# B4H & DeepWork Studio - Celo Grant Application

### Describe your company/project
Company: B4H is a not-for-profit foundation driven by early blockchain adopters to help catalyze the incubation of scalable enterprises that leverage emerging technologies for the benefit of emerging markets and under-served communities.

b4H operates on the premise that innovative technologies are not by themselves sufficient to transform the development landscape in emerging markets. They need to be sustained by innovative business models that are rooted in the social context of disadvantaged but vibrant communities. The NGO is committed to construct a world and society that is more transparent, fair and inclusive.

Project: Prosperity Coins or Taylor-made Community Inclusive Currencies (CICs). Grassroots Economics (grassecong.org) has been working on open-source solutions for community currencies in Kenya, solving the main and common problem communities have when using their own currency: dependence on money accepted beyond the community trust boundaries (as community currencies are generally accepted only within the community). CICs are novel mechanisms using Bancor's smart-contracts for providing pools of liquidity to these communities so the smart contracts can act as a proxy between the Community Economy and the broader National Economy. See https://www.grassrootseconomics.org/post/economies-into-ecosystems

### Tell us about your team
Gustavo Segovia - Socio-Economic & Community R&D
MBA and Telecommunications Engineer. Systems thinker and Product designer. Wide experience in Project and Community management. Ecosystems Developer & Decentralized Governance facilitator. Social Currency Analyst.

Grace Torrellas - Director & Co-founder
Early Blockchain Adopter, Industrial and Information Systems engineer with an Executive MBA from Switzerland’s top Technical school, EPFL. A Community Driven Development Activist and Certified Project Manager with a strong background in Digital Transformation. Recognised amongst the top 100 Digital Shapers in Switzerland.

Vojtěch Šimetka - SW Engineer & Technologist
Software developer, product owner for RIF Storage & Communications, core contributor of Blockchain for Humanity and Giveth initiatives, CERN alumni.

For this project we are teaming up with Deep Work, a design studio helping teams ship award winning products in no-time. They've developed the fastest way to innovate in history through a remote first, versatile and stress-free process, Hypersprints, a methodology that has evolved by working with the worlds biggest companies, such as Google and Udacity, on digital products, in-person services, physical products, educational products, marketing campaigns, web3 interfaces and much more.
https://deepwork.studio/

### What is your proposal?
#### How would you like to contribute to our mission of building an open monetary system that creates conditions of prosperity for all?

Among hundreds of Social Impact projects under b4H’s radar, Grassroot Economics’ CIC solution has been identified as a Game Changer for economically depressed communities. Moreover, it has proved to be a safeguard to economies impacted by COVID-19 https://www.grassrootseconomics.org/post/covid-19-cic-response-500x

In our role as members of the Celo Alliance for Prosperity, B4H is offering to lead the performance of an UX/UI Research & Design Hyper-sprint proposing adding new features to the Celo-App looking to integrate it with liquidity pools powered by the Bancor Protocol to allow Communities issue and deploy their own CICs, using the CeloDollar as collateral (or even any other currency within the Celo Ecosystem).

In our proposal we aim to deliver:
**User Research**
users interviews within the selected target market
- Define the User’s context and day to day challenges.
- Assess how the current solution meets the User’s needs.
- Community resource mapping.
- Identify Community Business Opportunities.
- Identify Users familiarity with community credits and marketplaces.
- Identify adoption challenges and opportunities about CIC implementation in the community.

**Collaboration Sessions**
Three Days of Workshops to align the product designers and development teams.
- We'll prioritize the user experience problem info defined goals.
- Research and create new solutions.
- Merge them into a cohesive storyboard.

**Prototype and User Testing**
- Deep Work will design a high-fidelity prototype to validate the sprint goals.
- Gather product feedback from user testing.

**Iteration Hypersprint**
- Two Deep Work designers will collaborate with the team to iterate on the prototype.
- Based on the Hypersprint and User Test outcomes it will focus on further improving the UX or UI design.
- Ready to be implemented by a development team to rapidly build a solution.

**Social Impact Case**
Community Inclusion Currencies demand necessary and well deserved support from different actors and stakeholders that will allow these emergent economies to be reframed and maintain their sustainability over time. Presenting and lobbying the solution to decision makers.
- Cultural, Social and Political Implications analysis according to the selected market.
- Cost Structure
- Market research and Product Market-Fit strategy
- Business Social Development Strategy for Communities.
- Legal and Compliance analysis.
- Implementation Plan.
- Fundraising Plan.

### What level of investment is required to achieve this?
$34,000

### What are the milestones to track progress?
#### Progress will be tracked as described before, although here are more specified milestones:

- Week 0: At the end of User Research, we'll have gathered Insights Cards and Defined war User Stories.
- Week 1: At the end of the collaboration sessions we'll have merged the teams problem-solutions into a cohesive storyboard (like wireframes) ready to prototype.
- Week 2: Deep Work will have produced a high-fidelity prototype to be tested.
- Week 3: After user testing, Deep Work will product a report on the Hypersprint. Proving or disproving the teams hypotheses and detailing clear next steps.
- Week 4: Deep Work delivers final designs ready for a development team to implement.
- Week 5: B4H delivers the Social Impact Case strategy to start a Fundraising Campaign.

Note: we assume a minimal and low effort collaboration with Celo Product owners/managers. The times above might contract or expand depending on Celo's teams availability.

### How do you plan to measure success?
**Success Criteria One - Team Alignment**

During the collaboration sessions we'll make the most important decisions in no-time, with contributions from the designers, managers and engineers. We'll align on a common goal and set scientific hypotheses and sprint questions that we need to answer.

**Sucess Criteria Two - User Feedback**

After prototyping, we'll gather feedback from five users to prove or disprove the hypotheses and sprint questions. By testing with multiple users we get qualitative data with clear trends to design the right product before spending resources on implementing.

**Success Criteria Three - Product Development Time**

The cost of learning from Hypersprints is exponentially lower than a build, launch, feedback and recorrect loop seen in traditional software development. We'll measure how quickly the development team releases the product by having a human centred design that has been market tested.

**Success Criteria Four - Social Impact Development and Fundraising**
This model should prove that collaborative, convivial, and community-based approach are the basis to financing new community enterprises. Our work here shall lay the foundation for enabling all kind of organized communities to be able to deploy their own social credit systems.