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## 🔥 Ocean Academy 'Sea Fire' Grant Proposal R7

Infrastructure to keep Ocean Academy fresh & up to date

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Key Project Data
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### Name of project

Sea Fire 🔥

### Website

[https://oceanacademy.io/](https://oceanacademy.io) 

### Proposal Wallet Address

0x5cFDBd9150596b790AAe28e003EFfac9f29081F9

### The proposal in one sentence

Project Sea Fire is Ocean Academy's move from a pure community initiative to a professional venture.
It entails an organizational transformation as well as maintenance and updates to Ocean Academy content in order to keep it factually accurate, in-line with the latest developments of Ocean Protocol and the wider Web3 ecosystem (e.g. MATIC integration, Ocean Protocol updates & improvements, Ethereum testnet migration, ...etc.).

### Project Category

⌧ Outreach & growth

⌧ Unleash data



Project Overview
----------------

### Background

Ocean Academy has been designed with goal to lower the intellectual barriers required to grasp Ocean Protocol’s mental models and technology.

Many people, including data owners, developers and data scientists, are
not familiar with blockchain and smart contracts yet. Web3 solutions are
foreign to both developers and the general public, hence we aim to reach
the broadest audience possible rather than solely catering to Web3
natives.

Ocean 101 was launched on October 27, 2020. From that point, oceanacademy.io has been visited by 42'126 unique visitors (3.5x higher than objective set in March this year), 5'000 individuals have received their certificate (vs. original target of 500), and over 500K people have been reached by Ocean Academy communication on various channels (vs. original target of 100K).

Numerous improvements have been made to maintain and enhance Ocean 101, including a certification handed as an NFT, as well as several UI/UX fixes. The process to onboard Ocean Ambassadors was revamped and better integrated with Ocean Academy.

Ocean Data DeFi was launched on February 9, 2021, and has gained tremendous traction from farmers of all kinds.

The next module is scheduled for Q3 2021 and will focus on "Compute-to-Data", one of the key piece of infrastructure that is unique to Ocean Protocol, and that has an incredible potential among Data owners/ potential sellers.

Ocean Academy has been a community initiative from the start, and so far it has been only developed and maintained by Ocean Ambassadors, mostly in their free time. This model should evolve and professionalize in order to keep up with the pace of innovation in the Ocean Protocol ecosystem. For instance, the group should be able extend contributors to external partners in the form of mandates, grants and other contractual relationships. It should also be able to hire talented contributors, which is made possible by creating inspiring content and apps, by
enhancing the engagement and size of the core community, and by integrating paid work in various forms.

There are two positions that the group has started promoting, and some others that the group will need to get sooner or later:
- Technical / content writer
- Product Owner
- Front-end / Full stack developer
- Blockchain developer

With this, Ocean Academy will have all it takes to educate people about Ocean Protocol and its broader impact, and push the message out of the Web3 boundaries to generate healthy growth.

### Problem & Opportunity

Many Web3 projects view their target market as ‘crypto-natives’ and fail
to reach the broader market they aim to serve. Ocean Protocol is no
different; we estimate that \>95% of its future user base is not
familiar with Web3. The community will have to deploy tremendous efforts
to gain traction and adoption by existing data owners and AI scientists.

Network effects can start with the Web3 community, and they must be
designed to serve the wider market to compete in a space at the
intersection of data, AI and blockchain that is becoming increasingly
competitive. The higher the initial growth in active participants, the
better.

This is where an education platform fills the gap.

### Our Mission
Our vision is accelerate adoption and growth for Ocean Protocol through education.

We build Ocean Academy as a platform for outreach, onboarding and skill-building for Ocean Protocol. Namely, it serves the following purposes:

-   Support the Ocean Protocol ecosystem
-   Onboard selected communities to Ocean Protocol
-   Further the outreach of Ocean Protocol
-   Increase overall understanding and expertise in Ocean Protocol
-   Stir ecosystem engagement

Ocean Academy is a central piece for onboarding users, builders, ambassadors, and all other community members with Ocean Protocol through:

-   Integrative experience for new Supporters and Ambassadors of Ocean
    Protocol
-   Increased collaboration between all people who have a certificate
    willing to contribute
-   Promoting best-practices throughout the Ocean Community

Project Sea Fire is giving the project the means to these ends. Incentives are an important part of contributions and motivations, and a grant will provide the organization with the necessary financial independence to conduct its mandate with the required agility and speed.

Project details
---------------

Project Sea Fire provides Ocean Academy with the means to step-change the work on important operational and maintenance aspects.

Key aspects are summarized here:

1.  Content refresh of Ocean 101
2.  Content refresh of Data DeFi module
3.  UI/UX fixes and improvements based on feedback received (feedback survey underway)
4. Creation of legal entity, extended governance, and path to a DAO


#### 4. Deliverables

-   Updated Ocean 101 module
-   Updated Data DeFi module
-   Improved UI/UX with C2D module integration
-   A comprehensive structure and organizational vision


#### 5. Funding requested

Amount: 32.000 OCEAN

Previously funded by OceanDAO Grant: Yes (R1, R2, R3)

Treasury: 16,921.69 OCEAN
Treasury funds are committed to rewards for previously committed deliveries.

#### 6. KPI Targets

-   By end 2021

    -   Unique visits to Ocean Academy: 100’000
    -   New Ocean 101 certificates issued: 500 
    -   High conversions rates (enrollment, completion as current)
    -   Expected short term ROI:
          - For the sake of simplicity, we use the ROI of Ocean Academy grant proposal in R1 (ROI = 3'297 with 10K OCEAN grant), and adjust it for funding
          - Funding obtained prior to R7 (R1, R2, R3): 33K OCEAN
          - Funding requested in R7: 32K OCEAN
          - Adjusted ROI: 3'297 * 10/65 = 507

-   Ongoing
    -   Significant growth of Ocean Protocol Ambassadors
    -   Significant growth of Ocean Protocol Community:
        1.  Data buyers & sellers
        2.  Data curators
        3.  Project supporters
        4.  Key partners & influencers (e.g. members of WEF, Gaia-X, German Association for the Digital Economy (BVDW), ...etc.)

This is expected to keep significantly impact the growth of Ocean Protocol.
Each new ambassador, user, curator, token holder and supporter has the
potential to spread the word and extend the outreach of the network
further.

Given our program targets users of Ocean Protocol, we believe this will help kickstart network effects, resulting in major growth and adoption of the ecosystem.

Team
----

Ocean Academy will be built by a distributed team scattered across all continents, with a diverse set of experience and expertise. Talent in the team is considerable, and each member is actively contributing with her/his own skills, all of which blend into our secret sauce.

Processes have been put in place to enable agile development at scale
while ensuring maximum quality in deliverables.

### Meet the Crew

-   Gherardo Lattanzi. AI & Crypto. Barcelona, Spain ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/lattagher))
-   Albert Peci. Full-stack Developer, Berlin, Germany ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/albert-peci-65932413b))
-   Laurent Rochat. Analytics & Insights, Geneva, Switzerland ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurentrochat))
-   Kai Meinke, Product Owner, Kiel, Germany ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaimeinke))
-   Sarah Kay. Junior Developer, Designer, Melbourne, Australia ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-kay-921781197))
-   Ludovic Grandclement. Technical Project Manager, Hong Kong ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ludovicgrandclement/))
-   Jeannine Meyer. IT & Marketing Manager, Hamburg, Germany ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeannine-meyer-424ba7201))
-   Frederic Schwill. Security & Privacy Engineer, Freiburg, Germany ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/frederic-schwill))
-   Robin Lehmann. AI Program Manager, Lindau, Germany ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinlehmann))
-   Noelle E. Siri. Media & Education, Lugano, Switzerland ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/noellesiri))
-   Noé Giglio. IT Security & Blockchain, France ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/noe-giglio))
-   Sidra Tariq. Blockchain Developer, Pakistan ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/syeda-sidra-tariq))


### Our Values

Content Quality. Content should be easy to understand, always correct and updated accordingly.

Inclusiveness. We provide public chats and documentation to onboard new contributors and welcome everyone who wants to improve their skills while helping a real-world project.

User experience. We understand that an engaging experience helps to better grasp abstract and new concepts. We are not just another written
tutorial but an interactive learning platform.

Transparency. All our groups, code and planning are public and open source.

### Work Processes

Our objective is to be inclusive and to keep growing the team involved
in Ocean Academy. We want our project to reflect the values of Ocean
Protocol with respect to inclusiveness and openness, and welcome every
new contributor.

The revamp of Ocean Academy organization to expand the team to 12 contributors has been successful, and has permitted the delivery of many new modules and features.

Those processes have entail:
-   A committee responsible for output quality
-   A governance & collaboration framework
-   Regular meetings
-   Usage of agile project management tools

We will now formalize this organization further in legal terms. This enables Ocean Academy to be treated like an organization (and not a loose collective) in front of third parties, including contributors and hires, and behave as one.

The vision to develop an Ocean Academy DAO, which will capture all the great developments that the OceanDAO and teams within the Ocean Protocol ecosystem are delivering in the governance space.

### Supporting Tools

1.  Communication
    - Bi-weekly agile reviews
    - Telegram + Discord Chat
2.  Collaboration
    - GitHub (DEV)
    - Trello (Task management)
    - Doodle (Meeting scheduler)
    - Google Hangout (Meetings)
3.  App software stack

Deliverables Roadmap
--------------------
Q3/July 2021
- Legal structure
- Formalized strategic vision

Q3/August 2021
- Ocean Academy refresh/maintenance

Future plans
------------

Q3/Q4 2021

- Hiring (internship, part or full time):
    - Technical / content writer
    - Product Owner
    - Front-end / Full stack developer
- C2D Advanced module 
- Reward / referral mechanism (tbc)
- New outreach activities/campaign (tbc)
- Research & develop Ocean Academy DAO
- Collaboration with other communities for cross-community educational programs


Why this proposal makes sense
-----------------------------

Project Sea Fire represents an important step in the long term operations of Ocean Academy to support its mission to drive adoption for Ocean Protocol.

The project provides a more flexible, compliant, and anti-fragile structure for the long term development and maintenance of Ocean Academy.

Finally, Ocean Academy remains 100% aligned with Ocean Protocol mission & values is to equalize the opportunity for people to access and create value from data, in an ethical, responsible and compliant way. 
