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>FX: Project management, getting funds from universities from framework program etc…

chris: Interesting, but what is the project, what are the specs, how do we go about it.

>FX: Well I think bcdiploma is not wired for this kind of business. Told them already but they believe money will come somehow… To speak frankly

chris: We had a few discussions with them and they are not flexible in relation to adapting and they want to support many blockchains as far as I understand.

>FX: Basically all french universities start to know about bcdiploma and ark education and extending to Europe. So if we can professionally handle this we could have a good group of EU universities onboarding.

chris: This sounds good and nice, but what is the project about. We CANT just go running ARK or BCDiploma networks, as specifications are not yet set. There is the BCDiploma plugin we developed, but that is just one case, and I think if we go a different route, this is a whole new project, that needs to start from 0, being:

- defining expectations
- defining purpose of ARK Education Network
- defining steps and specifications of the plugin and what we will store
- define processes and combine Universities under this
- define transaction types - I think we can do much better as one certified_data field from BCDiploma

But all these things take time and budget and planning. It is a strong case and interesting case, but knowing how Universities operate, we would have to prepare a detailed project, specs, description and apply somewhere to get funds? Or am I wrong?

Remember EduCTX, had a couple of meetings with Unis and participants on this, but then I moved to ARK and they moved to ETH :( Would love to make this running in the best possible way, just don’t have all the answers yet…

>Matt: How do we do it without offending BC Diploma or being complete assholes?

chris: I dunno it is true they are not responsive, but we don’t know why and what is their motivation. Maybe having ARK chain is just a side-bonus for them, besides running it all on the ETH already.

> Matt: What differentiation do we make between what BCDiploma does and what ARK Education does?

> FX: So offering support to integrate into their IT system is the starting point. Bcdiploma is layer2 over arkeducation, yes it is.

chris: But we would turn out so shity with just setting the network up and giving them one certificate_data field to store?? And this is not production-ready, who will handle the updates, the development, etc… every time we change something we need to redeploy, upgrade the network. The only option I can think of is us running the whole development chain, otherwise, this will not work, and getting it to production. we could do it in phases, steps (re: project specs)

We still don’t have project specs for ARK Education, we followed BCDiploma requirements. I know you want to get it running, but by just pushing it out and giving them some tools to run the network, WILL do us more harm than good. For ARK Education we should take a step back and define with Renater and Lielle, what do they really want. Implement internal PoC… running the chain should be the last step in the process.

Maybe I don’t have all the information, but first, we need to set expectations, and before that think about BCDiploma, as they are our PBA, and we shouldn't take their business over or harm them in any way…

> Matthew DC: I think we have the ARK Education network and have shown a potential use case, so if there are people who want to take it further or there is potential there, we should investigate it.
19:47
Who does it or what kind of services we can offer around it can be up for discussion but we shouldn’t write it off

chris: I agree, we need to keep the opportunity and communication, just before going full-on node/network launch, a lot of other things need to be taken care of.

>Matt: The question is where is the opportunity, what service can we offer, and what kind of support staff will that require

>Fix: Ok the main point is where the money comes from (edited). For EU universities this is public money. So there are several framework programs for that. However, functionaries are bad at making projects for those fundings. Most of the time, those are private companies partnering with universities moving on those programs. I don’t see bcdiploma wired to do that. So we could take the lead on this, identify the right programs and go for it, get the money and move on with ark education

OK, now I see how this aligns with my first topic. So you want to define a consortium with them and apply for funds on the EU and local perspectives. This, however, is feasible and makes sense, but well you already did EU projects and you know the first half-year will be politics and administrative work but would get us a lot of visibility for ARK and in the ESBI landscape. I see the big importance of that, but as said, this is then a new project, a new start from 0, with the consortium applyig to:

- European framework called EBSI (European blockchain s? Infrastructure) they got 4million Euros funds in 2019. Unknown yet in 2020
- bpi program (co-financing a PhD and a company)
- innovation program for France universities

My questions would be:
- What are the project/grant deadlines?
- What are the requirements? scope/goal etc…
- Who will handle the project office / University probably? That would make it easier on the administrative part with EU paperwork

So we would be a partner in the project/ we get allocated funds/ this would also give you/us the freedom to plan for some jobs dedicated to the project then. But who would apply, you would need to be an SME so (4H7 or AE) in this case - where we have nothing on paper or incorporated yet :(

I think we should get on a CALL to address this more efficiently, and get all the information in place. I know we all want to move forward with use-cases on ARK. If Renater or Lielle would lead the project proposal, this would be doable, but we need all the stuff written above, and you need a dedicated person just to handle the paper work from start and coordination meetings and than we wait for project approval (also didnt check if this is different with ESBI for 2020), and then we can talk about network launch and expansion, actually defining and launching the network would be ESBI goal. We could implement that, just aligned and with common specs, so we don't have a wild wild west out there.