is our long-term plan
Yeah, so it'll get switched up throughout the different waves who's a part of it, but
Again, courtesy is just kind of getting up and running with their official grants program
So you learn along the way and what works and what doesn't and iron out the details as you go
So, okay. So listeners we're talking with Kat Helen who's a grant steward of the Cartesi project grants program
They're currently up and running. They're using charm burst to collect applications
So if you are looking for a web 3 grant, definitely check them out
you're gonna want to go to at Cartesi project or
Cartesi o is their website and you can find your way to the grants program and we're just talking all about how it works
So Helen as we talked about this application process
Walk us through what people can expect, you know, the application process itself, but then also the evaluations and how that works
the evaluation process or
You know also we pay application process, you know goes through three stages
So once we receive the applications on campus
The grants cancer will do a preliminary review to filter applications and you know understand more about
The proposal and then within seven days of receiving the application the grants cancer will provide
feedback on the applicant and they can either schedule a call or follow up with questions based on the proposal and
then the applicant is expected to refine the proposal based on that feedback and then
After the proposal has been refined
The grants cancer will discuss the refined proposal through our weekly things and then
you know, the grants cancer will conduct an internal vote to
determine whether that certain proposal can be
the community for a wider approval and then if that is the case if the internal vote passes then the grants cancer will
provide a report or a summary to the community about
particular project and how they they reviewed that proposal and then
Community can use that to essentially vote on the project and decide whether to get funded or not
Amazing and I do want to dive in and a little bit to how you're using charm burst and some of the features that you are
employing to go through this evaluation process, but first I want to
So you said you do offer guidance throughout this
You're gonna offer feedback and help people who who need a little help, you know
if this is their first time submitting a grant they have access to
A team of people that are gonna help guide them through the process or give feedback on their application
Yeah, essentially the grants comes is always available to provide feedback
Applicants or anyone can book a call literally with the grants cancel and then you know
You can have exactly that one-on-one to discuss your proposal or your project idea and then we can help you shape your proposal
So yeah, so listeners if you're interested in applying to this
It's just good to know because you'll you'll go through an application process
There's a lot of information that you'll be asked to fill out
But you know, don't hesitate to publish that proposal and and get that feedback, right?
You have a team of people that know what they're looking for that are there to help you that are there to offer
Definitely take advantage of that if you are applying to this program
So what kind of tracks do we have happening? What kind of tracks can people expect to see?
We are allocating 500 key to four different categories of funding and
Essentially the baseline criteria for all these categories is we are looking for projects that you know
well-utilized that is the technology in a meaningful way
And maybe just to talk a bit about each category
The first category is gaming for this category. We are looking for
we are looking to promote development of games that are leveraging courtesy and
especially any infrastructure or tooling that simplifies game developed development on courtesy and
Yeah, we are very huge on supporting public goods and open source software, so
The tools and frameworks that you know are built
We expect them to be public goods and you know tools that can be reused by developers
And then the second category is developer tooling and for this category. We want to support
tools that improve the developer experience on courtesy
Any frameworks also that make it easy to build
applications on category, you know highly encouraged
and also we want to support any analytics or monitoring tools as well and
The bad category is research and integration
Had we have two tracks and the first track is we want to support
research and proof of concept of integration
So if you want to do any integration on courtesy
We encourage first to apply for an initial grant that
showcases how the integration will look like and then after that you can apply for an additional grant to skill
The integration and then the second track for research integration
Any research any any applications around research and development?
Any interesting research or anything in the web space
We believe that the B is a very fast evolving space and we want to attract any projects or teams that
You know interesting research on courtesy and also specifically we want to research
around consensus mechanisms
Risk five and yeah, any also any any research also around the cut is a machine as well
Something that we are interested in and then the final category is new ideas and
Decentralized applications for this particular category. We wanted to at least have one category that is for open applications
so if you are applying for a grant and your project doesn't fit on ATAR gaming or
developing all research and integrations
Definitely these categories for you. So
Therefore category new ideas and depth it's for open applications
But we are also interested to see projects that want to build solutions that address
Topics around consensus mechanisms and if these defy
On this category as well. So overall
We interpreted these categories very broadly and you know
If you have any projects and you want to build on courtesy, please feel free to submit your application
or also, you know, send me a DM as well. I'm always looking to start with people and I
Know that space is recorded. But also if you want to learn more about each category
You can learn more on our landing page on campus or so
Yeah, definitely go check it out
Like Helen said there's there's kind of a wide variety of things that you can be building for this grant
So I definitely encourage you to check it out
Are you seeing I mean is is it kind of spread out?
Is it kind of even what people are applying to or are you seeing a focus on a certain category?
Not on specific category. I think we've seen applications on research
applications or dev tooling as well and new ideas and also someone gaming so
Yeah, it's distributed. I like that's great
So do you so you said you have five hundred thousand dollars that you in total that you will be giving away
In grants for this wave. Are you breaking that? I'm just curious. I'm always curious how different grants programs operate
so are you kind of allotting a certain amount to each category or
Are you kind of like whatever the top projects that are voted on? That's it
Yeah, we allocated 500k into
We distributed into the four categories for the new ideas and tabs. We were located
150k for research and integrations. We were allocated 100k for developer tooling 100k and gaming
150k. Yeah, and is there like a maximum number of projects that you plan to fund? Is it like one from each category?
Honestly, no, we are just looking at the kind of applications that we are getting and sort of using that to see how it evolves
But at the moment because we also just launched we are not really
Limiting the number of applications that we're expecting to receive on this category. All right, so it's currently open
Also listeners if you do have questions as we're talking through this, please raise your hand
I will be happy to bring you up to ask questions or if you're in the process maybe and you have a question
We have Helen here one of the grant stewards. So I'm sure she would be able to answer those questions for you
When so you've been up and running for two weeks. When is the application deadline? How long is this?
program going to be running for
Yeah, we've one is running for four months and we are getting applications on a rolling basis
So we don't have a deadline yet for
When the deadline after four months, it's I think that is something that we'll communicate
Toward the end of four months at the moment. Yeah, we are we are getting applications on a narrow link basis. So
Feel free to submit your application
Yeah, amazing. So people have time to kind of get in there and submit their applications ask their questions
You have time to kind of review stuff as you go, I assume
Let's see you launched on charm verse and
I just want to talk about some of the features you're using but I guess first I'm curious
What made you choose charm verse as your platform to launch to launch this program?
Yeah, first of all, am I a huge fan of stem bus but
our pilot program we were hosting it on the on our governance forum and
one of the things that we quickly realized was it was getting it was becoming a challenge for
community and also the court team and applicants to track their proposals to understand what stages
their proposals were in and
we wanted to make sure that this process can be easy and
You know applicants can understand where the where their proposals are at
So that was one of the things that we really are just dumb ass
You know, you guys help a lot with
Communications as all like any what any proposal once it's submitted you get notified
Grantee as well or the applicant if our committee member grants council leaves a comment on their proposal
They can get notified us. Also, you guys have a very robust
notification system, which is also something that we were looking for and
another thing I would say is
Because for with one we wanted to have different charts for
That would definitely be a challenge if we were doing that on our governance forum
Unlike with we tell us where we can create and manage different applications templates for each category
So that was also something that we really wanted to have
And yeah, another thing I would say is
campus really provides a good workspace for our grants council to
Manage applications and also tasks as well during the review process
Well, that was a great plug, thank you
No, we're so happy to have Cartesi running on on charm verse and like I said Helen
I've been working with you. You're an absolute pleasure
And I've just found myself really enjoying setting these grants programs up
And they're all just such for such great causes and great people running them
So listeners just to break down some of the features that Helen was mentioning
proposal tracking so they were able to create
Templates for each of their funding categories with each of the questions in a form field
Makes it very easy and organized to fill out you're able to require some information. You can keep some information private
So if they want to collect a wallet address or an email they can keep that private
So only the author of that proposal and the admin of the space or the grants council are actually able to view that so they can
Keep things private that don't need to be shared with the rest of the community
Because Cartesi also is allowing the proposals to be viewed by the other applicants in the space
And not all grants programs do this, but I think it's really great because people learn from other grant
Is that one of the the reasons behind why you chose to keep the those public?
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's great
I think especially if you're a first-time applicant to a grants program
It's kind of nice to be able to look at someone else's application and make sure you're doing it
Right, or am I giving enough information or you know, am I?
Describing my project well enough. So I think that's a great idea to keep those things public
Yeah, I was going to say that it also helps you maybe to have a look at other proposals and see how you can shape your
So yeah, and also maybe provide feedback if you're a community member and maybe you found one proposal that is really interesting to you
We are always welcoming the community to provide feedback to the applicants or the grantees
Yeah, I think that's a great thing too is to have the peer feedback available
So if I can click into someone's application and I notice something or had a suggestion about something they're working on
You can make a comment right on there to that author or for the rest of the community to see
And yeah, I think it can be really helpful to have that support from your peers
Another thing that we mentioned was the workflow
You publish your application and it is in an initial review that the grants council can start to rate
But they were able to build out a custom workflow that best suited the Cartisi grants program
So, you know having a preliminary review and then a final review and then as Helen said
Ultimately, it will be a community vote on the top projects that will receive grants
so all of those were able to be set up but if you wanted to have a feedback stage or a spam filter stage or
Whatever works for your community. You can set that workflow up for you
So that's actually a fairly new feature that we implemented right before Cartisi launched
So really exciting to have it in action and working for you guys
And another thing as part of that workflow is a rubric evaluation
so it's a scoring matrix that they can score in
Both review processes the grants council can go in there and score
I believe your scoring matrix is probably one through five on all this different
Criteria that they choose to set and then they can rate each project accordingly
They can give feedback to the applicants the applicants can make changes if they need to
Improve their applications and then move on to the next phase
So a lot of new features that we've released that are just so exciting to see in action
Helen are you I don't believe so but you're not using the milestones feature on this round. Are you attaching my students to proposals?
Yeah, we are not using that at the moment, but probably it is something that we might consider
We've won based on you know
Their workflow and the tasks that grants cancel will need to manage and I think it is a very good feature
Managing and tracking proposals and milestones. Yeah, I mean, that's what you're saying being able to manage proposals and do the evaluations and
The potential to pay out milestones or track milestones and then pay out for them all in one platform
Which is something that you don't find very often
So Helen as usual if you do choose that you want to attach milestones to proposals, of course
Let me know and I'm always happy to help
And another feature that we just launched that I just sent Helen a video about recently was credentials
So now grants programs can actually and web 3 communities can issue credentials for
Applicants of a grant program for just submitting a proposal just
Participating in the grant program so that could be one credential that could be issued and then a second credential or
You don't even need to do that one. You could just do the one if a proposal is accepted so you could essentially
Set send a credential to someone if they became a grantee of Cartesi
So just kind of neat a new feature that we just launched. Like I said, I just sent this to Helen the other day. So
What kind of neat for these grant programs or communities and we're gonna continue to add these credentials to charm verse
Because we want to encourage people to contribute and we want people to be able to almost build out a resume of their
Contributions and what they're doing in web 3 so all very exciting things happening over here
Supporting Cartesi in this awesome grants program. So, okay
So what were some challenges because grants programs, like I said, it's a it's a lot of effort to get up and running
What are some of the challenges you came across maybe for our listeners that are thinking about doing this?
What are some challenges you came across while launching this program and just getting it up and running?
Honestly, I would say this maybe probably will sound like a cliche, but we haven't really had any challenges at all. Again,
Tempest has been very very helpful
Throughout the process before launching after launching
So yeah, we haven't really had any challenges so far since launching two weeks ago, I would say
Congratulations. I love that. Um, I feel like that's not common. So let's keep rolling with that
I'm gonna knock on wood right now because that's fantastic to hear
So, what about advice could you give advice?
First let's start with advice for maybe writing a winning grant proposal. Do you have some tips for people that might be applying?
Number one, it's really milestones like and you ensure that
When you are submitting your proposal
You have really outlined your milestones and how that looks like during your development journey for that particular project
That's one thing that grants cancel really look at during
And also approved the proposal has to really demonstrate
Understanding of the technology and how you are going to use
Cartesi during your development process
Also, what is the aim of your project? What is the scope?
And I think another thing that you also really look at is tangible use case of a brief technology
I would say it's like the main ones is demonstrating understanding of
Cartesi technology how you are going to use Cartesi and really clearly outlining the milestones for your project
All right friends if you're applying you just got some hot tips from one of the grant council members
Make sure you take that into account
Like I said, there's a lot of information to fill out but you have time to do it
So don't rush it if you have questions reach out to the grants council
Look at other people's applications. See what they're doing. That's part of the reason they're keeping these proposals open for members to see
But take your time because this could be the project that helps you sustain a bit longer with your project or get it up and running
How about for people that want to
What about advice for them and maybe something that you learned along the way that maybe you wish you had known
Yeah, I would say something that
Would advise like when launching a grants program, which we also, you know realize
during before we launched wave one during our pilot program is
Really understanding what are the short-term and long-term needs for the ecosystem
And your community and aligning those needs with your grants program
To essentially ensure that you are finding impact impact projects that are solving needs for your community
I think that is the most important thing
In my opinion when launching a grants program you have to understand what are the needs for your community and then aligning those needs
With your grants program so that you can ensure that your community can keep building and you can keep funding
Projects that are having high impact to your ecosystem and yeah, you know the project as a whole
That's great advice. Definitely take that into account now
Why so I feel like when I first got into this space, it was a lot of talk about venture capital
Why go web 3 grants over venture capital if you needed to make a pitch that this was the way to go to get started
Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of venture captures
Honestly, our goal is to grow the number of contributors
meaningfully contributing in in our ecosystem and
You know the number of people as well that are building open source software usable tools for the community
And I feel like grants align well with that mission
We already have we already feel a lot happening with VCs and in web 2. So what why should we?
replicate that as well, so
But yeah, essentially the goal for Katesi
We want to grow the number of you know folks and for business building in the ecosystem and we want folks to build
You know open source software that can be used by other developers that are coming into our ecosystem and grants
Looks like a good way to do this
Absolutely. Like I said, I think grants grants programs have become so big in this space
And I just I think it's it's wonderful for for people that are, you know getting started in building these amazing tools
Congratulations on the launch and I wish you all the best of the luck for the coming months and going through applications
I'm sure we will be in touch. But what did I miss? What do people need to know about this grants program?
Yeah, I feel like we've touched on
Everything about the grants program maybe to reiterate we are allocating 500k to
Four different categories of funding if it's gaming developer tooling
different regressions and new ideas and
decentralized applications and
We are looking for, you know, any
backstage filters and talents or projects that want to contribute meaningfully into the Katesi ecosystem and
Yeah, please feel free to submit your application. My DMS are also open. I
recently having so much fun
Meeting new people talking to them and just seeing what kind of projects and ideas that people are looking to build
So yeah, feel free to shift me at the end myself
Listeners Katesi grants program up and running currently
$500,000 that they will be giving away this wave
Be sure to follow at Katesi project. They are on the space right now. So click that PFP
Make sure you click on Helen's PFP as well. Give her a follow and go to Katesi.io
You can get all of the information about the Katesi project
About the grants program and be directed to the charmverse space to go start working on your application. Why would you pass it up?
Amazing funding categories a wide array of things that you can be building for this to help
Continue to build out the Katesi ecosystem
Helen so exciting. It's so nice to have you on here today. I
Yeah, I love what you guys are doing
I'm really excited to be working with you on it and we're honored to have you running on charmers
Yeah, thank you, um, it's also been on who are now working with you as well and you know charmverse team and
You know helping us get the program running and you know
we get to find projects and folks who are building the ecosystem and
Yeah, really happy and grateful for
Yeah, charmverse paneling with us and helping us throughout the process as well
Well, we're always here. We are so happy to help
I'm really excited to follow along on the journey and find out who the grant winners are and
Yeah, listeners don't slack go apply for a Katesi grant go start building go start filling out your application
But thank you to everyone for being here today for checking it out if you are applying
I wish you the best of luck and
Helen we will certainly be in touch along the way and don't hesitate to reach out with any questions
and yeah, best of luck to Cartesi and
Kudos to you guys for just putting together an amazing project
Yeah, thank you, I appreciate it wonderful. Thanks for having me. Um, yeah, it's really fun
maybe we'll have to have you back once you wrap everything up and we can kind of do a recap of what's going on or
Next wave stuff and and keep the conversation going but I I'm excited to follow along and hear everything that's happening
So thanks again for being here Helen. I know it's late where you are. So go get some rest and listeners
Thanks for being here and we'll see you next time. Bye everybody