PEP-31 Scholarship Fund

Attributes

  • Author(s): @Olshansky

  • Recipient(s): Students, learners, speakers or educators in the Pocket community

  • Category: Imbursement

  • Fulfills: N/A

  • Related Installments: N/A

  • Asking Amount: 10,000 POKT / month

Summary

As the Pocket community grows, there is an opportunity to support different community members to further education, disseminate knowledge, and financially support those involved in the Pocket ecosystem.

This proposal asks the DAO to allocate funds that are periodically sent over to the Foundation, which will accumulate and can be released on an as-needed basis per the discretion of the Foundation.

Abstract

Various projects and initiatives are looking to further education in the crypto ecosystem [1,2,3] via DAOs or other means. Grants have also been commonplace to enable community members to build projects at Pocker and elsewhere [4].

Large projects with sizable grants require a proposal and decision to be made on a per-project basis. Still, there is an opportunity to support smaller initiatives without the overhead of a DAO vote every time.

[1] https://academiadao-manifest.studio.site

[2] https://www.developerdao.com

[3] Scholarships – Blockchain Research Lab

[4] https://www.blockchaingrants.org

Motivation

Pocket’s first conference (infracon.org) is taking place next week at the time of writing. It will have attendees and speakers from different locations, companies and backgrounds.

Some speakers and attendees can comfortably afford the travel and accommodations personally, others have them reimbursed by the parties they represent, but it may not be universally true.

Compensating things such as travel accommodations for specific speakers will create a significant overhead if it requires a DAO proposal every time, given the size of the scholarship/grant.

The expected ROI from supporting students & educators is intangible but can have meaningful dividends (technical, cultural, etc.) down the road. I believe that as long the budget is reasonable, it is worth the risk and investment.

Needs Being Met

N/A

Budget

The initial request is to allocate 10,000 POKT that will be transferred from the DAO reserves to the Foundation on a monthly cadence. These will accumulate and be deployed at the Foundation’s discretion as needed.

Rationale

Given the volatility of POKT’s price, it is hard to justify an exact amount and frequency, so the budget outlined above is just an initial proposal and should remain flexible.

A smaller periodic allocation or a lower frequency will also be reasonable and could be amended as market conditions change. I’m curious to hear what other community members think.

An alternative consideration could be to use POKT’s 30-day moving average and allocate a USD sum (e.g. $2,500) equivalent in POKT every month.

Dissenting Opinions

  1. Discretion of funds allocation to Foundation - “Micro-grants” or “micro-scholarships” will not have a significant financial impact on the Pocket ecosysten, making it okay to bypass a DAO vote every time.
  2. Budget - As the price POKT falls and rises, a POKT denominated allocation could potentially become insufficient or overly large. Therefore, a USD equivalent using a 30-day moving average given some pricing Oracle is a practical alternative that accounts for market turbulence.

Deliverable(s)

A document or featured web page could be used to track eachi micro-grant allocated from the scholarship fund to keep track and showcase how these funds are managed.

Contributor(s)

This idea was generated through offline conversations with certain community members including @JaureguiA.

As a first recipient of a micro-grant from the Scholarship fund, I would propose Tyler Kell (@relyt29) from Cornell Tech who will be speaking an Infracon 2022, on The Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts (IC3).

Copyright

Copyright and related rights waived via CC0.

5 Likes

I support this proposal.

Low cost for large returns, imo. Let’s invest into bright minds.

I support this proposal and would be interested in seeing a breakdown / impacts of this proposal if passed after 6 - 12 months to observe the impacts and determine if we should be investing more or less

Just reading this now, I strongly support this proposal, and I would increase the monthly stipend to something more significant like 20-30k a month.

I strongly support this proposal.

1 Like

In case you missed it in Discord, this proposal is up for voting Snapshot

Fully support this proposal.

i support this proposal

I support this proposal. But feel the asking amount is too low as it is denominated in POKT. Can we have clarity on what the amount will be in USD?

Happy to support the proposal as such for 10k, but expecting more clarity on what is a realistic amount after some iterations with the current ask of 10k

This proposal has been approved with 27 yes votes and 1 no vote. Snapshot

2 Likes

Hi all, I want to introduce you to @LawJammed

He has been supported by @Olshansky and myself to complete some research under the PEP39 Scholarship program. He is research ingThe Mobilisation of Decentralised Groups: Governance and Community Organisation in DAOs as part of his MSc in Entrepreneurship and Innovation from Edinburgh University, and will progress his research by focusing on POKT DAO.

You can find out more about his background here and give into the detail of the planned research here. We are hopeful this will reinvigorate the scholarship program and begin to strengthen our profile and our links with the academic and research communities.

There’s also a rumour he’s the smartest and best looking sibling in his family but who can say.

Many thanks and welcome @LawJammed

5 Likes

Thanks @b3n , hi everyone. I’m excited to start sharing this research with the community. If anyone has any questions or thoughts on the document, please reach out. I’ll be following up with updates as B3n mentioned and am keen to connect with as many people in the ecosystem as possible.

I also cannot confirm or deny any rumours you might have heard here…

5 Likes

Welcome to the Network @LawJammed!

I was really impressed by the breadth of ideas and the succinct clarity of your proposal. I’m glad we can help support your research and excited to follow along :slight_smile:

3 Likes

Thanks, Olshansky. Your feedback on the doc was incredibly helpful and I’ll definitely be pestering you for an interview during the research!

3 Likes

Nice research plan, it will be a really interesting read!

2 Likes